Basement: organized. (sort of)

The basement has come along nicely since I last talked about it ..... uhh... a week ago. =)  We got all the insulation out and everything cleaned up. In the process of taking things apart we decided not to take the walls out completely. We left about three or four studs out on each end and took out the corner part (which I know doesn't make a lot of sense for you visual folks).  We left a bit of wall on the north side.  We decided to build a much smaller root cellar with that as one of the walls. I'm not sure when we'll get to that project, so the insulation will live there in the corner in the meantime, as well as a few 2x4s ready for making new walls.  Hopefully we'll get this set-up in the fall in time for storing onions, potatoes, carrots, garlic, etc.

Over on the right you can see the bit of wall we left from the original, large root cellar / walk-in cooler. Someday that will be the right wall of a more closet-sized root cellar. And beyond is a lovely set of shelves Jeremy whipped together. 

Jeremy constructing another set of shelves. I'm back in the corner of the basement, inside the former root cellar. 

And here is the first set of shelves, all full of stuff!

Another set of shelves, on the other side of that partial wall we left, also filling up with stuff... 

And the last set of shelves.  Goodness it is glorious down in the basement now - so many wonderful shelves! 

I debated whether or not to post all these photos of our junk in the basement. But I have to say this blog is just as much for us as for all of you. I rather enjoy looking back through the years to see what we've been up to, and the various changes we've made to the house. So of course I had to post these pics.

Also, these pics were taken a week ago, and already it's gotten a bit messy.  Much of this stuff came from the front of the basement. Moving it back here allowed us to move loads of stuff in from the garage.  More about the garage project soon...

And now I'm going to make some excuses for why we have SO many boxes in the basement.  Really, I'm a bit embarrassed about it. What IS all that JUNK!?  When I was single in Seattle I had maybe 5 or 6 boxes of "stuff" stored away in the back of a closet. A few stuffed animals and toys from childhood I can't bear to get rid of, journals, papers from school (all ages) - that sort of thing that many of us have, can't bear to throw away, and also don't really want to display in our adult homes. Jeremy has stuff like that too, though I think he has literally every homework assignment he ever completed in every grade, including college and grad school. Then there are probably 15-20 boxes of kitchen stuff that just doesn't fit in our kitchen. Seriously - we need a remodel that makes our ENTIRE house a kitchen, with a tiny little bathroom and bedroom and sewing room tucked away somewhere. We spend all our time in the kitchen anyway. And then there are loads of random tools and construction things, boxes with fixtures, plug-in things, electrical wire, etc.  And then, the kicker, there are dozens and dozens of empty boxes for mushrooms. Yep. Piles of empty boxes.

Okay, now I feel a little bit better about myself, and our packed out basement!