The Snowball Effect ~ Part One

It all started with this:

Can you find it in here?

My storage room was not looking pretty or organized.  And while I will take most of the blame for not putting things back in their place...I do have to blame the cedar chest as well.  It just wasn't practical.  Every time I wanted something in it, I had to open the lid, move the trays inside, get the item, then replace everything.  If I left something on the lid...that too had to come off.   As you can see, I left quite a few somethings on the lid...so it was getting a little tricky to get in there.

There was a lot of wasted space along the wall here as well.

And this shelf was in an awkward spot.

It was driving me nuts to keep moving this basket to get into the drawers of the dresser.

So, I had Darla over.  (Remember, it's always easier to purge and organize with a friend!)  We emptied the entire room.  We sorted all the items and purged a lot of junk that I knew I would never use.  Some went in the garbage and some I donated.

The cedar chest came out.  

I moved the big shelf all the way to the of back of the room and put that big basket on top of it.  Other items got sorted into smaller baskets on the shelf.  

The dresser moved to the wall opposite the big shelf.  All my gift wrap got sorted and organized.

I found a shelf in my basement that wasn't being used and brought it up to store my future projects on.  I also found another big basket and fit it in under the shelf.

 

Another shelf that had not been in use came in to hold my paint and tools.

Ahhhh.  Room to walk, and everything in it's place.  This project leans more to organized than to pretty, but it's not a room that anyone sees but me, and by using storage units I already owned, it didn't cost me a penny to redo the space.

Oh.  And one more thing.  Now there was space to move our ugly filing cabinet OUT of the office.

Which left a big ol' empty spot in the office...

Stay tuned for Part Two.