A Work Shop Transformation - From Chaos to Organized (and it didn't cost a dime!)

One usual result of trying to complete several projects at one time is a work shop that becomes a total disaster. At least, that is what happened to us.  We had lived with this situation for several weeks, making it worse as time went along.

As you can see from the pictures below, once we ran out of room on the large workbench, we decided the bottom ledge was perfect for throwing things on. Once that was full, we used the floor. Needless to say, things were going from disorganized to total disaster.

Here is the proof.

Apparently this is where boxes go to die on our house.

Why put break down the boxes when you can pile them in the corner?  And yes, that is a mitre saw sitting on a box of bamboo flooring.  Again, why put it on a table when an extra box of flooring will do.

Or, we could just throw everything on the work table.  Why put them in some sort of order when you can throw them on the table?

Or we could just start filling up the bottom shelf of the work table.  Yeah, that's it, fill the bottom shelf so things don't end up on the floor.

Whoops, guess again.  We ran out of room on both the top and bottom shelf on the work table, so the next logical place for them was on the floor.  This is when I knew we had to take charge and get organized.

That and having spent at least 20 minutes looking for a phillips head screwdriver that wasn't only 4 inches long. I knew it was time to get things off the floor, off the work table and into some semblance of order.

The worst part, our workshop in is a huge area of the basement.  And we already had some storage pieces we could utilize that had been left by the previous owner (these are way in the back of the room.)



 

We also had space along the wall to hang our elfa shelves that were formerly in the basement of our old house. (Check out our mess inspector in this picture.)

With an afternoon, the storage pieces leftover storage pieces left by the previous owner and and the elfa shelving along with my label maker, I was going to make order or the mess.

I think I was pretty successful.

The corner where all the boxes were previously stacked haphazardly.  Looking so much tidier.  Once all the stuff in the middle gets added to the weekly trash pick up, it look even better.



The elfa shelves up and organized.  The floor cleaned and not a single tool on the floor. (Yay!)

The work table is empty and ready for the next project. 

A couple of the storage pieces left in our basement have been utilized.  The one on the left is for paint and paint supplies.  The one on the right is our flooring supplies storage. 

Another left-behind piece holds fasteners, tapes, caulks and other small items.  And all the those little white things on the shelves are the labels to help keep us organized.   

An previously unused IKEA storage piece and some baskets I found in the basement hold other small items like tape measures, gloves, screwdrivers and the like.  And we have all our Dremel tools, bits and attachments together in one locations.

So in the course of an afternoon, I was able to create organization out of chaos.  It is so much nicer to head down to the workshop to plan out our next project. 

Next up, cleaning out the garage.  Before gardening and painting season starts, we need to get things cleaned and organized so we know what we already have and what we need to buy to accomplish our plans. 

We Actually Have a Basement Rec Room!

When we moved in, all the boxes that we didn't know what to do with ended up in the basement family room.  As a result, the space looked like this. 

Not good.  It was a maze to walk to make one's way through the boxes to the work room where our tools,  paint and hardware are stored. 

With our Housewarming coming up in less than 2 weeks, something needed to be done to organize the basement.   (Personally, I find nothing spurs deep cleaning and major organizing like knowing 30 people are coming over for a party.) 

After spending over 6 hours in the basement, going through boxes, repacking things into tubs, organizing the shelves and putting together one of our bookcases to hold some of our many books, I ended up with this.

(Those last few boxes at the back will be brought upstairs as soon as the office and dining rooms are finished)

A pretty big difference, don't you agree.  It's as if we actually have a basement family room.  Now all we need to do is figure out what furniture to put in the room.  But that is a post for another day since we have no idea what we are actually going to do down here yet.

And in case you were wondering where all the boxes went, they ended up here

and here

and here. 

Even better, I have a couple of heavy duty wire shelving units I haven't put together yet.  So there is more basement organization to come in the work shop area.