AFTER: now you can actually walk up to the computer corner. Notice the lovely flooring?!
Three rubber totes remain which now house individual projects (photos and frames, children's memorabilia and papers). Now that they are secured in containers, they can remain in one place and be tackled at a future date.
Look at all this space! We moved the desk to the opposite wall and placed a decorative lamp on top. Now it can actually function as a workspace! The drawers are another story, but again, represent individual, managable projects that can be tackled in the future.

"How long did this take" you ask? Two people working steadily for just over two hours.
In the end there was a carload to go to the local thrift store, a car load to go to ReStore (which accepts donations of home renovation supplies) and two boxes of recycling/shredding.