Basement Update

I posted about getting to my basement almost exactly one year ago. Admittedly, some projects take time but there's no excuse for THAT! I am happy to report that I finally organized a little in this space-finally, I had no idea it had been so long. Remember what the back room looked like?

"Work" bench-ugh

Last year, one of my goals was to hang a peg board above the unwork bench.

Ta-Da!

I used paint leftover from the boys' room to jazz it up. I like it better than stark white. I know it's not exactly beautiful in this room, but that little touch of color makes me feel better.

Here's the other wall before:

CHAOS!

One major barrier for me is changing something that has been in the house since we moved in. I don't have a sentimental attachment, it just takes me a long while to realize that something just isn't optimally functional or efficient. Take, for example, that upside down bookshelf hanging on the wall. Actually, I really don't even know WHAT that is. Just another remnant of the incompetent contractor who lived in the house before us. I get the feeling he found a bookshelf at a yard sale (I can't imagine that he built that hideous thing) and slapped it up on the basement wall to "organize" his stuff. Who knows? It's only taken about 14 years of living in the house for me to realize it was not that useful and another 2 years to finally take it down.

Here's what I did yesterday:

Sorry for the grainy photos. 

If you have a beautiful finished basement, I realize you're not inspired or impressed. It is still pretty heinous and blah. But a little organization makes it so much better for me. The embarrassing thing is that it took about 20 minutes to build each shelf (on sale for $30 each) and a total of a couple of hours to purge and organize.

Admittedly, I was held up by Mark's fishing equipment. I needed him to go through it, organize and purge what he doesn't use anymore. Guess what? he still hasn't done that. I just put all of his rods in a giant crock that his mom used to make sauerkraut and the top right shelf holds the other things. Even if he never gets to it, I can live with that. Shame on me for waiting.

I wouldn't mind painting the paneling to brighten things up a tad but this is literally in the recesses of my home. So, that's a project that can wait.