This has been a long time coming. When we moved in, we discovered this incredible secret storage area know as the crawlspace. After moving from a slightly larger house, we needed a place to put boxes and miscellaneous things that either didn’t fit, or we didn’t have a place for right away. So into the crawlspace they went. And the garage. But that’s a whole other story… It was finally time to tackle our storage area and get things to their homes. We spent our staycation working on this, and a few other big projects.
Deep Organizing
After reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up awhile ago, I’ve been making a conscious effort to downsize and not add extra clutter to my routine. I’m generally pretty neat and organized, but the author of this book is next-level organized. She eats, sleeps and breathes organization, and makes people start from ground zero. You can’t get more ground-level than the deep, dark crawlspace. She may seem extreme, but you may just take a few lessons from her book. Pun so intended.
The first thing Joe did was take down this clunky pull string light fixture. Before, we had to get down on our hands and knees, crawl half way in, and grope around in the dark to find the string. Not ideal when you’re in a hurry to find something.
I prefer this way. ^ You should probably ask an electrician for help if you don’t have one handy.
Of course, this gave Joe an excuse to buy some brand new LED light bulbs. (One of his very favorite things to do.) So now even the crawlspace is energy efficient.
Once we upgraded the lighting situation, things got a little brighter. Although, we noticed a bunch of old carpeting and shelves left behind from the past owners. We wanted to completely gut this space and clean it top to bottom for a fresh start.
Which meant cleaning out our stuff. I wasn’t lying when I said we had a lot of miscellaneous gear. And it pained me a little to see it all piled up, undoing all our initial work. Sometimes you need to take two steps backward…
Not a pretty sight. We removed all the cardboard and replaced the boxes with bonafide totes.
The chinchillas got to take the first lap around the track before we bleached it out. To eliminate any and all potential mold spores and mustiness, we had to get out the big guns: We swept, vacuumed, and then bleached every corner.
Totes Takeover
I know there are debates on whether or not totes are the way to go. The argument is, “If you have to keep it in storage, you probably don’t need it at all.” But both of us have childhood keepsakes and memorabilia that we just couldn’t part with.
The bins to the left are mine, and the bins to the right are Joe’s. The count is 11 me, Joe 2. I just can’t throw away my school work! Nerd alert. We also have camping gear, electronics, and some housewares that we’ll need later.
And of course, holiday and seasonal decorations. We’ve got a Christmas tree and a train. And four full boxes of Christmas decorations. Bonus points for the color-coded ones.
We have five Halloween totes, one Valentine’s Day/St. Patrick’s Day tote, and a few Easter and Thanksgiving things that are sharing storage space until they grow into their own categories.
We’ve also got some solutions for our shoes in the works. So many shoes, so little storage room.
