The goats included some old cans of paint and varnish that had hardened into uselessness, along with a bunch of leftover cassette inserts for cassettes that we'll never run more of. The former will wait for a hazardous material recycling day; the latter have gone into the recycling bin.
When that was done, I pulled out the old shelf, laid down carpet tile, then pulled out a second old shelf so I could carpet under all the space that the new shelf would need. Finally, I build two of the new shelves, leaving just two to go in. One of the shelves in the new set was bent and will have to go back to the store, but I had a spare shelf to replace it with, so that wasn't a problem.
And Gretchen managed to consolidate two boxes of old junk down to one box, so she made progress too.
There is light at the end of this tunnel. Somewhere. :)