Inspiration came come one small space at a time. Once I took the old coats and uniforms out of the closet in the old hall (as contrasted to the new hall that intersects with it that also has a closet. When I moved in I converted the original garage to two rooms, a hall, and four storage or equipment areas and put a new doorway into the front of the house, and built a new garage in the back yard. See Janie's townhouse/condo thread for links to photos). Anyway, that old closet is where I reorganized luggage and shopping bags and found the uniforms and other unused stuff.

The new hall closet around the corner is much like the apartment closet I described--shelves on top with a rod at waist height for short jackets below.

It dawned on me during lunch that I could now fit (consolidate) the stuff from the new hall closet into the old hall closet. And that allowed me to take the upright vacuum that gets stuffed in the old hall closet and set it in the new one. And the two-wheeled shopping cart. And the new little canister vacuum that hasn't been put away anywhere so far. It works out great! I can see the stuff in the new closet (there is also a cot and a telescope and some paint cans I must address pretty soon.) The old closet isn't too crowded now.

It took longer to describe the job than to do it, but the results are wonderful.

SRS