But first, we declutter

Hey all! WHEW – I have been working my tail off on our basement over the past week. It’s been exhausting, liberating and a little disturbing all in one. :)

Every single year in January, I start a massive decrapification of our house. I go room by room, putting all the STUFF I’m not sure about in the basement. And then after I’m done with every. single. room…I start on the basement.

That’s usually around August, just in time for the fall decor bins to start creeping out. And then the holiday mess in the basement begins…mixed in with the rest of the stuff from the house.

It’s a recipe for an absolute disaster. I feel like I’m working on cleaning out the basement constantly, all year long…because I am. Gah. What’s that definition of insanity again?

I finally realized a solution this year – first of all, I need to start with the basement. Then I’ll have a spot for the STUFF from the rest of the house. And if I don’t have a spot, I’ll know it’s gotta go. Which brings me to my next revelation – we have way, way, way too much stuff.

I know, I say that a lot, and I get rid of a lot every month…every year. But as I get older, my tolerance for stuff is getting less and less. I just don’t want anything that’s not meaningful, pretty, or useful in our home. If it’s not one of those things to us, it’s OUTTA HERE.

Buh bye. Don’t let the door hit you in the patoot.

So, with all of that in mind, I started with the basement last week. The befores are not pretty. Prepare yourself.

My craft “room” started like this last week (excuse the poor iPhone pics):

It’s like this half of the year, and did I mention I’m SO OVER IT?

I ask you, who can craft in this?:

 

Holy cats, it’s giving me hives just looking at the pictures. Did I mention I was over. it? This is the very last time I will have to do this – mark my words.

It helps to have thousands of people mark your words. ;)

I’ll give you a little tour of the space first, because I’m just so darn proud of it! First, the wrapping shelves, which were filled before:

I keep a TON of gift bags – so I went through all of them and tossed (or donated) any that weren’t in great shape, or that I just didn’t like. If I wouldn’t have picked it out myself, it was gone.

Why? Because otherwise I knew it would continue to sit there for YEARS (like some of them had). And I was over. it.

I also had so many little random gift boxes – boxes I’ve kept for probably 10 years now. Seriously…OH EM GEE. Will it kill me to get a box from the dollar store if I need one?

Ridiculous. You can’t see in that picture above, but the bottom two shelves are now pretty much empty. It is a glorious thing.

WHOOHOO!!

Next up is my crafty stuff. This area was more reorganizing than purging:

I separated everything into categories -- wood crafts, random crafty stuff, paint, ribbon, contact paper/wallpaper and a big bin at the bottom that holds all holiday crafts.

By the way, do you see that empty spot on the shelf? Gleeeee!

My decorative stuff is next:

This was a HUGE purge – and it wasn’t easy. I had to pry a few things out of my own hands. I held each piece in my hand and asked myself – have I used it lately? Do I love it? How much would it cost to replace? Do I love it?

Do I really, really, I’m-not-even-kidding, this-is-insane, REALLY love it? If not, gone.

(I still think I kept too many candles, but you should have seen what I had before.)

On a quick side note – I’ve used these plastic shelves for years and luuurve em! They hold a ton of weight, it takes about five minutes to put them together, and they’re cheap! I’ve gotten them from both Target and Lowe’s.

I like to install the shelves backwards for decorative stuff, so there’s a little lip at the front edge:

It keeps things from sliding off. :)

I was determined to only use what I had to organize everything, so a lot of the stuff is in random baskets:

Looks like a farmer’s market, eh? ;)

It’s hard for me to part with lamps. They’re not cheap and they’re so easy to redo -- but they take up so much space. I moved them up to the top so they are out of the way:

Next up – the tools (happy sigh):

I’ll tell you right now – I don’t purge tools. :) Tools (usually) aren’t cheap, and if I buy something – I know I’ll use it. It stays.

Back away from the tools peeps!

I keep the major power tools in the garage, but the smaller ones I keep in small bins down here:

 

I’ve had them organized like this for years and it works great (for me!). I can’t do a big toolbox – the organizer in me needs separation and labels. ;)

The last set of shelves is one I’m pretty excited about. First of all, because it’s half empty:

Secondly, because I decided I want a mini-pantry of sorts down there. Not for food, but for entertaining pieces, party supplies, surplus paper products – all that stuff that I don’t have room for upstairs.

LOVE!! :)

(YES, you can see adult diapers sticking out of one bin, and NO they are not for us. :) We use them as piddle pads for pee cat. Long, long, story.)

Many of you have seen my craft table:

The table is really a large, (nasty), metal folding table. I covered the top in fabric and then hot glued a “skirt” around it (with cheap muslin). Talk about a transformation! It’s so dang cute, I can’t even stand it!!

My life is complete with colorful supplies, a picture of my baby Bub, a coaster for my hot chocolate and my silicon hot pad that I rest the hot glue gun on:

:)

I found a spice organizer at Goodwill forever ago and knew it would be perfect for the glitter:

I hung it up on the pole next to my table and it’s just perfect!

My craft room -- purged, organized and with EMPTY space:

I feel about 150 pounds lighter. :)

I like decluttering and it was still a monster. But I’m SO glad I got this done, and in January? I’m ready to tackle the rest of the house!

Maybe next week. ;)

Let’s take a look at the before and after again, shall we? Cause it’s pretty fantastic!!:

It took four days of working down there every free minute. But it was so worth it – I’m just not doing it ever. again. Did I mention that? ;)

Sooo…what are YOU working on? Spill it! It can’t be as bad as my before. Really.

P.S. Anything I don’t want the Bub to get to it placed up on the higher shelves. He doesn’t get into any of my stuff anyway. Yes, he’s that good. :)

P.P.S. I’m taking some of stuff to Goodwill, some to the consignment shop. That’s my standard after-purge protocol.

But first, we declutter

Hey all! WHEW – I have been working my tail off on our basement over the past week. It’s been exhausting, liberating and a little disturbing all in one. :)

Every single year in January, I start a massive decrapification of our house. I go room by room, putting all the STUFF I’m not sure about in the basement. And then after I’m done with every. single. room…I start on the basement.

That’s usually around August, just in time for the fall decor bins to start creeping out. And then the holiday mess in the basement begins…mixed in with the rest of the stuff from the house.

It’s a recipe for an absolute disaster. I feel like I’m working on cleaning out the basement constantly, all year long…because I am. Gah. What’s that definition of insanity again?

I finally realized a solution this year – first of all, I need to start with the basement. Then I’ll have a spot for the STUFF from the rest of the house. And if I don’t have a spot, I’ll know it’s gotta go. Which brings me to my next revelation – we have way, way, way too much stuff.

I know, I say that a lot, and I get rid of a lot every month…every year. But as I get older, my tolerance for stuff is getting less and less. I just don’t want anything that’s not meaningful, pretty, or useful in our home. If it’s not one of those things to us, it’s OUTTA HERE.

Buh bye. Don’t let the door hit you in the patoot.

So, with all of that in mind, I started with the basement last week. The befores are not pretty. Prepare yourself.

My craft “room” started like this last week (excuse the poor iPhone pics):

It’s like this half of the year, and did I mention I’m SO OVER IT?

I ask you, who can craft in this?:

 

Holy cats, it’s giving me hives just looking at the pictures. Did I mention I was over. it? This is the very last time I will have to do this – mark my words.

It helps to have thousands of people mark your words. ;)

I’ll give you a little tour of the space first, because I’m just so darn proud of it! First, the wrapping shelves, which were filled before:

I keep a TON of gift bags – so I went through all of them and tossed (or donated) any that weren’t in great shape, or that I just didn’t like. If I wouldn’t have picked it out myself, it was gone.

Why? Because otherwise I knew it would continue to sit there for YEARS (like some of them had). And I was over. it.

I also had so many little random gift boxes – boxes I’ve kept for probably 10 years now. Seriously…OH EM GEE. Will it kill me to get a box from the dollar store if I need one?

Ridiculous. You can’t see in that picture above, but the bottom two shelves are now pretty much empty. It is a glorious thing.

WHOOHOO!!

Next up is my crafty stuff. This area was more reorganizing than purging:

I separated everything into categories -- wood crafts, random crafty stuff, paint, ribbon, contact paper/wallpaper and a big bin at the bottom that holds all holiday crafts.

By the way, do you see that empty spot on the shelf? Gleeeee!

My decorative stuff is next:

This was a HUGE purge – and it wasn’t easy. I had to pry a few things out of my own hands. I held each piece in my hand and asked myself – have I used it lately? Do I love it? How much would it cost to replace? Do I love it?

Do I really, really, I’m-not-even-kidding, this-is-insane, REALLY love it? If not, gone.

(I still think I kept too many candles, but you should have seen what I had before.)

On a quick side note – I’ve used these plastic shelves for years and luuurve em! They hold a ton of weight, it takes about five minutes to put them together, and they’re cheap! I’ve gotten them from both Target and Lowe’s.

I like to install the shelves backwards for decorative stuff, so there’s a little lip at the front edge:

It keeps things from sliding off. :)

I was determined to only use what I had to organize everything, so a lot of the stuff is in random baskets:

Looks like a farmer’s market, eh? ;)

It’s hard for me to part with lamps. They’re not cheap and they’re so easy to redo -- but they take up so much space. I moved them up to the top so they are out of the way:

Next up – the tools (happy sigh):

I’ll tell you right now – I don’t purge tools. :) Tools (usually) aren’t cheap, and if I buy something – I know I’ll use it. It stays.

Back away from the tools peeps!

I keep the major power tools in the garage, but the smaller ones I keep in small bins down here:

 

I’ve had them organized like this for years and it works great (for me!). I can’t do a big toolbox – the organizer in me needs separation and labels. ;)

The last set of shelves is one I’m pretty excited about. First of all, because it’s half empty:

Secondly, because I decided I want a mini-pantry of sorts down there. Not for food, but for entertaining pieces, party supplies, surplus paper products – all that stuff that I don’t have room for upstairs.

LOVE!! :)

(YES, you can see adult diapers sticking out of one bin, and NO they are not for us. :) We use them as piddle pads for pee cat. Long, long, story.)

Many of you have seen my craft table:

The table is really a large, (nasty), metal folding table. I covered the top in fabric and then hot glued a “skirt” around it (with cheap muslin). Talk about a transformation! It’s so dang cute, I can’t even stand it!!

My life is complete with colorful supplies, a picture of my baby Bub, a coaster for my hot chocolate and my silicon hot pad that I rest the hot glue gun on:

:)

I found a spice organizer at Goodwill forever ago and knew it would be perfect for the glitter:

I hung it up on the pole next to my table and it’s just perfect!

My craft room -- purged, organized and with EMPTY space:

I feel about 150 pounds lighter. :)

I like decluttering and it was still a monster. But I’m SO glad I got this done, and in January? I’m ready to tackle the rest of the house!

Maybe next week. ;)

Let’s take a look at the before and after again, shall we? Cause it’s pretty fantastic!!:

It took four days of working down there every free minute. But it was so worth it – I’m just not doing it ever. again. Did I mention that? ;)

Sooo…what are YOU working on? Spill it! It can’t be as bad as my before. Really.

P.S. Anything I don’t want the Bub to get to it placed up on the higher shelves. He doesn’t get into any of my stuff anyway. Yes, he’s that good. :)

P.P.S. I’m taking some of stuff to Goodwill, some to the consignment shop. That’s my standard after-purge protocol.

The garage decrapification (again)

Awww, you SQUEEZIES. Thanks for your sweet comments this week. :) (If you haven’t seen The Nate Show segment, you can see it below. Ignore the cat.)

So, there’s one thing about blogging – I’m held accountable to finish up certain projects. I finished up one this week that I mentioned about six weeks ago. It would have been so easy to let the little final details slide till…oh…the spring. Or summer. Or next fall, when I’m sure I’ll have to tackle it all over again.

But I told you I’d show you…so I finished up and I’m showing you. I hate being responsible and stuff.

This all started when my Sis (affectionately known as Stink Eye) decided to go and get a new, boring, well paying, professional job instead of being my minion assistant. Whatev.

Before she started her new job, I paid her to help me out with a few spots in our house that were overwhelmingly full of crap. I showed you the completed Sanford and Son deck here, and this week I finished up the garage.

It was bad. BAD. Here you go:

Receipts all over the floor? Check.

Sheet hanging from wall? Check.

Christmas tree stand from eleven months ago? Check.

We are AWESOME.

Here’s the other side:

Chaise lounge waiting to be reupholstered? Check.

Weight machine we haven’t used in five years six months? Check.

No access to my BFF…my SAW…check. (That’s a problem.)

Here’s a closer look:

You can imagine my glee every time I had to get back there to cut something. And my saw sat on this since the day I got it:

It’s about 18 inches off the floor. Talk about comfortable! NOT.

So…the decrapifying started. It was fun. It felt GOOD. I think we took four SUV loads to Goodwill?:

I lost count. There were also three bins full of trash.

When I get to this point, I have zero patience for a garage sale or Craigslist. It has to go NOW. The weight machine was on Craigslist for two weeks for a steal, and no bites. So it, and most of the other stuff we didn’t use or need was GONE baby!

Once we got it cleared out, we took a trip to True Value for some organization goodies:

Ahh…just look at it. Beautiful!

My goal was to get anything and everything possible up and off the floor. If I could hang it, it was going up. We got some holders that worked great!:

And a TON of these:

I use these a lot just because they’re so easy to install and they hold quite a bit:

And we picked up a packet full of different sizes and shapes of these screw in organizers:

 

I hung everything:

Last year, I was trying to avoid spending much on the clean up, so I organized the back wall full of wire shelving as best I could:

But I gotta tell you, it was driving me NUTS. And open shelves meant we would stuff things into them wherever we could. It was a MESS. So this year, I made the investment and got a few storage pieces from Target:

OH MY GOODNESS. So, so, SO worth it. Ack!

I used my dollar store bins and tried to organize things by shelf:

Do you see my spray paint shelf and how it sags in the middle?

:) I’m just happy to have it all in one spot. Giddy, actually.

So here’s the before and after goodness – before, the pit of despair:

And after, with everything off the floor:

If I could hang the lawn mower, I would have. :)

Here’s my little workshop corner before:

And here it is now:

We had a light installed in that spot last year so I can see while using the major power tools. A good idea – I recommend it. ;)

I picked up another storage chest at True Value and it turned out to be a perfect spot for my saw!:

No more kneeling down for every cut!

I have to tell you something – my scrap wood was out of control. I’m not kidding. It was insane. But of everything, it was hardest for me to part with. I swear I was shaking – I love my molding peeps.

Sis would stand in front of me, giving me a pep talk – Do you really need an eight inch piece of wood? Really? Do you really need the wood filled with nails? Really? Do you really need 200 scraps of beadboard? REALLY?

It was hard. I waffled often. I’d put something in the bin to get rid of it, then I’d sneak back, pick it up, think about it, take it out.

Then, when I wasn’t looking, STINK EYE got some red spray paint, went over to the bin and sprayed it all over the beautiful scrap molding I was supposed to be getting rid of.

CURSES! She’s brilliant! I hate her!

No really, I love her, but you know. I hate her and her smarty pants!

I did keep a fair amount and the smaller sections were organized on the wire shelving, the long pieces we placed in an old trash bin:

 

I cleaned up everything as best I could, including wiping down the black door I painted last year:

Don’t use cleaning wipes on a black door. They don’t work so well. :)

A little organization and a whole lotta decrapifying, and we have a garage that’s so much more relaxing:

It makes such a difference when we drive into this clean space every day! As always, the decluttering was FREE! And that is the very best part, in my opinion. :)

Of course, there’s some huge projects we haven’t tackled yet -- someday I’d love to paint the walls, but seriously, I have about 2,949 things I want to do before that. Our plan was to insulate and drywall the exterior walls this year, but we haven’t gotten to it. And I’d LOVE to do a treatment on the floors, but that requires taking everything out of there for days – and that gives me hives just thinking about it. :)

Is there a space you want to tackle before the holidays? I know, time is running out -- but everything we did only took about six hours, over two days. It was SO worth it!

Now, if I can just keep the Christmas tree stand out of there this year! That would be a first.

P.S. No idea why Live Writer is shrinking my text this week. Sorry you’re going to need glasses for this one!

 

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

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