The Basement Hoard, 2 Years Later

It’s been 2 years since I shared photos of my messy basement and talked about all of my plans. The good news is that some of those plans have worked out. My husband does have his nerd cave set up and often has friends over to play Magic the Gathering and my craft room is set up and staying fairly organized!We have divided the basement space into three separate areas using giant shelves as walls. The far end is the nerd cave, the center area has been stacks of boxes and totes (all my stuff) and the other area is laundry land. This weekend I decided to start working on the center area. We want to set it up to be our paper craft/collage making area. We have an old school paper cutter (the kind you can chop fingers off with), some library card catalog files, file sorting shelves, and a drafting table waiting to be set up.
I made a ton of progress! However it doesn’t look like it (forgot to take a before photo). I labeled some of the piles to give you an idea of what all is down here. Once I get things more situated all of the holiday stuff will be put into a small storage room at the back of the basement. Right now that room is filled with chairs and bags (and bags) of fabric. Baby stuff will be eliminated. A lot of the totes will be emptied, they are full of clothing that needs to be sorted, sold, and donated. Personal memorabilia (photos, cards, and knick knacks) will be relocated to the up-upstairs. I have learned a lot:
1.  I seem to have some sort of obsession with glass jars/bottles and tins of all kinds.
2.  We are not minimalist, we like stuff and we like to display it all on shelves and tacked to the walls.
3.  I have a lot of fabric! (no really, A LOT)
4.  When the zombie apocalypse hits we will have enough supplies to survive (now we need to start stocking up on food).
Once we get this area cleaned up and set up I’ll share more photos.

Welcome to Week 41 and My Messy Kitchen

I really expected to be holding a baby by now, but I guess he’s not quite ready.  I am officially to the point of making no plans for anything, I can’t even plan dinner.  I have a very long list of things that I want to be doing, but I just can’t/don’t want to do them.  I have worked on a few things, knitting and crochet are still do-able, but pretty much everything else is out.  I miss bending.

Okay, enough whining, I still haven’t finished the Mod Podge screen printing of the fabric for my kitchen curtains, but I have been doing a little work in there.  Prepare to see a mess…don’t judge me, I know I have a hoarding/clutter problem and I am working on it.This is my kitchen on a bad day, before the pre dinner clean up.  Yes, I have a huge clutter problem.  One of the main problems of this kitchen is lack of storage, I need more cabinets.  This in the only upper cabinet in the kitchen.  There is a small pantry area in the hall and it is very full. The right side of the kitchen is a lost cause, there are no cabinets or counter space and I am using a bakers rack in an odd position to hold some necessary kitchen stuff and I keep a cutting board on half of my stove to use as a prep area.  Someday we will redo the kitchen, but that is something that isn’t going to happen for a while (think years).So, um yeah, I was a little embarrassed by the clutter so I tidied up a bit and this is what it usually looks like.  Still not great, but less cluttered.  I really need to take those plastic bags to be recycled or make some plarn with them.I decided that I needed some shelves above the sink.  I wanted floating shelves for a nice clean look.  Right now I am ignoring the fact that the walls and ceiling really need to be painted.  I picked these out at the Home Depot and while they look nice they are not sturdy.  I had read the reviews and knew this was an issue, but I thought it was a hardware/installation issue.  I bought special hangers for plaster walls and expected these shelves to be awesome.  Sadly they are not, I’m not sure they are going to stay up (as in they may fall down by themselves in the middle of the night).  I bought three (notice, I even predrilled the holes for the third shelf) and have only put up two, the third may go back, I’m trying to decide if there is a way to make them work.I found some great accessories at Target that are perfect for the kitchen, modern and slightly retro, lots of red with pops of turquoise.  I also have been slowly collecting these nice canisters from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I get them one at a time with a 20% off coupon, they are sooooo nice, but a little pricey.  I wanted to store them on these shelves, but I’m not sure the shelves can hold them.

I think that once I get everything arranged and the new curtains and hand knitted towels out and the pot rack hung (once I find it, it’s in the basement of doom) that it will look nicer.  If anyone has suggestions for the shelves, let me know, I would really like to make them work.  I am also trying to decide how to store my spices without taking up a lot of room, but keeping them handy for use.  I’ll keep updating everyone on baby watch 2010, at this rate I might just wait until May!

Is there a Hoarders Anonymous?

I know that there are TV shows that will come to your house and make you throw away or sell all your stuff, but is there a group program.  I guess I would have to want to get better and I’m not sure I’m there yet, I think I just want to get organized.

I sure it is no surprise to anyone who has noticed that the background in all my photos is always cluttered, but I really have a problem.  I am going to share some shocking photos with you guys today, because I know I’m not the only one with this dirty little secret.  My theory is that being creative requires a little chaos (I’m extra creative, so I need a lot, which translates to: I don’t have time to clean, I’m creating!!! )

Before we bought our new house in May 2009 we lived in a tiny apartment and kept a lot of our stuff in storage.  When we moved in here everything that was in storage got put directly into the basement, semi stacked, but mostly randomly.

Um, yeah, so this is what my basement looks like right now, there is more, but I could only get this much in the picture.  About 60% of this stuff is mine, most of it craft related.  This space is supposed to be for my husband to have his little nerdy man cave, as you can see, he’s getting a lot of use out of it.

This was, (yes was, I’ve been cleaning) the doors to my craft room, it is not that large of a room, but it does have a closet.  I have tidied up a lot and moved the furniture around and hauled up some stuff from the basement and now it looks a little better.

Here is my sewing table and a large wall shelf that is holding all my gallon sized storage containers.  The middle shelf is not tall enough, but I have a lot of other jars and do dads to put there.  I’ve organized my sewing notions and they are all nicely tucked away in the drawers of the sewing cabinet that I got at a yard sale, I still have the old machine that was in it if anyone is interested.  (I have a collection of things that need to be put on a yard sale or donated to charity downstairs also).

This is my crafting table, I found out that the three rolling carts (you can only see two here) fit perfectly under the table if I took the wheels off.  The real question is what to do with the wheels, so I can find them if I need them again.  Most of the drawers are still empty, which means that there is room for me to haul some more stuff out of the basement.  On the left in the corner is the shelf that is going to be my ironing center where I’ll be keeping all the equipment I need for pressing and probably current projects.  The ironing board will be along that left wall, where I can leave it out all the time.

Here is a shot of the closet, it is packed to capacity with shelves, on the very left, not easily seen are the shelves holding my freshly folded and stacked fabrics, there is still a lot of room for more (and I have more waiting in the basement).  The center shelf will hold all of my containers for different crafts, I expect to find the rest of them in the basement also.  The right is a sweater organizer that is totally empty, not quite sure what I’ll put in there, maybe yarn.  Not pictured is a organizer of small drawers mounted on the wall containing all sorts of small bits and bobs.  That mess on the right is a gift bag and wrapping paper organizer that is going to be relocated upstairs.

I am slowly making progress, every box I open needs to be sorted through and organized and then put away, there was no method to the madness when we packed.  I’m starting to get really excited to finish, it’s going to be so nice to have everything put away and easily found.  I’ll share more as I accomplish it and hopefully I can avoid Hoarders Anonymous and avoid anyone calling a TV show to make me clean up.  Please tell me I’m not the only one with a clutter problem.