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How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Basement Purge Reveal
![Rita C. - Panoply](https://cdn-fastly.hometalk.com/media/profile/2015/09/01/179088_1.jpg?size=91x91)
by
Rita C. - Panoply
(IC: blogger)
One month, 70 hours, 4 separate trash piles and donation loads, and 3 tubs full to each of my girls later, I have finally organized my basement "stuff"! This is how I spent my summer vacation - well, all of August, anyway. This is part of a series in my ongoing quest to . See my blog link for more, as well as posts here on Hometalk.
First, let me define my stuff:
Inventory for resale (antique dealer), household things moved into my marriage 11 years ago, children's nostalgia (they're married adults now), work and grad school history, miscellaneous & obsolete electronics.
First, let me define my stuff:
Inventory for resale (antique dealer), household things moved into my marriage 11 years ago, children's nostalgia (they're married adults now), work and grad school history, miscellaneous & obsolete electronics.
This "stuff" didn't happen overnight, and the perimeter grew with each new auction or estate sale over the years. Boxes would come in, get numbered, and be identified by key words of items in those boxes, or by the event title (eg., xyz estate sale).
What I learned after a month of working through my basement is I have a touch of ADCD - attention deficit CLEANING disorder. I started off with one intended project of reorganizing my resale inventory, and the project immediately snowballed into purging old containers and reorganizing most of the basement (and a couple closets I was using for overflow) contents - whether it was 1, 11 or 21 year old stuff. I was easily sidetracked with little to show for my effort the first few weeks. I persevered.
I also learned there is a HUGE amount of stuff in this world. I like the fact that I buy mostly used stuff. And I'm getting better at getting rid of stuff - especially someone else's!
I even had foodstuffs - artwork, that is. Did you know macaroni, dried beans and pretzels have a shelf life of more than 21 years?! Yes, and my house must be pretty airtight because, thankfully, I had no bugs or mice. (Btw, I took photos and trashed these).
By the time I finished (are we EVER finished?) with this project, I had four consecutive weeks of donations and trash that looked like each of the photos here.
Okay, with all that said, the following are a few photos of the fruits of my labor.
I purchased 3 commercial shelving units from Sam's - they were pretty easy to put together, even by myself. They hold up to 1500 lbs each, if you don't use the casters.
After the purge, I organized my wall of tubs, categorized by types of items (eg., metals, glassware, transferware, etc.). The boxes you see on the shelves are items ready to go to either our booth space or upcoming barn sale.
What remains on the floor space is now ready for sale. I'm a happier camper and sometimes just go to the basement to look at less "stuff". I'm thinking a roller rink might be good option - I even have a vintage pair of roller skates I could use - I think they're in the metals tub. ;)
Enjoyed the project?
![Rita C. - Panoply](https://cdn-fastly.hometalk.com/media/profile/2015/09/01/179088_1.jpg?size=91x91)
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Published September 3rd, 2014 8:02 PM
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Gini on Sep 02, 2015
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Rita C. - Panoply on Nov 03, 2016
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