Happy Spring! 

Pardon my absence, I have been keeping myself busy Spring Cleaning. 

Over the past few months, I have been working evenings and weekends organizing hoards of items stored in the basement at my flophouse. This was a repository for extra supplies, unwanted furniture, leftovers from renovations and the abandoned possessions of previous tenants. I had collected these items...until it got out of control. 

Here are some before and after pictures:

Before...the clutter gives me a headache

In April I buckled down and finally started organizing! I have donated many boxes of dishes and other miscellaneous items. I sorted through building materials and salvaged anything I thought I would use in the forseable future, the rest were donated.

Every item you see had to get moved FOUR times!! A very tedious process which was more tiresome due to the low ceilings.

I spent 2 days solely to organize my light bulbs and light fixtures! This cubby shelf is great for organizing them. It was a $50 find when our Sears store went out of business and sold all their shelving.

I was profoundly proud of myself when a light fixture blew and I had to replace it. I knew *exactly* where to look for the replacement fixture! Huzzah!

Do you see the dangling chains suspended from the ceiling? They were my solution for holding trim for doorways. The trim is flimsy and prone to breakage. And so the chains keep them suspended out of harms way. I used the top of the cubby shelf to store lumber. With lumber fetching high prices...I salvaged every usable length I could find. They were all leftovers from previous projects.

The finished result. A compact storage room where I can easily find everything! This took 5 weeks of work to get to this result. I still have 2 other rooms to organize at my leisure. Thankfully they have higher ceilings and are not a disaster.

I need to go rest my aching back...this week I start landscaping and painting ;)

happy thrifting