A record of Messy Basement Workshop

This week has been all about cleaning and organizing, so it is only fair that I take this opportunity to own up to the most unclean, unorganized space in our house (perhaps ever in our whole lives). The horror lies behind this door, in my basement workshop:

Simply like our first house, we have a separate entry basement that you access from a door in the back yard. Except in this house, I have avoided showing this space the whole 16 months that we have lived here. Yes, it has been kept fully off camera and video – which is nearly unheard of for over-sharers like us. Why? Because I am embarrassed to my core about its state. I have been meaning to tackle it for a while. But a while has turned into a while longer. So I am at last forcing myself into action by showing it in all of its glory, er, gory. Feel free to play this video while I hide my face in my hands.

For those who cannot watch the video (or could not take more than the first 15 seconds or so), here is the mess you missed. Although for some reason it does not look as bad in the pics. The video is the real deal. Haha. It still looks fairly bad though…

As I said on camera, I blame the whole thing on these pallets that the previous owners left in the yard and I dragged inside when making our living room console table last April. I guess the pallet scrap invited me to add other leftover wood to the pile, all awaiting some future time in which it’ll all be “taken care of.”

Well, it has not been taken care of. And instead the mess in one corner gradually made me care less about keeping the rest of it clean. So the whole space has kind of deteriorated into one big cluttered, dirty, slobfest.

So here is my vow to clean and organize the workshop. It will not take a day, or even a week, but I am vowing to make a plan, put it into action, and keep you folks posted. After all, it is a fairly useful space for us – mainly as storage (tools, yard stuff, etc) and it also makes a strong work space. But it has not been serving either function quite well with all of this junk in my way.

Here is my rough plan of attack (feel free to tackle a garage, basement, or attic right along with me if you’d like):

• Pare down and organize my scrap pile: I like having spare wood around, but not this much. I have been trying to figure out a better solution than simply throwing it away, but have not settled on one yet (a lot is too small to sell or donate according to the calls I have made – so perhaps I will freecycle what I do not think I will need for future projects).
• Take everything out and clean things from top to bottom: Part of the reason the floor and workbench are covered in a confetti of sawdust is that it is hard to sweep around all of this stuff. I figure if I get everything out, I will have no excuse. Plus it makes the next step easier.
• Bring back in only what I need: And hopefully organize it as it all comes back in, grouping like items and placing things in zones that in fact make sense to keep things functional.
• Sell / donate / dispose of what is not needed: We are guessing there will be a fair amount of items leaving for good. And of course if we craigslist or freecycle anything we will post the link for any interested locals.
  

By the end of it all I am not looking to have some giant, decorated makeover – simply a clean workable room that functions for all the building and staining and spraying and sawing and storing that we’d enjoy to use it for. Though I would not hate it if it turned into a little bit of a man cave. Simply sayin’…

Okay, now make me feel better. Who else has (or at least had) a shamefully messy space in their house? This is a no judgement zone. At least I hope it is. If not, I am sure I am getting crazy judged right now. Yikes.