I promised some updates on my basement overhaul, but I've been slacking.  Not on the overhaul process, just on the blogging about it.  It's not exactly glamorous, so it's not as exciting to share as a before & after for a finished room.

Basement overhaul phase 1 involved clearing space on the side opposite the basement from my workshop area, then moving my existing shelving and some new shelving over there.  Because, I'm OCD, and if I organize one area, I have to do the whole shebang, so it ended up being a much bigger project than I originally planned.

There are basically four sections of our basement.  There's an open area at the bottom of the stairs (where my workshop is), then narrower sections on either side of the stairway, then another open area at the back of the basement, behind the stairway.

Back right of the basement before:



Back right of the basement after:


Since our unfinished basement is a walkout, three sides have concrete walls, and only the walkout side has studs.  We also have some studs in the middle of the basement, part of the support system of the house.  I used the studs liberally as part of my organization system. 


Above the gigantic toy box that we now use for storage, I hung our pop-up chairs on long nails.  To the right of that, I used a couple nails to hang our yard sale signs until next time.  So glad to have all those things off the floor.

Back in the corner is our old grill that hasn't worked since The Mr. had to use the fire extinguisher on it.  I assume it can be fixed, but he bought a new Weber and is in love.  Been meaning to Freecycle the old one, but just haven't gotten around to it yet.


We had several lengths of closet shelving leftover from when we built the house, so I installed a length of it on the studs to hang clothes that are awaiting our next yard sale.  They used to hang from the ceiling beams, but this is much better.

As a reminder, here's what the opposite side of that part of the basement looks like, which was included in part 1 of the basement overhaul:


If you realize I only have one child and he's a teenager, you might wonder why I have a high chair in my basement.  Well, The Mr.'s brother and his wife have 5 kids ... and one more on the way.  Each time the youngest child reaches toddler stage, we think we'll be able to get rid of the high chair, and then we hear they're pregnant again!  Alas, someday the high chair can move on to a household that really needs it.

That's it for part 2 of the basement overhaul.  More to come.  I know you're excited.  Basement clean-ups are thrilling.