Our basement has been cleaned a few times. Then slowly we get lazy and start to fill it up. Not sure where to put 12 random Easter baskets? Well the basement will do. How about books or toys that are broken?  Yep, you guessed it, shove it in the basement. Then it seems like Eddy and I are again saying, “We need to be cleaning out the basement.” To which my insides scream and it turns into a scene from a horror movie.

Since moving into our home and out of the dungeon I have wanted to make sure things have a place and everything in it’s place. There seems to always be an excuse to not stay on top of things and organize. I have mentioned before that when we moved I wanted to go through everything and purge before we moved. Well moving day came and I still have some random things to pack!

I can’t be too hard on myself because I was 4 months pregnant. And also packing up my classroom. So I did have just a few things on my plate. Ha!

With my year of simplifying I have decided that I will slowly but surely go through everything (ok, almost everything!) in my house. I am going to decide if I will…

• Keep it for right now
• Keep it for later
• Try to sell
• Donate it
• Toss it in the trash

Why would I keep it for right now?

If we use it, love it, need it then it stays. I have a feeling that I will want to put a lot of things into this pile. I need to stay STRONG! The good thing about my waiting oops I mean procrastinating is I am sick and tired of all the junk. Fingers crossed I can be realistic.

Why on earth would I keep things for later??

Good question! I’m going to hang onto my baby stuff for a bit longer because you know I love having a ton of stuff to store. 😉 We have tubs and tubs of kid clothes. They are staying until they need to be thrown away or all my kiddos are too big for them. Then we have holiday, camping, work stuff, tools, etc. You know, things that are used yearly but not all year long.

Why am I going to hassle with trying to sell my junk?

To others it may be gold! haha. But seriously we no longer need some things that are in good or decent shape. There is no reason to try to make a little money off of them. This is what we will use the money for: turning the basement into a playroom, bunk beds, a new dresser for Mr. E and Miss L, and making a few changes in the kid’s rooms. I’ll keep you updated.

Where will we donate our unwanted stuff?

There are so many places that could use our old stuff. We could drop it off to thrift stores (probably the easiest). We could take things to the homeless shelter. I’m sure with a quick Google search I could find many places to donate our stuff to.

What will go in the trash?

Anything that is broken beyond repair will be tossed in the trash. Good riddance!

Yesterday Eddy and I spent a few hours working. Eddy re-organized the garage hanging shelves. It looks awesome! I started taking things upstairs one load at a time. It was a good workout! Our basement consists of one mostly finished large bedroom, a roughed in bathroom (inside of the bedroom), a small utility room, and a storage room.

The storage room is nice and organized. It has been for about a year. It was the rest of the basement that was filled with stuff. I have escaped into the basement and am working while my wonderful mom watches my girls. Thanks mom! The room seems HUGE with only the desk, a small filing cabinet, and treadmill in it.

But, take a look at my garage!! AHHHH! We really just moved the mess from one place to another. The bonus is that we have room to go through every last one of those boxes, tubs, and bags. We will be able to make piles and get things sorted. We still have space to put some plastic tubs in the hanging garage racks. The other good thing is we want to get our cars back into the garage soon. This will motivate us to keep working on it.

Next Steps

As you can see we have a list of things we want to accomplish with the basement. We really have only crossed off one thing. But that is OKAY! We have actually started. That was a hard part because we kept putting it off. It took Eddy telling me that we just need do it next week to get pumped to start.

Tomorrow Eddy and I will spend as much time in the garage as we can going through things. As we start to get a pile of things to sell I will start posting them on different yard sale sights on Facebook. It will be nice to get rid of things during the process of sorting it. I hope that will help me to want to get rid of even more.

Stay tuned for our progress of sorting our stuff and turning the basement into a playroom here and on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Do you have any cleaning or simplifying goals that you are working on now? What tips or tricks do you have? One tip I have is writing a master plan or list of what you would like to do. This will help keep you on track and get everything out of your head. I love having it written down so I remember it and it allows me to cross it off when I am done! Get my Simplifying Printables to get started.

Xoxo

Steph