Taming the basement

A couple months after we moved into the house, one half of the basement looked like this:

Terrifying, no? As we worked to clear boxes from the living areas, we simply deposited them onto any empty floor space we could find in the basement, and very quickly it became a barely navigable maze of boxes, bins and other random objects.

We soon realized we needed some additional storage, so, the hubs and I took a trip to The Home Depot for some lumber, and walked out with this (for less than $100):

The next parts were mostly my husband's doing -- but I did help hold the wood while he screwed it in. And I took some mean pictures. :)

He put up studs for the shelves, attached directly to the wall and ceiling beams. He measured out the placement of the shelves, leaving some space underneath for sliding big boxes and some smaller shelves above perfectly sized for smaller plastic bins. 

He even put everything onto the shelves all on his own. When he called me back down to check it out, I found this:

LOVE. Let's see some before and afters, yes?

All that storage is perfect of getting almost everything off the floor. Plus, it cost way less than buying shelves that would have filled the same space. Okay, it's not quite as pretty -- but hey, it's a basement. Maybe if I feel inspired someday, I'll paint them a pretty color and buy some cute baskets and bins for storage. (Apparently Michaels is having a half-off baskets sale this week -- score!).

Organizing them is still a work in progress; we have boxes we need to sort through and other decluttering to do. And we still have a pile of other stuff that needs to be taken care of. 

But we'll save that work until the spring when the basement is warm enough to work in comfortably. I think so far, so good! (And yes, that's another set of shelves my husband built for our old apartment. They need some organimization too!).

Oh, and the other side of the basement? It's the hubs' brewery. Seriously, he uses it to home brew. And while it's not super neat, it did also get a good dose of declutter.

Not the same angle, but you get the idea. Someday we hope to finish this half and turn it into a fun hangout room. And the hubs would surely call me out if I didn't mention that the chest freezer in the background is his own DIY project: a homemade kegerator, complete with taps! It's the first beginnings of the man cave...

I'm linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick's Organize It party. Stop by and see all the clutter everyone is tackling! 

Have you tamed your basement lately, or are you waiting for spring cleaning?