Buried in stuff

I had a different post planned for today, but I got into something last night, and it's taken over the house. So I thought I'd show you the mess I've created.

Yesterday I thought I would start filling up the shelves in our dining room. How hard could that be, right?

First let me show you the sort-of before pictures of the room. We had already put up test swatches of paint and started fixing cracks:

Now here's the "during" picture. I spent 6 hours (!) trying to put things in the shelves and this is what it looks like this morning:

How am I doing? :)

This shouldn't be this hard, but there are things to consider. Since it's open shelving, it needs to look attractive. But it also needs to be practical since it's primary function is storage, so it needs to contain things we will use regularly. And there's only so much space, so I have to maybe not use some pieces I'd like to, and I'm not good at editing.

I will post "after" pictures if we ever get to the after. I better do something quick though because we have Mark's dad and stepmom staying with us this weekend.