Project 365 - Day 57

This is not the Day 57 photo:


No, that is the "before" picture of the storage room in our garage. It is the best angle I was able to get to give you the general idea what it looked like, because I could not walk in the room. In fairness to us, we pretty much moved into this house when I was 35 weeks pregnant and then had a baby 3 weeks later. So we just used the storage room as a dumping ground, and dealing with it just hasn't been a priority. But the never-opened-since-we-moved-in-the-house boxes, the fact that our hammers were somewhere in there mixed in amongst faux apples and kiddie pools and outgrown jackets; the fact that I truly had no idea what was in that room and how I'd ever find it; and the fact that the room was a case study in wasted potential all started to get to me. So I decided that tackling this room would be my major project of 2011, and I honestly thought it would take me all year to do it. But to my great surprise, with a little bit of focus, a little bit of determination, and a little bit of help from mom & dad, I was able made HUGE progress in this room in a matter of days.

Day 57 -- the storage room "after":



We bought one of those shelving units when we moved into this house, but for this project, I decided we needed two more: one that I assembled into a workbench, and one that I assembled into another shelving unit so that we had two shelving units flanking the workbench. Once the shelves were assembled, I just starting moving things around into zones. All of the tools are now on the pegboard over the workbench (the pegboard was already there) or on the shelves under the workbench. That's it, just tools. Well, except the inflatable kiddie pools, which fit best under the right side of the work bench where there wasn't a shelf. On the left side shelving unit, I have decorative objects that are not in use, bins full of picture frames and photo albums, etc.

On the right shelving unit, I've got a bin of pool & beach toys and a bin of gift bags. I plan to move my party supply bins onto this shelf too (you know, streamers, festive paper plates, signs, confetti, tin buckets, etc. -- what, doesn't everyone have a party supply bin?) Two shelves are currently taken up with empty bins and boxes, and two shelves are currently taken up by old electronics that (David, close your eyes) I plan to bring to Best Buy for recycling, so there will actually be a lot of open space on this shelf. I mean, it's a storage room, it ain't pretty. But I love that we can now walk in the room. I love that I know where everything is. I love that we now have usable counter space where we can set down the hammer while fishing for the right size picture hook, etc. I basically love all of it. And since the kids don't go in this room, it might even stay neat!!