by Eileen Roth
Use a closed cabinet or shoe rack for sports shoes and organize them by owner.
Keep sports clothes neat with designated hanging space, baskets on shelves, or a stand-alone cabinet. Whether it’s tae kwon do robes or tennis hats, these things have to go somewhere.
Sports equipment can generally be relocated to the garage for easiest access. But if you’re short on space there or this is the closest place to grab it as you walk out the door, use an organizing rack as described in Chapter 13 to keep equipment neat.
Utility unlimited
Utility means useful, which often translates as storage. If you have more space than you need to get the wash done, consider these additional storage uses for the laundry room:
Extra refrigerator and/or freezer.
Holiday serving pieces and supplies. Install shelves, or closed cabinets are better.
Hobby and craft supplies. If you don’t have a dedicated area and usually do your work close by — for instance, if the laundry room is on the first floor and you stage your craft sessions in the kitchen, then store crafts here. Shelving or cabinets are crucial here, and if there are small children in the house it should be high.
Patio cushions. Though outdoor things generally go in the garage, storing cushions inside keeps them nice and clean for more dignified seating.
Return and repair center. Pro: Storing your damaged goods in need of fixing or refunds here keeps them out of the way. Con: This room can be way out of mind, and you may never make the trip. Install open shelving that can both organize your return/repair items and make them more obvious.
Cleaning up the laundry room can leave you better dressed and less stressed. Don’t get sidelined by stains or worried by wrinkles. Get organized!
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Chapter 12
Where Clutter Clones Itself: The Basement and Attic
In This Chapter
Reclaiming hidden real estate from clutter
Shaping up your storage systems
Designating basement centers for work and play
Stay-safe strategies for common hazards
W hy do people love to hate their basements and attics? Because they give folks a place to stash their secret messes and in the process can cause a cycle of guilt that grows with the piles. You await the scientific studies to prove that the stuff in your attic and basement actually divides like single-cell organisms while you’re not looking, but circumstantial evidence suggests that involuntary clutter breeding does occur. My recommendation to every client, from residents of tiny condos to homeowners with basements big enough to house a small nation, is to give these out-of-sight spaces a position front and center in your organized mind.
If the words basement and moldy boxes are synonymous in your mind and you turn a blind eye to the dusty debris on your uppermost floor — then ignore the obvious no more. Organize the storage spaces and activity places in your basement and attic, and stop clutter cloning in its tracks.
Lacking a basement or attic but still looking to store smart and organize tools and supplies for various household tasks? Read on for strategies that can be adapted to any area of the house.
Clutter doesn’t stop clogging up your life just because you don’t look at the mess every day. In fact, for some people hidden clutter is the biggest burden of all. So tackle your basement and attic with P-L-A-C-E and get more value from your real estate.
Purge: Toss out any broken, torn, and worn items as well as return/ repair items that have been out of use for a year or more. Duplicate tools; dried out glue, paint, and varnish; and old or excess workshop and hobby supplies get the heave-ho too.
Like with like: Arrange all storage items by type — off-season clothing, entertaining supplies, rotating toys, and so on.
Access: Establish storage, workshop, hobby/craft, exercise, and gift wrap centers. Keep flammable items away from the furnace and hot water heater.
Contain: Keep large tools on a pegboard and parts in minidrawers. Hobby and craft supplies can go in divided drawers or cabinets (possibly childproof). Exercise equipment may be contained nicely in boxes, while gift-wrap supplies can go into plastic containers.
Evaluate: Can you find storage items in a flash? Do you look forward to working in your workshop or hobby area? Can you easily exercise whenever the energy strikes? Are young children safe from dangerous equipment, tools, and supplies?
Down in the Depths: Functional Concerns
In the basement, clutter around equipment and machinery is inconvenient when you need service and dangerous if the jumble is flammable. A disorganized storage area makes finding and getting to items stored there difficult, sometimes impossible, so what’s the point of holding onto them, anyway? A mess won’t motivate anyone to get busy in the workshop or exercise center. And the whole thing can turn into a swamp of ruined stuff if a seemingly simple shower turns into a flood while you’re at work or out to dinner and you’re unprepared. The basement and its functions essentially boil down to three basic needs:
A holding place for appliances that run the house — furnace, water heater, water softener, and so forth.
Storage.
Places for activity centers such as the laundry room, workshop, hobby or craft shop, exercise area, playroom, or family room.
The most important thing to do in the basement is to store all chemicals and valuable items on shelves or tables above flood level. Even if you don’t live near water and no threat of serious flooding is present in your geographic location, water from especially heavy rain can make your basement a mud basin and a safety hazard. Being organized beforehand can lessen the degree of any such disaster.
Here are some additional precautions to keep the basement functional and friendly.
Clear out the space around the furnace, water heater, other major appliances, pipes, and drains. Be particularly mindful of flammable and heat-sensitive items, as well as any valuables that may suffer beneath a burst pipe. Section off this area with a locked door if you have small children. To keep from fumbling for keys in the event of an emergency, a simple hook too high for a child to reach can do the job.
Install a sump pump to fight floods.
Install another sump pump — this one battery-operated for backup during power failures.
Keep a large, battery-powered flashlight on hand to check equipment and the fuse box if the power should fail.
Maintain critical equipment on a regular basis. Set up a schedule and post it on the wall.
Don’t risk turning your basement into toxic soup by storing chemicals — for cleaning, garden care, household jobs, or hobbies — where floodwaters can reach them. Co-author Elizabeth witnessed the consequences of low-level storage while visiting her mother at her home in an Ohio valley. After an evening out during one of the season’s first rains, they returned home to a full basement flood — and though Mom had resolved to move all the toxic supplies to higher ground before the rains began, she hadn’t gotten to it yet. One glimpse of your mother stripped down to her slip, thigh-high in potentially poisonous water chasing bobbing cans of pesticide will convince you to store safe and high in the basement.
Storage Made Simple
Whether in the basement, the attic, or anywhere at all, storage can and should be simple, but many people miss the boat by storing things willy-nilly and without a plan. The complicated results tax the mind and make retrieving things hard, which defeats the purpose of storing them to begin with. There are two steps to simple storage: Decide what to keep, and then figure out where and how to keep it. W-A-S-T-E and P-L-A-C-E break these big questions down into bite-sized decisions.
Deciding what to keep
The five W-A-S-T-E questions (see Chapter 3) can help you zero in on what’s worth keeping, and what’s a waste of space and the time you spend dealing with it. Put each item to the W-A-S-T-E test before you put it into the box or onto the shelf.
Worthwhile? Do I ever use th
is? Do I really need it? What if I just took a photo and filed it under “memories”? Items that you really want or need are probably worth storing, while those that are expendable or you haven’t used in several years fail this test and should be tossed or donated. Holiday decorations may be worthwhile, but few people need to keep a collection of cardboard boxes.
Again? Will I actually use this item again, or am I keeping it in case of some unlikely future or because I paid good money for it? Sure, this made a great decoration for my son’s first birthday party but now he’s in grade school and the moment’s long gone. No matter how valuable something was to you in the past, if you won’t use the item again, don’t waste the storage space. Discard.
Somewhere else? How many spare hair dryers does a family really need? Couldn’t I borrow my neighbor’s pasta machine if I should finally have that authentic Italian dinner party I’ve been thinking about for five years? If you can easily find an item somewhere else if and when the need arises, whether by borrowing or even buying a new one, don’t store. Say goodbye instead.
Toss it? Will my life change for the worse without my box of high school papers on hand? What happens if I haul this dusty old broken-down chair to the Dumpster? If you can imagine tossing an item without clear negative consequences, go ahead and do so.
Entire item? Do you need the full set of luggage, or do you only use the carry-on? If you love the punch bowl but always serve in paper cups, why take up storage space with the unused cup set? Just because something came in a set doesn’t mean you need to store every piece. Sort out the useful parts or pieces and throw or give away the rest.
Now that you ran the gauntlet, let me assure you that there’s nothing wrong with storing things. Storing is an organizational basic: If you don’t use something every day, storage is the way to keep it out of the way.
You can whip things in and out of storage more quickly if you can see what you’re doing, so install enough lights to illuminate every nook and cranny your storage area.
Where and how to keep it: Basic storage principles
Though you use storage items less frequently than other things, some principles of P-L-A-C-E are still the guide for putting them away.
Like with like saves the day. Group all your storage items by category. Think like a calendar when organizing holiday items, devoting a separate container to each major celebration and arranging them chronologically. Smaller holidays for which you store less stuff — Valentine’s Day, Fourth of July, and so on can be grouped together.
Store things close to where you use them, saving prime spots to access the most-frequently used items. For instance, if you break out your big coffee- maker every time company comes, keep it near the front of your storage area, but once-a-year holiday supplies can go farther back. If the basement has a door out to the garage, store sports equipment as close to the door as you can. Save the corner of the shelf closest to your work center to keep extra craft supplies. Get the picture?
Containing items makes them easier to group, find, move and stack, and also keeps them out of the dust. You have various enclosure options, each with its own best use:
Cases. I love things that come already enclosed — golf clubs in a bag, a card table in a box. Keep storage items in their original containers, and then put them in a closet, on a shelf, or on the floor as befits their size.
Though original boxes are great for storage, keeping empties is a waste of space. Do you need the box for the water glasses in your kitchen cupboard? Nope! There are two exceptions to the no-empties rule: Boxes for electronic equipment (computers, VCRs, CD players, and the like), which you’ll need along with the foam packing inside if you ever have to pack or ship your components, and a few empty boxes for shipping gifts. Break shipping boxes down and put them with your gift wrap center.
Containers. Clear plastic containers in a variety of sizes enable you to group like items and see them clearly. Label each one with its contents for even easier identification. If you have a large family and are storing individual possessions such as clothes or kids’ papers, try transparent boxes in different colors. This trick is great for separating boys’ and girls’ hand-me-down clothes. Mark the sizes on the boxes.
Pullout drawers. From large floor units to minis that sit on a shelf, drawers do the job too.
Coverings. You can’t fit card table chairs into a pullout drawer but you can store them dust-free by draping them with an old sheet. Even better are the clear plastic drop cloths they sell for covering furniture while painting, which enable you to see what’s underneath and look less scary.
After you have everything neatly contained, you’ll need a few places for those containers. Because the basement is an area for many diverse activities, you’ll want to use wall space to keep stuff off of the floor. Keeping the floor clear also lessens the potential for any items to be lost to the threat of water damage. For your contained items, sturdy shelves are the next step. Metal shelves like the ones pictured in Figure 12-1 will withstand a flood and hold a lot of weight. Depending upon what you store and the earthquake activity in your area, you may want to secure freestanding shelves to the wall.
Cabinets, by hiding their contents away, make a nice alternative to shelves. Cabinets are suited for smaller items such as office and craft supplies, or chemicals and paints.
Figure 12-1: Metal shelf units can stand up to plenty of weight and basement weather.
Save your back with a scooter
The crawl space, that bane of people with bad backs, gets a lot more accessible for storage with a little seated scooter like those you can get for working in the garden. When we were kids my father made his own by attaching wheels to a piece of wood. For him, the homemade dolly meant scooting instead of stooping; to us it was a free ride.
Strategizing your storage solution
You’ve got basement storage principles down; now how can you put them into action? Here are some examples of how you can group items by category, contain them well, and position them for appropriate access in your basement storage area.
Luggage: Keep only the pieces you use, with larger ones in back and smaller in front (don’t nest them; you’ll forget all about the inside pieces). Try under the stairs if you have space.
Home office: Extra inventory and office supplies, on shelves and/or in clear containers.
Paperwork and memorabilia: Tax records for the past seven years, real estate papers, wills, warranties, kids’ memento boxes (see Chapter 14 on the work space). Keep on a high shelf to protect from floods and move indispensable items to a safe deposit box.
Hobby and craft supplies: Extra inventory, stored in clear containers.
Picnic supplies: Cooler, basket, portable dishes and utensils, grill, charcoal, blankets.
Holiday and party supplies: Decorations, dishes, silverware, large coffeemaker, punch bowl, cups, card table, and chairs.
Bulk food and paper supplies: Canned goods, drinks, and other non-perishable foods, bath tissue, napkins, and paper towels. Buy in bulk on sale or at warehouse stores, and shelve according to the pantry principles in Chapter 5.
Extra refrigerator and/or freezer: Drinks, ice, party overflow, big-batch recipes. Put on a platform to protect from floods.
Items you’re saving to donate can be collected in boxes or bags until it’s time for a pickup or run to your local charity. See Chapter 3 for more on donating as a great clutter-busting technique.
See “The Attic” section later in this chapter for more storage ideas. If you don’t have an attic, you can store attic items in the basement without losing any points in the organizing game.
Basement Activity Centers
Use the center concept to organize basement work and play by activity. Whether you have separate rooms or simply dedicated areas, sectioning off each center and stocking the space with the equipment and supplies you need gives you fingertip management of the task. You can find entire chapters in this book on the family
room, playroom, and laundry room, so if any of these are in your basement, browse Chapter 9, 10, or 11, respectively, for how to set them up. Following is the lowdown on creating basement centers for the workshop, crafts and hobbies, exercise, and gift wrapping centers.
Home improvement: The workshop center
Happiness central for home improvement nuts but often a source of distress for those who don’t know a wrench from a rivet (and would rather not), the workshop can become more useful to every household member with some simple organizational techniques.
Workshop floors often seem unfriendly, with cold, hard cement the default mode and messy activities such as sawing and painting defusing the motivation to improve. But take note: Tiling the workshop floor can warm up the room without making it any less washable. Another step up the comfort scale is indoor/outdoor carpet, which cleans up, lasts long, and doesn’t mind getting wet.
Change your life: Get a wet-dry vacuum. Designed to suck up anything from wood shavings to spilled milk, this all-purpose appliance will serve you well in the workshop, kitchen, and car.
Tools
Do you use tools only when you can’t get the maintenance man on the phone and there’s no handy friend at hand? Then a single toolbox stocked with the basics will do. Here are the basics that everyone should own:
Hammer
Wrench
Four screwdrivers: A big and small each of regular and Phillips
Two pliers: Needle-nosed and regular