Rubbermaid - Adventures in Organization

Please Help My Mom Get Her Basement Organized!

The last time I went home to Virginia, my mom invited me to join her in the basement.

  She led me to a corner that had a ton of decorative flowerpots, home decor items, and party serving dishes.  Then she said to me,"Take a look if you want anything...I don't need all this stuff. I don't have any more room in the house for it."

Let's back up. In many ways, I am very similar to my mother.  My mom is really organized - see an example of her closet on the right that she and my stepfather designed and built.  They combed through magazines to find the perfect combination, then he built it from scratch in his workshop.  She selected neat organizers that matched from Tuesday morning.  Overall, it is quite impressive.

The Basement Problem

However, while I am a "purger" and like to get rid of anything in my home I don't actively use (except all my art supplies!!), my mom is more of a "keeper".  Her basement has become a collection place for so many items from their combined households when they got married.  The issue is that they don't have room in the house to put the decorations, extra chairs, etc. anymore - see below:

The decor area:

The graveyard of rocking chairs and dining room chairs from combined households:

The overflow area for household supplies that she does not use everyday (this needs to stay in the basement but I want to organize it better for them):

My mom is feeling a bit stressed from the clutter in the basement.  She feels guilty that she bought some things for use in the house, but ran out of room.  Many of the decorative items are not returnable.

I am thinking a yard sale might be best to sell a lot of the things they don't need, and then they could do something fun and spontaneous with the money.  That could allow her to feel like the purchases were not a waste.

Progress Thus Far:

I mailed her some tags that I bought at Target to start tagging things that she knows she doesn't need, things she wants to keep, and things she is not sure about. When I go home over Thanksgiving, we are going to go through it all together.   I will likely return in the Spring to help them have the yard sale.

Help me!

I would love your help.  Do you think the process is right so far?   Any tips or pointers for the process, or do you have any advice on having a yard sale?  This is my first time, so welcome your expert input!  I look forward to keeping you updated on the progress!

Samaritan House Makeover - Step 1

You may remember an older post of mine about helping out with Samaritan House's basement where I sometimes volunteer.   Samaritan house is a homeless shelter that allows guests to recover from hospital stays.   The home was donated but is a bit older so storage space is definitely at a minimum throughout the house so the basement tends to get the bulk of the clutter.   I am happy to say that over Memorial Day weekend we were able to start the first part of the project.

Let me refresh you on the before scenario:

 

The cardboard boxes were not optimal.  In fact, there was a big rainstorm while we were there and the floor flooded a bit.   There were open items which could easily be destroyed by the elements of the basement.

Listening to some of the solutions from our readers, we ordered a lot of steel reinforced resin shelves.  They only take 5 minutes to snap together, the feet elevate the shelves above the floor, and they hold up to 1000 pounds!

Next we used different color totes to designate different types of items being stored:
-Silver - donations of clothing, grouped by size
-Tan - serving items such as extra napkins, plates & serving dishes
-Blue - miscellaneous household items like board games
-Green - Christmas decorations that were donated

We got a good start on the project but needed to bring more lighting to clean out the other areas and finsih the project.

We hope to update you soon on the final progress!

Samaritan House Basement Makeover

We take this months’ adventure out of the home to Samaritan House. Samaritan House provides recuperative care to the homeless who are just out of the hospital. The home that was donated for the shelter is very old and with limited storage space. On a previous visit, we discovered that their basement has a lot of space potential for storing items such as clothing donations that the guests can take when they leave, as well as household items (holiday decorations) that are only used seasonally and don’t need to be accessed year-round. However, the current shelves are rotting and the design doesn’t allow for efficient storage.

A group of friends and I plan to give this basement a makeover. Let me know your thoughts on what we should do to organize this space. I am thinking plastic shelving with clear totes for seeing contents, but am open to ideas!