Hey, it's Abby and today I'm excited to take you on a tour of our organized basement.
I didn't ever think that this space was actually going to get finished.
I had it on my list to do in 2018 and that didn't happen.
Then, I planned to get it all finished in January and that didn't happen either.
But here we are mid-March and I'm thrilled that this space is finally all neat and tidy
and just the way we wanted it!
Our basement is unfinished and we don't really have any plans to finish it off in the near
future.
We have plenty of hang out space upstairs and this space is functioning really well
for us right now as a place to do projects, do activities like ping-pong and hockey, and
store some extra stuff.
It wasn't always neat and tidy, though.
One of the reasons that I put off this project for so long is because the basement was a
total wreck to begin with.
It was our catch-all spot.
Anything we didn't know what do do with, we just threw down here.
It ended up as a mix of tools, furniture, storage bins, and hockey gear that didn't
really have any great systems to keep them in order.
The basement has a pretty large footprint so when I went to get everything organized,
I broke it down into 3 main zones: a workshop and DIY zone on either side of the stairs
to hold all of Donnie's tools and his workbench, some trim work, paint, and tiling supplies.
In the center, equipment for sports and activities, mostly ping-pong and hockey.
And a storage area to hold seasonal decor, hand-me down clothes, and sentimental items.
Let's take a closer look at each zone.
First, Donnie's workshop area.
After our garage organization video, we had a lot of people ask "But where are your tools?"
and this is where they are!
Having a workshop in the basement means that we can still park both cars in the garage
and Donnie can keep his workshop set up at all times so it's a win-win for us.
Because he's using a saw down here, we have a dust collection system in place so that
saw dust isn't going everywhere.
Donnie also spent a lot of time organizing all of his tools and accessories.
Throughout the basement, we've used Gladiator shelves which are really sturdy and can hold
a lot at the same time.
We have a long post about Donnie's favorite tool storage systems which I'll link in the
description below but for the most part he's using a combination of Festool, Ridgid, Milwaukee,
Bosch, and Ryobi cases and toolboxes to store his equipment.
He has a long work bench down the center that gives him lots of room to work on projects
and he's also using an old standing desk in this space for an additional work area.
Moving around to the other side of the stairs, we have the rest of our DIY supplies.
We do a lot of projects around here so we might keep around more supplies than many
people.
We are in the process of changing out most of the trim work in our house and trimming
out all of the windows so we needed a way to store all of the trim pieces.
These wall brackets ended up being the perfect solution.
They can hold a ton and keep everything organized so we can easily find the pieces we need.
This corner holds all of our painting and tiling supplies.
Our whole house was a sterile, builder white when we moved in so we've been working on
painting the entire thing which is why we have so much paint.
Once we've gotten through each room, we'll be able to pare down our collection some.
We also have painting supplies like brushes, mixers, rollers, and drop cloths.
We also have a few tiling projects planned for the not too distant future so we have
a bunch of grout and other supplies as well as some tile from various projects we've done.
The pipes that you see are rough ins for a bathroom that we'll use if we ever decide
to finish off this space in the future.
The far end of the basement is used by our son, Connor, for hockey practice.
I love that he has an area that he can practice shooting and stick handling any time and this
space is definitely well used!
We had to take down some of the insulation on the walls because it was in rough shape
from so many hockey pucks being shot at it.
The furniture along the sides are pieces we're holding on to for friends who may use them
soon but otherwise this end of the basement is all hockey, all the time.
This cart holds extra accessories that Connor uses for drills and the bin has hockey pucks,
balls, and a set of gloves.
Donnie loves to play ping-pong down here too and is thrilled to finally have a place to
set up his ping-pong table.
While we're storing furniture, we figured we might as well put it to good use.
This IKEA KALLAX unit holds all of the extra ping-pong balls and accessories so that they're
easily accessible.
In the area under the stairs, we have a bench that makes a nice resting spot.
This area primarily holds our luggage but since it's still cold outside now, we are
storing our deck furniture here.
It kind of fits together like Tetris back in there.
Finally we have an area for storage.
Since our house is fairly new, our basement does not get damp so it's safe to store seasonal
decor and some momentos in this spaces.
We use the Gladiator shelving over here again and I opted to use clear bins so we could
easily see what is in each one and can grab what we need when we need it.
Each member of our family only has one large bin that holds sentimental items.
I have a post with all the details about them that I will link in the description below.
The rest of this shelf is Christmas decor with our big Christmas tree stored at the
top.
There is more Christmas decor on this other side along with our two smaller trees.
I do keep a lot of Christmas decor around because I do home tours each year on my blog
and it would be pretty boring if every year looked the same.
I basically have a set of traditional red and green Christmas decor and a set of more
neutral Christmas decor which is why there are so many Christmas bins.
I labeled all the bins with labels I made using my Silhouette Cameo cutting machine
and adhesive vinyl.
I have a whole video on that process that I can link below.
This dresser holds all of the hand-me-downs for our boys, separated by size.
I file fold them so it's really easy to see what we have in each drawer.
Finally, this last shelf holds a little bit of fall and spring decor as well as some items
we use for parties and gatherings.
The top shelf holds a few seasonal wreaths and there's even an empty bin so we have room
to grow if we need to.
That about does it for our organized basement tour.
Let's take a look at the before and afters!
Thank you so much for taking the tour of our organized basement.
It may have taken awhile to get it to this point but we are thrilled that it is all neat
and tidy now.
Do you have any areas in your own home that seem to have taken forever to organize?
Let me know about them in the comments below.
And for more organizing inspiration and behind the scenes sneak peeks, be sure to follow
along on Instagram @abbyorganizes.
Happy organizing!