Oh Basement, Where Are You?

Somewhere hidden behind all these bags, boxes and bins is a basement. "Betty's" basement.

She moved into her beautiful home 5 years ago and the basement is where all the extra stuff landed. Many of it is Christmas decorations, long lost clothing and family heirlooms. Betty felt the time had come to sort out the treasures and purge, purge, purge.

First part of the project was to carve out a spot in the boxes to have some room to work. As Betty began to sort through the boxes, I bagged up the donations and sorted out the trash. As you work on a project like this, it is important to move the donations and trash out of the work area as you go. Not only does it create s-p-a-c-e, it also gives you a sense of accomplishment.




There was no shelving on any of the basement walls. Betty had some shelving left over she wanted installed to get some of the items off the floor. (Yeah, a power tool day!)

Before any of the shelving went up, we had to make a run to the local Salvation Army donation site. Two SUV's loaded with very useful items, just not needed by Betty. Once done, we headed back to start installing the shelving. Betty continued to sort and purge, while I started hammerdrilling holes into the walls for the shelves.



There was a group of boxes with family heirlooms that need to be sorted, but they are consolidated in one area. We broke down all the empty boxes and placed them into Betty's car to haul to recycle. Her garage was filled with bags of trashed items ready to be curbed. Along with another truck load of donated items, perhaps this time calling to have them picked up by another charitable agency.

And in the basement, Betty now has a storage area with tons of space. Plenty of room to walk around and begin to think about the plans of turning it into a rec room someday.

Betty did an amazing job getting her basement under control. This was a HUGE task and she conquered it. There is a bit of loose ends to tidy up, but the motivation is there to continue.

When you look at that dreaded area of your home, look at the potential and break the project into small bites so you don't get frustrated. Soon you will find the floor, and you can begin to plan for the future.

What room have you lost control of?