Our basements often end up as a catch-all space for things we don’t have room for in our homes. It’s an out-of-the-way place to keep sporting equipment, gardening supplies, household tools, and children’s toys. However, it can be difficult to find what you’re looking for if the basement is a mess. Here are a few tips to help you organize your basement.
Start Small to Organize Your Basement
Depending on what you store downstairs, cleaning and organizing a basement can be a big undertaking. To most efficiently tackle this project, set aside a weekend to do the work. If you cannot devote an entire weekend, make a plan to organize small areas of the space, one at a time.
Clear Out the Space
The best way to get started is to remove everything from the area that you’re organizing. Clear out the space so you can see the amount of room you have to work with. After moving all of your belongings out, clean the area. Dust, sweep, and repaint if necessary. You’ll be more motivated to keep it clean when you start with a tidy space.
Declutter
Before putting your belongings back, take the time to remove clutter. Sort your belongings into different piles: things you’ll keep, trash, items to donate, and things that should be stored elsewhere in the house.
If you encounter items you haven’t used in 6-8 months, donate them to a charity. Take out the trash. Look at the items you plan to keep and decide what needs to be stored upstairs. Because the basement tends to be dark and damp, items like linens, pillows, scrapbooks, postcards, the baseball card collection from when you were a kid, and musical instruments are better kept in a dry location in the home.
Group Items Together
Organization really begins once you know what you need to store. When your space is cleared out and the storage area is clean, sort the things you intend to keep into groups. By storing similar things together, it will be easier to find what you’re looking for in the basement.
Group your garden equipment together, gather any craft supplies and sort them into smaller groups, corral your car-care products, and begin to put all of the household tools in one place.
Designate a Place for Everything When You Organize Your Basement
Now that you have determined the groups of things you need to store, you can choose storage solutions for each category. A large trash can is a good container to hold long-handled tools, like shovels and rakes. Buy some pegboard to turn a wall into storage space. It’s easy to install and you can purchase hooks, clips, shelves, and small bins that fit into the pegboard.
Use large plastic totes to hold holiday decor and label each season so it’s easy to find. Create a DIY storage bin for sports equipment and balls by attaching bungee cords to a wooden frame. Build a workbench and install cabinets above it to make the perfect place for projects and storing craft supplies.
Organizing your basement will take time and effort, but the work will pay off when you have a functional and neat storage area.
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