Almost Done...and Basement Tidy Again

I'm down to about four things left on my list in my preparation for overnight guests. I sure do like to stretch the tasks out over the week so it doesn't feel like I'm doing that much. In reality, I'm doing quite a bit. In my last post, I think I mentioned that my brain wanted to attend to other unnecessary tasks as part of the guest preparation. I did end up doing one of them.

I straightened up the basement storage area. Again!

The basement storage really is one of those catch all places in our house. It needs to go to Goodwill? Put it in the basement. You don't want that in your room, but want to keep it? Put in the basement. You get the idea. If it doesn't have a particular place elsewhere in the house, or in the trash or recycle bin, IT goes to the basement.

I've been rearranging furniture and decor items in the last few weeks, so extra stuff has been pulled out of bins or moved to the storage area. We also had my daughter's art sale a couple weeks back, and the preparation from that put things out of their normal places. Today, the chaos just got to me.

I intended to take a picture, but when I went to find the camera I was distracted by something else. When I ended back in the storage room, forgetting about the camera, I just started in on my work. Here's what I did to make it look a little more tidy:

• Emptied one box of books and added them to another half full tub of books
• Pulled out my items to sell on Ebay and found a shipping container for all of them. I then put them back in my Ebay box
• Put back and straightened my leftover shipping containers, and recycled a few others
• Emptied the box from our new cell phones and put old chargers and phones in a designated tub of electronics
• Emptied a mailer with birthday gifts and put them in a gift bag! 
• Found half a box of items to go to Goodwill. I sent them with my husband within the hour to be dropped off. 
• Set some packing material aside for my overnight guest. If she doesn't want it, it is getting dumped!
• I straightened a few other areas, but the whole storage area is back in better shape. Not perfect, but much, much better

I found time to make a virtually free gift for a friend moving out of state. I cut a heart shape from an old atlas of her current city. I glued it to a light blue piece of paper and mounted it in a white 8 x 10 picture frame. It may not exactly be her style, but I think the sentiment and thought will be understood. I had all the items on hand and will deliver it when I see her next week.

All in all it has been a productive day and week! It always feels good to get tasks done and off my list, either the one I wrote or the one I have in my head. Did you have a productive week? Is there a clutter prone area you need to tackle again?