Mission Organization: the Basement

I love our new home. I have enjoyed decorating, rearranging and even cleaning our house since we moved in July.

But there is a looming project that I have been ignoring for quite some time. It was easy to get the kitchen unpacked. And guests coming to stay motivated me to decorate the spare bedroom. But the basement...it is a disaster. Jeremiah has organized half of it. I purchased storage shelves on my last IKEA trip (read about that here.) The other half of our nicely finished basement was to be a reading nook/game room. However, it currently looks like a forest, thanks to all my Christmas decorations. (I should have taken a picture of the bookshelves before I got them organized).

I even purchased curtains to divide the storage side from the decorated side. And my wonderful husband hung those up...but I still remained unmotivated.

Today, I made great strides. I drew out a floor plan

and developed a to-do list.

TO DO:

1. Find a permanent storage place for the Christmas decorations
2. Organize, sort and price consignment items (Part of the pile in the middle of the room is items I am hoping to sell)
3. Paint the basement. I love the yellow color that the sellers picked out. However, it is taking over my house. My living room, stairwell, hallway and basement are all yellow. I really like the color of Ashlee's nursery walls. Maybe I'll copy her paint color.
4. Paint table and chairs. I have an older kitchen table and chairs that will be perfect for games and sewing projects. But the table is currently in primary colors.
5. Recover the seats of the chairs.
6. Organize bookshelf
7. Search for cheap or free comfy chair(s) for reading. And possibly an ottoman.
8. Purchase 2 more sets of the blue polka dot curtains from IKEA. (Guess that means I need a trip to Atlanta)
9. Clean and move piano. I had found a free piano on Craigslist some time back. Jeremiah moved the terribly heavy musical instrument for me to Lee and Ashlee's garage. When I got the piano, we had not yet moved out of the dorm.

After moving into our new house, Jeremiah and Lee rolled the piano down the street

and into our garage.

I have high hopes of one day painting this an awesome shade of green or yellow.

It's full of detail.

But for now, I'll just settle for cleaning it up and getting it moved into the basement.

Today, I decided to tackle one aspect of my to-do list. Organizing the Bookshelves.

I started by organizing the books into categories. Bibles, Women's Ministry, children's books, journals, fiction, dating, marriage, magazines, etc. I found books I'd forgotten about, books I love, and books that I have no idea where they came from. I've always been a reader. When I was growing up, I would sleep with a stack of books instead of a teddy bear. Then, in the morning, I would read before I got up for the day. I also remember getting in trouble for reading too much. I can still hear my dad saying, "Cindy, put your book down and come out of your room. You need to spend a little time with the family."  My first job was even in a Christian bookstore. And it seems that each time I go home to visit mom and dad, I end up bringing another box of my books back to Tennessee.

After organizing the different categories, I placed them on the shelves.

What a difference a little sorting made! I can now easily see what books I have. And I have room for more!

I plan to decorate the basement in colors from maps. (PS, I'm on the hunt for one of those pull down maps that you see in schools for time to time...IF anyone should happen across any unwanted ones. I don't care if it is world maps, Europe, or the US. Any type of pull down map will do for what I have in mind. )

It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction. Next I plan to tackle Christmas decor and consignment items. Then perhaps I'll be able to get to the walls easily enough to paint them. Stay tunes.