Organized!

Mission organization continues... and in fact, I think I may be done with the basement! Or, at least with my stuff  in the basement. (I'm not reorganizing Mike's stuff. It's just a disaster in his areas and I refuse to be aggravated with cleaning that.)

Yesterday I took on the bins in the bathroom closet. Two were filled mostly with wrapping and present materials, so I started there, separating the bags from the tissue from the ribbons. And that led to the thought, "Hmm, I have more bags and tissue and ribbons in other bins under the basement stairs." So I pulled those out and separated everything: bags, tissue, ribbons, boxes, and wrapping paper. (And of course - trash, of which there was a ton.)

So once all the wrapping material was straight, I got to fixing up all the christmas boxes and other bins under the stairs. They were all messed up after I had torn out all the bulk t.p. and paper towels and diapers to put them in the new basement bathroom closet.

After I reorganized and replaced all the boxes and bins under the stairs, I found I had room for more stuff! So I went around the basement, gathered up anything that could be considered "mine" (anything not a tool, a building material, or parts) and incorporated it under the stairs.

Here is the result... And there's still room for more stuff if necessary.

And here's the closet so far - completely organized except for those few tools you see there on the third shelf. There's still more room here too - mostly in the small drawers underneath the shelves. As we demolish and re-do the upstairs bathroom, there will be more moving and re-moving of stuff too, so additional space is a good thing.

Labor!

Yes yes yes. I know Labor Day is supposed to be about relaxing, spending time with friends and family, and all that yadda yadda. But - if you're a psychotic home improvement junkie like me, you really get your kicks by completing weekend projects!

Let me tell you about my Labor Day. First off, I woke up a little angry because I slept through Discovery Channel's "Collassal Squid" show. Second off, I woke up super early. Like 6:30am kinda early. Not the normal start to a normal relaxing day off - again, I'm not that normal.

So I got up, went for a walk, came back, showered, and got to work. Mike was still asleep of course. It was still only 7:30. But by the time he got up at 9:30, I had already second coated the exterior window trim on the porch side, second coated the french doors, and painted half of the garage top - as far as I could reach from where the scaffolding was placed. Three coats!

Mike was nice enough to help me move the scaffolding right out of bed. And then we both got to painting the other half. He got all the high parts, of course. Before noon, the garage was done!

Before

After

Then we moved on to attaching those upstairs railing balusters that we had left unattached for so long. That was a little tedious and took us right up until lunch time. We took a short lunch break and then moved on to the basement!

If you remember our "Lean Mean Cleaning Machine" post - back on 4th of July weekend when the summer started (OMG has it been an entire summer?!) we cleaned out the garage and put all the home improvement related tools in the basement - creating a huge mess down there.

But it was an organized mess, with piles for plumbing, carpentry, electric, etc. All we had to do was build some additional shelves and put everything away neatly. So, we used a bunch of scrap wood and made the most makeshift shelves you've ever seen. I told Mike they looked like sketchy bunk beds. But they were pretty sturdy. And here's how everything looked when we put it back:


See, previously we had only had that smaller shelf on the left and we added the long part on the right. And all the stuff fits beautifully! I couldn't have asked for more... except perhaps a couple more storage boxes. All in good time.

After that was done, we were able to vacuum and clean up everything else down there, making room for all the extra porch lumber, which had been sitting outside for over a month.

Ah, the lumber section.

And Mike brought up an interesting point. We probably have enough extra wood to frame out a basement bathroom. "We should make a bathroom down here before we even think about doing the upstairs bathroom," he pointed out. A valid point. With only one bathroom - tearing down your bathroom leaves you toilet and showerless. I had half a mind to start him building on it right away...

But there's a roof and siding to consider. So this one may just be as well off left to the list of winter projects. Fall's agenda is just too long to list!

Lastly, as night fell on Labor Day, we installed the railing to the basement stairs... or at least half of it. (It's a split railing, and we don't have the bottom newel yet to attach the bottom part to.)

All in all - a very productive, non-relaxing labor day. And I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Lean Mean Cleaning Machine

Ah, 4th of July weekend. Time for beaches, bbq's, boating, fireworks, friends, fiestas, and garage cleaning.

That's right - garage cleaning.

For quite a while now the garage mess has been annoying me to no end. We can't find stuff when we need it, we think we don't have something so we buy it and then we find out we already had one, carpentry tools are mixed in with mechanical tools and plumbing tools are mixed in with building materials, and so on and so forth. Plus junk and trash and dirt - EVERYWHERE.

It was so bad, you couldn't even walk through. You couldn't even look at it, it was terrible. I said to Mike, I don't know how you can work in here if I'M this annoyed. I just couldn't imagine how he could accomplish anything.

So with the guys on vay-cay from porch work, I told Mike that Sunday was the opportune time to get this mess straightened out. He did not want to spend a day cleaning - but agreed that it was long overdue and we needed to do it.

We employed the HGTV method I learned from watching countless hours of Mission Organization. It's basically a five step process.

1. Remove EVERYTHING from the garage.
2. Separate into organized piles of like items - plumbing tools, building materials, trash, liquids, straps 'n chains, garden tools, stuff-that-should-be-in-the-house, etc.
3. Double check each pile - get rid of anything you don't want or need and consolidate. (For example liquids like oil if you have a million half empty containers like we did.)
4. Clean the now emptied garage and decide where everything is going to go.
5. Put it all back neatly.

Additionally, we had some other challenges. You may remember that our homeowners insurance company had a problem with that wood stove in the garage - so we had to remove that using our skid steer and get it down in the basement. (Using some straps and a plywood stove-surfboard mind you.) Also, our two car garage has just one door. No, not one big door. One small door on the left side. Well, eventually we'd like to put in another door, so we decided to make ready for this by moving Mike's tool box and bench to the opposite side of the garage where the stove once was.

We decided too that to help keep the garage clean, we would store all non-mechanical, non-garden tools and materials in the basement. This includes all carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and paint (non-automotive) supplies, tools, and materials. Unfortunately, we only have one shelf in the basement currently. Not enough storage space by far. And in the interest of time, we decided to leave new-shelf-building for another day. (By the by, we have so much scrap wood, we should be able to build more shelving without purchasing anything but storage boxes 'n stuff.)

So the basement is currently a mess of organized piles. I guess you could call that halfway there. When we get the shelves built, all we'll have to do is put stuff away neatly.

Luckily, we had time to make one dump run - and boy did we get rid of some junk! Phew, what a relief! Next weekend, we'll have to make one more dump run to finish the job. (Dump closes at 3pm, so we weren't able to get everything.)

Now at this point I'm sure you're all wondering, "Where are the before and after photos?"
Well, would you believe I didn't take any before? I was just too horrified by the mess. But I'm so proud of the after that I just want to hang out in the garage all day! Isn't that crazy! Although the basement's mess is going to start cheezing me off soon if we don't get those shelves built....

A little hard to tell the clean with all the bikes in there - but trust me, you should have seen the before!
Here's where the 2nd garage door will eventually go. Now we're ready for it with the bench moved!
I've never seen these shelves so clean since we bought the house. OMG it's amazing!

And finally, the bench area. There's a place for the bench, and the red tool box fits next to the compressor, and the welding cart has a place... so amazing!

I can't wait for the guys to see it next weekend!