The Worst Job of the Summer

You know that one big house project that you're dreading?  The one that you can't wait to be DONE with, but don't actually want to start?  That project for me was cleaning out my basement.  It was atrocious.  Seriously - think "we should probably call in the crew from Hoarders".  This was caused by a combination of things.  One being, when we moved in here in November 2009 there were a lot of boxes that we simply directed our movers (aka friends) to just stick in the basement to be dealt with "later".  Second, my parents sold their house and moved into an RV - leaving me with several boxes of stuff to store (including an entire set of blocks and a 1970's era Sesame Street play set for the grandchildren they may someday have).  But mostly, this got out of hand because I just kept ignoring it and then making it worse.

Here it is in all its unorganized glory:

Ok, so clearly SOMEONE doesn't mind the mess...

It took me 2 days of serious work, 14 large bags of trash, and a lot of plastic storage bins to get this place organized!  

Here's the "post-Hoarders" basement!

Wait - there was a floor down here?

Small pile on the right is for Goodwill.  Bins/pile against the wall is the parents'.

ahhhh - clean!

You can actually see my washing machine now!

Isaac would be happy that I dug out his big tool box and can now actually access it.

So much cleaner!

This is my new and improved laundry area.  I store my extra sheets and towels down here, so I added this plastic shelf from Target and some clear bins to organize a little better.

Every morning when I go down to feed the cats, I am SO happy I finally tackled this beast of a job.  It's so nice to actually be able to find things!

What's your least favorite big job?  Did you tackle any of those this summer??