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Finally

After almost a week of sitting around on my butt I finally did something to make my house look better. I have all kinds of Projects that I keep talking about, but I never do them. Yesterday I started cleaning the basement.

My basement is a storage room for me and is easily the most cluttered, messiest, bomb-went-off place in my house. All spring I kept saying to myself: “I’ll clean it out this summer… I’ll clean it out this summer.” Then I went to Nebraska, then I got a kitten. Always excuses.

It went slower than I thought it would because I had to keep deciding things:
“Where should this go?”
“Should I keep this or throw it out?”
“Does this need to be cleaned before I put it away?”
“Should I keep this or throw it out?”
“Where in the world did I get this?”
“Should I keep this or throw it out?”

In the end, I didn’t get very far, but now that I’ve started, I think I’ll be inspired to keep going. We’ll see tomorrow…

THE “NORTH” SIDE BEFORE:
I still have a shower down here!  Unfortunately, it's full of spiders. *jibblie*  *jibblie*

THE “NORTH” SIDE AFTER:
I didn't do much but there is one significant change.  Do you see it?

THE “SOUTH” SIDE BEFORE:
I actually made some small progress with the Pew Project.

THE “SOUTH” SIDE AFTER:
More changes here.  See them?

22 Comments

  1. Deanne

    Here’s a question for you. Do you have any “wouldn’t it be cool if…” ideas for your basement? If you don’t that’s a good reason not to clean it. If you do, then it will give you more motivation to sort through things.

    Just in case you don’t, let’s all give Brad some ideas for the basement.

    Wouldn’t it be cool if your basement was the neatest kitten playground ever invented for Maxie to play on?

    • Kim

      I see a racquetball court…you can do it!

  2. Beth

    Um…on the north…you moved the clothes rack?? That’s my guess…

    I think you should haul a whole bunch of that stuff up to your yard and put a FREE sign up. That would get rid of it in a heart beat.

    I think with all that stuff everywhere it already is the coolest kitten playground ever. Cats are like kids…but them all the toys in the world and they’ll carry around a wadded up papertowel and play with it all day. 😀

    Butcool idea D, and I’ll play that game, too…wouldn’t it be cool if Brad’s basement was a 1970s martini bar?

  3. Beth

    What’s in those pink boxes at the bottom of the stairs? Did you get me a Hello Kitty curling iron for my birthday?

    • Brad

      Those are Barbie dolls Denis bought for his nieces. They’ve been there for a while. I think by the time he gets them sent, the girls will be in college. hehe

  4. Kim

    Wow! All that work must have taken you 5-10 minutes! Well done-now go sit down.

  5. Lauren

    I’m most impressed that you remembered to take ‘before’ pictures.

    The only advice I can give (tongue-in-cheek, of course, since you’ve been in our crummy basement) is, “Who’s kidding who?” I cleaned the top of our fridge yesterday and that was the driving phrase. Who’s kidding who? I’m never going to use this stuff. Good-bye, metal bowl, ceramic dish and several mugs!

    • Deanne

      Arrow in my heart… does that mean my containers on the fridge have to go?????

  6. Peggy

    Silly Brad—that’s the way basements are supposed to look! Their original purpose was to create a place to store stuff that you’ll never use, but don’t want to throw away. The only reason to clean it up, is to make room for more stuff.

    (Note to self: Your bedroom closet is not a basement–go clean it!!)

  7. Karla

    You made a shelf!! And you killed a spider. 😉 Seriously, where is the shower down there? And Arron was happy to see that someone’s basement looks worse than ours.

    • Brad

      Do you see the shower curtain? There is a hose with a sprinkler attachment hanging from the ceiling in that corner. I used that as my shower five(?) years ago while my bathroom was demolished.

      • Peggy

        That is ingenious!! Before there was Les Stroud, there was the Brad!!

  8. Brad

    On the north side, I got rid of the half of a pew that was making the clothing rack have to be in the middle of the room. I cut it to pieces and kept what I needed. The rest will go to the dump today when I get my truck back. Co-worker Rosie is borrowing it today.

    • Lauren

      How many pews do you have, anyway? Are you robbing churches now?

  9. Carol

    Your “before” and “after” shots remind me of those “find the differences” cartoons in Highlights children’s magazines. Let’s see now – on the north end whatever was blocking full view of the yellow box with red “HUSH” letters on it is gone…the clothes rack is gone…a level (?) leaning on the shelf on the right side is gone…how’m I doin’? Can I circle as many as I find on my computer screen and mail you my monitor for a valuable prize?

  10. kiwe

    I knew it! I knew there had to be a place in your house that looked like your desk at school! And Lauren defended your closet “His closet is really neat.” Ahhh, but what she failed to mention was that your basement had barbies, church pews, clothing, and 500 boxes of tide in it!

    So now presenting cat heaven
    http://images.chattanoogan.com/article_images/article_96147.jpg

    Or martini bar
    http://www.tampabay360.com/tours/467/pic.jpg

    That could be you in that bowling shirt

    • Brad

      Haha! What is the guy in that martini bar picture looking at? That’s hilarious!

  11. Lloyd

    Come to think of it, I think you cleaned our basement while you were here. I’m pretty sure that I recall several items being a few feet to the right of where they are now.

    I think the rest of you should go downstairs right now and see if maybe Brad hasn’t been in your basement recently as well.

    • Kim

      dnag it! That is where our pews went…I need to purchase some Emerald Nuts.

    • Peggy

      HA! LOL Lloyd!

  12. Mark (Lauren's brother)

    Please, give the man (MAN) a break. This is how MEN clean: its the QUALITY of cleaning, not quantity of cleaning! I’m sure what Brad cleaned was cleaned very well!

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