Basement deja vu

I freely admit it, I am a Type A personality . . . and no one is surprised by this, I am sure. Which is why in addition to general getting baby things ready, I had lots of house-related items on my pre-baby checklist. It is hard for me to relax if the house is not organized . . . it doesn't have to be spotlessly clean, but I do like for things to be where they belong.

So yes, I had "organize the basement" on my checklist. In fact, I have yet to check it off as there are still a couple little spots to tweak, but it's good enough that if this is as far as it gets before the baby arrives I can live with it. Some of you may remember that I wrote an "organizing the basement" post in January 2010, but it's a job that has to be done at least once a year, especially after a kid enters the picture!

At any rate, my "before" looks remarkably like the "after" from my previous post. I had just gotten tired of having to un-stack every bin in order to get at what I need, so a new system was called for. Enter Lowe's . . . two shelving units later our basement was like new!

Before . . . death trap for pregnant people who can barely see their feet!

After . . . the closeup . . .

. . . and the bigger picture.

Now some things are still stacked, but they are all "like" items, and stacked with the most-often accessed and lightest on top. The best part is that there are no piles that are two and three bins deep, so I can quickly identify what I am looking for and get right at it. Actually, the best part might have been how amazingly quick and easy the units were to put together, but Lowe's isn't paying me to sing their praises, so enough about that!

And a tangent . . .

One item I crossed off my list as "unnecessary" . . . painting the cradle. Forget painting all those spindles by hand, I think the quilt looks better in a natural stained wooden cradle that it would in a white cradle. So now that the quilt is finished and my super deal-finding aunt found us some new-to-us cradle sized sheets at yard sales (can't beat sheets for a quarter!), we actually have a place all ready for the bambino when he/she arrives!