had enough.

so after sharing this embarrassing disaster with you, i'd finally had enough. we've lived in this house for about three months yet our basement looked like it had accumulated five years worth of junk down there, with zero organization to it. not. ok.

i mentioned before that the lady that lived here had a hobby of designing and sewing square dancing costumes {at least that's what we were told} so we assume that her husband sweetly constructed these three crazy wooden shelving units to hold all of her supplies. and although they may have worked fine for her sewing supplies, complete with zillions of tiny dowel rods to hold spools of thread, in actuality they were not sturdy, taking up too much space and really, really janky looking. one was actually suspended from the ceiling, kind of like a swing made of shelves.

well, it was time for them to go. and i have to thank you, man who made these shelves, for not using any nails or screws because that meant we could just knock the whole thing apart with a hammer and it went very quickly. although we actually saved the swinging shelf that was against the back wall, but we detached it from the ceiling and set it on the ground, like a normal shelving unit should be.

and now, i reveal to you our new, streamlined, sewing shelf free work area.

holy moley, much better, right?? no more janky free standing shelf on the left, no more janky shelf blocking you from getting to the water heater and the swinging shelf on the back wall now sits securely on the floor. and we plan to add another shelf higher up on that back wall for more storage.

you can also see where we took advantage of that little nook which sits under our side porch by using it for storage. and although it's still kind of a grungy little area, it's great for storing the extra wood we have to use for random projects.

i also have a little twin sized headboard in there that we found in the basement. i've been holding on to it waiting for some kind of crafty inspiration to come so i can repurpose it for something. any ideas?

and if you're wondering where all that other junk from before went, well, we got rid of a lot of it, but most of it just got stored in an appropriate, space-saving place. window screens are between the shelf and the wall, out of the way. the two doors are being repaired so they can be installed back where they belong. the couch is being sold on craigslist and those kitchen table chairs, well, to be honest i just moved those out of the way for the picture. just keeping it real. but i need to decide if i'm going to keep those and paint them or if they need to be given away...

but apparently everyone is taking notice of the new look. i found this little guy checking out the cleaner space. he's impressed. or she. whichever.

now, if only i could get austin to organize all his work tools on these shelves...

also, paint. these walls desperately need some better paint...