The Beneficial Basement

Over-filled to functioning

Having bonus spaces in your home is fantastic, but having them organized is even better! The basement in my clients’ home was huge, but overtaken by items, belonging to his mother, who had once lived in the estate. Additionally, there were household items belonging to my clients. The goal of this project was to make the basement a functional space as well as a space to store holiday dishes, extra cookware, memorabilia, and more. In a space that is this overwhelming, it can be hard to know where to start, so often in a case like this, I will start in one corner and move around the room. Equipped with bags for donations and for trash, we cycled around the room. As progress was made, we cleared larger spots for “keep” and “donate”. The donation and trash piles were placed near the doors to the outside for the junk hauling team (who also takes donations to charity) to easily take them to their truck. This can be a tiring process, so we ended the first day by thinking about the best area to use for their kept items. A small niche in the basement served as the perfect place. I recommended heavy duty shelving to her after taking measurements of the space and drawing up how they would fit. Day two arrived and my clients surprised me with the assembled racks already in place! Using bins they already owned, we quickly filled and organized the shelving. Everyone in the household was happy with the results, except for the cats who no longer had their hiding spaces.

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