Owning a house is great for many things, but as a recovering pack rat, it's hard to keep on the "don't accumulate random stuff" wagon. From parents dropping off boxes full of random crap to the items that show up as I work on props gigs to my own tendencies to hold onto every piece of paper that crosses my palm, it is really hard to let things go when I now have all this space to keep everything.
Back in college, I did a pretty good job of not accumulating stuff (you know, for me - it's all relative). There was a time when everything I owned fit into my car at once. I mean, it was an 1987 Oldsmobile named Tank, so that's not really saying all that much, but I was proud of it at the time.
And of course, even that doesn't really take into consideration all the stuff I had in storage at my mom's house. But when I left high school, my mom sold our house, so everything I had went into storage or to college with me, and I purged a lot of material goods at that time. There was some furniture, and some boxes of mementos, but even then I had managed to thin the herd pretty well.
From college through moving into the duplex I lived in before buying my house, I moved on average once every year (10 moves over 10 years). Moving is a great way to keep the amount of stuff you own to a minimum; Physically moving every thing you own reminds you to own less things. But even then, things started to creep in. Furniture - it takes up so much space, and no longer was I looking for shelves I could easily disassemble and put back together, or futons that could be rolled up tight. I had dressers and chairs and all sorts of things now that took up lots of space. And the supplies for my hobbies! Everything I've dabbled in, from painting to sewing to chainmail weaving, takes up so much space. The duplex was packed full and wasn't well organized, but having 4 separate people live there over the two and a half years we did accounts for some of that.
Now, though, we're in our house and it's time to start really settling in. Things that we would normally have wanted to do when we first moved in were pushed off for so long due to the need to rehab the house, and then plan a wedding. And all the theater! But now, it's time to start really organizing the house, and living in it fully. My goal is to get to the point where there is no longer sheetrock in the upstairs hallway, and every thing has a place, and every space is well organized. Not to a crazy level; I don't want to freak out of the hammers are in the wrong order or anything, but do I want to be able to find the hammers when I need them.
Current projects include:
- My office - once the walls are repaired and painted, this will hold my work table, desk and drafting table. I'll have a computer up and running instead of just my netbook, and be able to limit my sewing projects to this room. It'll hold all my personal art projects, as well as some prop making. The closet will hold any personal memento storage as well as supplies for my art.
- Hallway shelves - currently a dumping ground for tools, Christmas decorations, camping gear (so random), and a hodgepodge of "home goods" like curtain rods and outlet covers. All of those things will eventually live someplace else, which leaves a huge built-in shelving unit wide open. Someday it might be claimed by an expansion of the bathroom, but that's many years down the line. In the meantime, I'm not sure what to use it for. It's not a great linen closet, as our bedroom and private bath are downstairs. But something should live there, otherwise it will continue to be a dumping ground.
- Basement - currently holds our laundry area, a newly started props storage, a mess of a work area full of tools and building materials and storage for some friends. With a little organization and lots of vacuuming up of cobwebs, I think it could be a highly organized storage area. The laundry area will remain largely the same (though some tidying wouldn't be amiss). The area just at the bottom of the stairs has built in shelves, and between that and what we could do with the space under the stairs, I think all our holiday storage could be neatly contained. It would also be a great space to store kitchen items that aren't used regularly and are currently hidden around the house - things like my cake transporter tupperware thingie, or the huge broiling pan we use for the holidays. My workshop area is the one that needs the most work, as currently most of my tools are scattered on the floor, and there's no real worktable. I have big ideas for how to organize this area, and once I get it cleaned out, I think a weekend or two will see it transformed into a much more functional space. That just leaves props storage, which I think will be an ongoing situation. Currently I have 9-10 plastic bins that hold a variety of props. I don't want to necessarily have an ever expanding prop shop, but I don't want to limit it to that, either. So I need to find/make some shelves to hold those bins, and figure out a solution for the few items I have that don't fit into bins easily (suitcases, lanterns) and set it up in the back corner of the basement. Even with the stuff we're holding for friends, there's tons of space at the back end of our basement we're not using, and I'm looking forward to organizing it all.
- Garage - currently kind of a disaster. Partly because it's holding all our patio furniture and grill, partly because it was never fully cleaned out post major rehab on the house, partly because it's holding some stuff that should probably be stored in the house, including several boxes of props. This is a late springtime project, though, and hopefully by the time I get to it, everything that should live in the house will have a place to go.
*or paint or wood or hammers or vases or dishes or hats or shoulder bags or...
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