The Aerie
Eventually, everything backed up to my desk. My basement was so messy I couldn't remove anything from my desk. That's somewhat like being so constipated you can't close your mouth. So I decided the time had come for the long-delayed Major Basement Clean-Up...
We have four rooms in our basement, five if you count the laundry room which is more like an alcove off a hallway. We have the Kids Play Room, my Office, my Workroom, and the Big Unfinished Room. In the center of these is the staircase up, and the laundry room beside and beneath it.
In order to clean the basement, I had to begin by cleaning the Big Unfinished Room. This had become the Repository for All Junk within our house, and was now practically impassable. It had not been helped by a series of floods last spring, the first when our pump failed, the second when the float of the new pump became wedged against the sump wall, and the third when my attempt to prevent further wedging failed.
So the Unfinished Room was a disaster area - upended furniture, soaked and dried carboard boxes, paper and pop cans from some sleepover that got out of hand at 3 a.m., and dominating it all in the middle of the room the dehumidifier up on the stump of an old dining room table, staving off mildew. (Thanks for the dehumidifier Mom, you probably saved our house!)
The whole family pitched in on the Unfinished room, and in one day it was in resonable order. On to the next.
The next room was the Kids Game Room. It was a wreck because tons of old toys and games had accumulated and gathered dust. Since the Unfinished Room was clogged, the old toys couldn't be moved out of the Game Room. A weekend was spent with soapy water and ammonia, washing all surfaces and all toys. Then unused toys were stored (neatly) in the Unfinished Room.
Then, on to the Workroom, which couldn't be cleaned earlier because nothing could be moved out into the Game Room or the Unfinished Room. It had accumulated its own set of boxes, old computers, chairs, and junk. Another weekend was spent removing everything from the room (to the Game Room for sorting), cleaning out the dust and spiderwebs. Finally I had to come up with a new storage scheme before I could put stuff back in - otherwise I'd just be back where I started.
In a fairly pathetic scene, I nostalgically packed away all of my telephone wiring (accumulated since the early 1980's), all my serial cables (accumulated since the late 1980's), and all my SCSI cabling (accumulated since the early 1990's). Nowadays they are all useless, replaced by wireless telephones, USB cables, and Firewire. The whole back wall of the room is stuff To Be Donated, which I'll get out of there soon I hope...
Pant pant.
So finally I came to the Office. Couldn't clean the Office because lots of what was in the office needed to be put into the Workroom. But the Workroom had been in chaos, so everything was backed up onto my desk.
I emptied junk from the Office to their new places in the Workroom. Then I used that space to sort all the papers that had built up. Then I used THAT space to sort all my CDs (packing about 100 away for eventual disposal). Finally I moved a bunch of stuff out of the closet and into the Unfinished Room, and sorted all my investment letters from the past year into their folders.
And finally, with all that done, I was able to put away the stuff from my desk, into the Workroom... which is where this all started about a month ago.
Next... the attic!
But the moral of the story is... we are truly owned by our possessions!
Posted by Albatross at January 5, 2005 10:41 PM