Someone, Please, Hold Me Accountable.

OK, first of all: earlier today, I published my 1,111th post on 1.11.11…is that a crazy coincidence or what???

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Confession: our basement is a disaster. The finished area is ok; the kids can play down there without having to dodge boxes and such, but all of the unfinished areas are a hot mess. There’s no two ways about it. This house has ample storage, but we are not using it to its fullest, and it’s starting to make me crazy. And crazy overwhelmed. So I’m tackling it. Because (whispering) I haven’t really done anything with it since we moved in. NINE months ago.

I took some pictures a couple of weeks ago, and honestly, it’s gotten worse since these pictures were taken. Christmas stuff was taken down, and I didn’t worry about it being put away because I’m not sure yet where its permanent home will be. Also, I am a hoarder of shipping boxes. Why? Because for lots of years I’ve sold stuff on ebay, and there’s nothing more annoying as a seller than having something to ship and nothing to ship it in (plus, I’m cheap, and I don’t want to spend my profit buying boxes). So I keep a good amount of the boxes that get shipped to my house, and they are in disarray and consuming too much space.

I have an ever-growing amount of crafting stuff, and some plans about where to house all of it, but with the general disarray of everything else, I can’t use the little space I have and I certainly can’t even think about bringing in more storage in the form of shelves/boxes/baskets until I get a grip on what’s already here.

I’ve got a donation truck coming by on January 20th to haul away some of our old treasures, so I want to get through a lot of this stuff by then.

GOALS:
1. I have a large garage sale pile and a large donate pile, and I want to keep them in a place where we can easily add to the piles.
2. Make the boxes not be a huge mess.
3. Get the extra housewares stuff put away in the wet bar area (not done yet b/c there are no shelves in the cabinets).
4. Organize craft storage area (probably still won’t have an actual work space, but I’ll deal).
5. Organize holiday/seasonal decorations.
6. Get rid of a bunch of crap treasures.

Without further adieu, I bring you: THE MESS.

main storage area

this could be a good workspace without all of that junk stacked on it.

back corner of the same space – i cut the boys’ hair over here, but there’s room to store stuff below that is going unused.

more. junk. (oh, and my nifty portable closet storage for snow pants/coats/etc)

the boys’ old changing table, which i want to use for craft or wrapping paper storage. the tower of boxes is to the right, under the stairs

the wet bar area, full of more junk.

Ask me about it. Hound me for updates on my progress. I’ve given myself until the end of February (which sounds ridiculous, I know, but with kids who are constantly sick I’ve had less time than I’d like to work on stuff like this, so I’d much rather overachieve than under).

I feel better already, since I started earlier today with some minor organizing and already found a few things that we can easily part with.

Go team! Er, wait. It’s just me. Go me!!