'We'll provide complete solutions for do-it-yourselfers, wannabes, and do-it-for-me homeowners' -Bob Vila
When we bought our house in October, there weren't major projects or renovations that needed to be done. If anything, we saw a few small improvement opportunities. Things like painting were the main thing that we noticed. Our basement isn't finished, it's main use is for storage. At one time the laundry was in the basement, but was moved up to the main floor at some point. The unfortunate fact is that we cannot use the laundry chute that is still in the house. We know that eventually we will tear up the kitchen, the main bathroom upstairs and the second bathroom/laundry room, but they are all livable. There is no dire situation right now. *knocks on wood, throws salt over shoulder, punches a Nazi, or whatever it is that superstitious people do to ward off bad luck*
There is a bank of shelves in the basement and we thought that this one bank along with the one that we bought from IKEA several years ago would have been enough. Boy were we mistaken. As it turns out, Rubbermaid totes take up a lot of room. A LOT of room. I'm not entirely sure where we put everything when we were living in the townhouse, but they seemed to multiply on our move. We had everything up on the shelves, but it was just extremely cramped.
We got extremely lucky in that my store was getting rid of a bunch of eight foot tall uprights that are used for shelving in the store. Instead of just throwing them all away, my boss was nice enough to offer them to me. The problem is that the rafters in the basement are about six and a half to seven feet tall. And by problem, I mean a fun problem. That meant that I was able to play around with power tools. All that was needed was to cut off two feet from the top and to re-drill a bolt hole in the top of the uprights for the cross support. The really awesome thing is that the shelves are adjustable so if we need to raise or lower them that is an option. I can also get an extra shelf or two if need be. Below are a few photos of the material once it was off loaded from the Jeep, one of the banks of shelves, and then the final setup. We ended up with two sets of six feet of shelves and one stand along three foot set of shelves. Along with the IKEA shelf we bought many years ago. Eighteen feet worth of shelving if you add it all up. It really cleared up the main room in the basement. Again, it's an unfinished basement so we aren't going to be down there constantly.
I think that one thing that these little projects (painting, shelves, etc.) is helping us out with is confidence that we can take on projects in the house. We know we aren't professionals and we don't have the means to be pros, but it's going to be these small projects that a house feel like a home. Things you can point to and say 'we did that'. We're eyeing up the closet in our bedroom for the next project. The previous owners didn't really utilize the space very well. Again, it's going to be something small, but manageable.
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