Basement-Attic-Donate-Toss

We’re dividing everything in the basement into one of four categories: Basement, Attic, Donate, Toss. After a few Oliver naps worth of work, this is how much trash we’ve weeded out of the basement. This is just garbage and recycling. And we’re not even done yet. It’s scary how much more there is to go through. SO. MUCH. STUFF.

I know this isn’t exciting. More bags of junk piled up in our basement! Hooray! But I want to share how much we’re getting rid of after showing off those horrific mess photos. And it’s a lot of time and work to go through all this, even if all we have to show for it right now is piles and piles of bags.

Mostly this is shipping boxes and product packaging boxes we either wanted to save “just in case” or because we didn’t feel like dealing with it. It’s huge chunks of foam and plastic wrap. Broken things we swore we would fix but never got around to (and now realizing we never will). Art supplies I haven’t touched in so long it dried up (like paint, glue, fixatives, etc.). Outdated software manuals, notebooks from old college classes, wedding magazines and “memories” I thought I’d want to save forever and now can’t even recall. A ton of old computer parts that are now completely outdated. Free building supplies we accepted and never touched. Garbage, recycling, be gone!

It’s wild how much we saved, thinking our basement was so big that it would take a decade to fill it up. 3.5 years, 1 baby, and 3 major reorganizations later it’s time to seriously pare it down. Deciding what stays and what goes is not always easy. If we haven’t used (or worn) it in 3 years, if we don’t have a specific use for it in the near future, if it’s not designated for a specific place in our house - it goes. Anything in good shape is either being donated or given away to family/friends who could use it. Some things that are borrowed will be returned to their owners. We could have hosted a garage sale but January is the wrong time of year and I don’t want to hold onto any of this until spring. It’s more important to me that we get these things out of the house.

Things that we are keeping all have to be designated to either stay in the basement or go up to the attic. Things that need to be easily accessible or are temperature sensitive will remain down here (kitchen storage, office storage, tools, instruments, etc.). Things that we don’t need as often like off-season clothes and bedding, outgrown baby clothes, outgrown baby toys and gear, holiday decorations, etc. will all go up to the attic.

Right now almost our entire basement is devoted to storage. Between the attic, trash and donations and we want to cut that down to fit in ¼ of the basement plus the crawl space. It’s a really tall order.