What a fine mess I’ve gotten myself into…. but today we started tackling this huge job. At one point, I had this area nice and neat. However, I’ve learned some things that worked and some that didn’t. Check back often as I will be updating this post as we work through this project.

There will be after pics but no before ones. 🤪 We are purging and reorganizing and redoing so we have quite a mess going on.

Update: We have, finally, for all intents and purposes, finished decluttering the basement and organizing the craft area. I still have some organizing to do but happy with how it is turning out!

Take this old Kuerig coffee pod drawer my sister gave me. It was sitting on a shelf because I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Today, I knew! Danny retrofitted it to hold my paint brushes so they wouldn’t fall out the sides. I added flat dominos from Dollar Tree as dividers. I will keep this on my work space and paint pens, scissors, etc. on top in a revolving caddy. Upcycling at its finest!!!

We purged a bunch of toys my grands have outgrown and made more room for my crafting, but still have a few things left over.

Several years ago I created a Facebook Neighborhood Watch Group and it has been great at getting to know neighbors and letting each other know is what is going on in the neighborhood. And….for letting them know when I put things out in the curb for free. 😁 So today I let my neighbors know that this child’s table and two chairs were there and gave them a heads up and first chance to come and get it before I let my other FB friend know it was there.

We have now started the major overhaul.

We have worked 7 hours pretty much no stop today. I’ve done as much as I’m going to do in my craft area for today. We moved all the storage shelves, bookcases into the position we wanted.

The blank space above the shorter bookcases will have a organization shelving system to hold small jars of paint. The bookshelves under it will have other painting supplies.

I will be reorganizing the cool pegboard area Danny designed awhile ago. It’s worked well, but I need to organize it better. I love the little dresser we moved there. It will hold my Silhouette machine and laminator or maybe a printer since I don’t use a laminator as much as I do a printer.

The little roll around chair for my table is too short so Danny is going to raise it regular chair height, but not today.

We are meeting to pick grandkids Ben and Byron up later today as they are off school tomorrow and Friday. I still have an art table and chair and now drawers for Byron’s art. We moved Ben’s trains up in the bunk room. He has found a renewed interest in them. We eventually will be changing out the princess bed up there for the trundle bed that goes with our daybed in the basement.

Hoping the boys will help with the organization once they get tired of trains, art, and technology. 🙂 Next we will move on to the family room part so everyone can start enjoying the tv area again.

My favorite part of the reorganization is that my work table is now in the center. It is a gate leg table we saved. I love how my storage drawers all fit around the table and I can raise or lower the one side as needed. There is room for the trash can right under where I work. Byron is going to love his art center once again.

Now it is a matter of taking everything on the shelves and organizing them. I will be so happy to have a place for everything and everything in its place.

There is a lot of stuff on all those shelves and sitting around waiting to get organized. But now, it is doable. I will be so happy to start crafting there again.

Keep checking back for more! Be sure to click on each image to see the whole pic. The gallery is looking strange on my phone. 🤷🏼‍♀️

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10/2/21 – I’m adding dates as I think this is going to be a looong process.

Organizing bookcases: The one on the right is filled with wood supplies, buttons, and beads. I still need to label a couple of boxes there. I am thinking about what will be going on the other bookcase. By the way, that long photo frame hold pics of some of our past vacations. It also serves as a cover to hide our water line coming in from the outside. 🙂

Meanwhile, my assistant Byron is checking to make sure markers are still good by doing a bit of color by number at the art table. Nice that he can read color names now. 🙂

10/3/21 – some pics of something we did yesterday.

We had already mounted this cool shelf on the wall in the craft area. I haven’t even filled it up yet, but plan to, mostly with sample bottles of our Missouri Limestone Paint Company chalk-style paint. These will be so handy! I can see at a glance what color I want to use. But I also have some bottles of acrylic given to me and want a place to store as much paint as possible.

I had purchased this spice rack set on Amazon (SimpleHouseware 20 Spice Gripper Clips Strips Spice Accessories Spice Organizer- 4 Strips, Holds 20 Jars, Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085PQ3BD2/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_a_PPGN3B4QXES02AVR091Z) awhile ago, thinking I could use them to store paint.

Yesterday, we merged the two. These plastic spice racks have an adhesive strip on the back, but also come with screws. So we used both and screwed them in a strip along the board edge. It works perfectly to hold my paint samples or the small bottles of acrylic.

This pack of 4 strips holds 20 jars and was only $8. I think they would be great to mount inside the pantry door or cabinet doors in the kitchen. I might just get more for my spices and reclaim the drawers where I am currently storing them.

10/4/21 – Danny turned my $2 yard sale bookcase find into a roll around card yesterday. This morning I turned it into my glue gun station. Now, when I’m finished gluing projects, I just roll it back into its out of the way space. His next project is turning one of my overhead cam lights (I have one I can easily sacrifice) into a drop down electric cord over my craft table area. Yay!

But the best part of this is unearthing my electric candle warmer I have had forever and plugged it in. Now, when I forget to drink my cup of coffee, it will stay hot!

My craft table with glue gun station is ready for crafting. I also bought a new battery for my Ryobi cordless glue gun and it is working perfectly. I have now completed my first project: 1/36 acorns for my cousin’s Thanksgiving table. 🤪

10/11/21 –

We didn’t get too far in the basement decluttering part when Danny came upon the driftwood found on our beach vacation at Port St. Joe, Florida.

So this piece of nature’s artwork, beautiful in its simplicity, has been named “The Tree of Port St. Joe”. It is available.

We went for a walk on the beach in search of driftwood for crafting. My grandson, Ben, will say he found this piece for me…. but Vivian will say he put it down because he didn’t want to carry it back to the house. Vivian knew I would like it, so she picked it back up and brought it to me. ☺️ Vivian and I thought it looked like a tree.

So, we stopped decluttering for a bit. 🙄I just happened to know exactly where a wooden board with a frame was, so I paint stained the frame, gave the driftwood and the board a good drink of Wise Owl Furniture Salve, turned it over to Danny and he mounted the driftwood onto the board with screws and drilled holes in the frame for a hanger. I used jute for the hanger and it was finished.

I’ve been trying to find way to store faux flowers used in my crafts. I’ve tried several things, but nothing was working well.

Until today. As we were decluttering the basement we came across several baby gates. Since the grands are no longer babies, Danny wanted to know if I wanted to sell them. I’ve really had the flower problem on my mind and all of a sudden, I saw not a baby gate, but a rack with holes that could hang on a wall or door and I could stuff stems through the holes!

We had an over the door hanging rack. I had to leave then so Danny tried it out and it works perfectly with room to spare for more. I can see at a glance what I have (I may reorganize by color 🤪) and it is space saving, too! I even have room for more on this one, plus I have two more gates if I need more room. 🤪