Organizing The Music - After

My music is now nicely organized, but I would not want to have to do that sort of project again.  I purged quite a bit.  I got somewhat stuck on the arrangement of the files. Alphabetical by composer or title?  A little of both?  What categories go in which file box?  I spent more time than I care to admit figuring this out.  I finally came up with the following categories:

• Alphabetical Harp Solos - (loose copier copies from friends' books, etc. collected over the years)
• Harp Collections and Methods - (for example, Daniel Burton's collection of Mozart Arias, and all technique books)
• Piano, Voice, Flute, and Band Music
• Harp Solos, Christmas/Church, Ensemble, and Miscellaneous - (the solos are ones purchased from publisher, alphabetical by composer, Miscellaneous are things such as harp repair, tuning, etc. books, programs from concerts I want to remember, and so forth)

I found that I had multiple copies of loose music, so I purged the extras.  I collected a pile to give to my teacher, and if she doesn't want it, it can also be recycled.  Then the "fun" began. Sorting and sorting.  Being that I have selective OCD tendencies, it was important to me that the files be arranged symmetrically.  I had five major colors of file folders.  Each color needed to be used in the same order, with the tabs fanning out uniformly across the width of the file box.  This took a lot of time, but the result was pleasing:

Everything managed to fit into the four file boxes I had designated for music.  I also condensed two broken down binders into one, containing only music that I would regularly play at church or at a cocktail hour.  The Christmas and Church music will at some point need to be subdivided somehow, but my brain was fried after this. The file boxes were then labeled, and placed on the shelves in the basement:

Paul and I moved the love seat and book shelf to the west wall, and the harp and my harp shelf to the east.  There is one pile containing music I am currently working on, the single white binder containing my "standards", and music that I am interested in working on once Easter is done.  It is so nice to be organized in this way:

Here is the new furniture arrangement, which looks so much better.  To the left of the harp, by the east window, will go my Little Oratory:

I'm so glad to have this done.  I now know where to find almost any piece of music, my harp area and sacred space are clean and organized.  The next step is the creation of the prayer table (to be constructed using vintage pew ends that someone gave Paul years ago, and he never knew quite what to do with).  My hope is to have the oratory by Easter.