Condo-dwellers and Floridians, you might want to look away from this article. The amount of storage space in this basement organizing article is likely to make you well up in tears. This basement storage area is so big, even the storage area has a storage area!
But anyone who has ever gone through a move, a home construction project, or a new baby period of their life can tell you, it’s hard to keep a storage area organized! And if you go through all three of those within a few short years, well, it’s totally understandable if your storage area looks like this.
If you have enough room, you can ignore this for a while, but when it’s your laundry room, too…not so much.
As promised, this storage room even has a storage room!
Plenty of room for improvement here. The suitcases are hidden in the back. The infant gear is scattered all over. And all the zipper storage bags filled with baby clothes are split open. Just one more reason that I say save your money and buy bins, not space bags.
We knew going into this project we were either going to need more shelves or bins, so we ordered in 12 big blue storage bins ahead of time.
We spent a fast-paced 3 hours on this organizing project, and I hope you’ll enjoy the difference. First, a few tips…
We re-used those space bags and a few clear trash bags to cover the large, bulk baby gear, like the high chair and strollers. Just pulling them down over the tops of the gear created a dust cover. Not great for long term storage, but it will at least keep the dust off for a couple of years.
We also moved all of the baby gear to the way-back, and moved all the luggage way up front on the shelves, so they were easy to reach.
In front of the baby gear, we stacked 8 bins of well-labelled storage. Use a Brother label maker and 1″ TZ tape to get durable, visible labels like these.
Putting decorations away is a snap when you label at least 2 sides with the contents. Ideally, label all 4 sides AND the lid, for best visibility. Oops, I see a couple of labels that are not quite straight. Roll with it, people. Those are finishing touches that can always be adressed later. Just wait till you see the end result!
Use the shelves that are open and easiest to get to for easy everyday refills on things like light bulbs and paper towels.
Run out of bins? No problem. Cardboard boxes can work for you. But make sure you can see what they are holding. Tip them on the side to use them as a shelf organizer.
Did we open up some space in this former storage room? You betchya.
That big open space to the left? Along that wall we have plenty of open space to bring in the sewing machine and file cabinets to create the new craft and gift wrap area. Not only can we make this space into another functional room, this space is nice to walk into every day, which is good because, you know…laundry.
Now that the room is cleared and each zone has a job, there are definitely some tweaks we can make to “cute-ify” the space. But let’s take a break after just these few hours and enjoy how easy it is going to be to store the baby’s outgrown clothes, get into the holiday decorations, and get to the suitcases for the quick trip to Paris.
If you want to see a similar transformation in the main part of this same basement, click to see more basement organizing, and how much money we found hiding there.
