Getting Organized - The Beginning

There's nothing like a long weekend to take advantage of those projects that manage to add up during the week. This weekend was the beginning of the basement reorganization project (known as BRP). To give you a sense of where we're starting from, here are a few current pictures of my future office.







Nice, huh! As you can tell, it's not quite ready to liveout it's full office potential. So we went to Lowe's, because Lowe's is the go-to store for helping basements become offices. Top on the list - carpeting to cover up the cold cement floor. The guys at Lowe's asked if we were thinking of installing it ourselves or wanted them to do it and I had to laugh. As much as I wish I were handy like that (not to mention that it would definitely help cut down my basement remodel costs), I'm just not and know that it will cost me less in the long run if I outsource the project to the experts. So Lowe's got us all set up with an appointment to come and measure the area to figure out how much carpeting we need. While we were there we also checked out some of their carpeting samples and found a nice selection of Eco-friendly options which are made from recycled plastic bottles. Plus they are already Stainmastered which is key in a household with pups. The carpeting seemed nice, they had a great selection of colors and styles, and it turns out the Eco stuff is cheaper then regular carpeting. If I were recarpeting my entire house I may do more inquiring into why that is the case, but this is a 200sqft basement I'm talking about so I'm not going to worry about it and just be happy that we're being Green.

It's looking like the carpeting will likely cost us about $500 after you include installation. However, it turns out we have a full can of paint leftover from the previous owners and since I was just going to repaint the basement the same color I'm hoping I have enough to get the job done to save a little money on that end.

Course I can't get the walls painted or the carpeting in until the basement gets cleaned up. So hubby and I spent the morning cleaning it out and reorganizing everything. It's amazing how much crap can accumulate in such a small space! Most of said crap is now looking for a new home thanks to Craigslist.

So we're getting there. Small steps but steps nonetheless. I'm leaving for a girls weekend in Austin next weekend so I likely won't get started on repainting until after I get back. Hopefully by then all the Craigslist stuff will have been sold/given away. On another note, those cubes I ordered from the DWR liquidator did arrive without a problem. I haven't set it up yet but here's a sample photo:


I've actually decided that rather than keeping all four units in storage for 9 months out of the year, I'm going to open up two of them and use them in the new basement rather than purchasing additional new shelves for that (see, saving more $$$). Realistically the cubes are only 'traveling' to shows 2 months a year so during that time anything in them will just get temporarily moved out.