My Dirty Little Secret

...isn't as bad as you might think. My dirty little secret is a bit mundane, but it's still annoying to me. It's our main floor guest bedroom.

After our basement began getting wet in May, we brought some things upstairs and moved others to dry spots in the basement. As the summer went along, I kept stuffing things in the room. It got to the point where I couldn't walk into the room, so I spent a couple hours over the weekend cleaning it up. 

But it'll be getting worse soon because we're getting ready to put the basement back together. Rather than moving things back and forth, we're going to move the small things upstairs. I'll do my best to stack things and maintain a walkway, but it's not going to be pretty.

After dealing with a wet basement the last two years, I have a little advice to share:

1. After the flood, go through everything. Toss, donate or sell everything that isn't a keeper. 
2. Move the leftovers to a dry room. If you don't have a dry spot, I recommend renting a storage unit, but keep in mind your time line and the cost. Also, if you can live without it for more than six months, do you really need it?
3. As the work in your basement is underway, consider where you'll put everything when it's finished. Now is a good time to change the layout or use of the space. Research the furniture and organizing supplies you'll need. If you have room, purchase small items, particularly decorative storage boxes and start reorganizing. It'll make transitioning back to the damaged rooms much easier!

Have you had to deal with damage to a part of your home? Any advice on how to handle it?

How One Misplaced Item (or a Bunch) Can Ruin it All

OK, so my post's title is a little dramatic, but many of us have had those times when one thing has thrown our entire schedule or home out of whack. Erin Doland at Unclutterer named it so well: the Keystone Demise. In architecture the keystone is the center stone of an arch that holds the arch together.

While explaining this concept to my husband, I pointed to the two main causes of our keystone demise: cute, lovable Claire and our wet basement. (If you read that like I did, cute, lovable Claire was upbeat and happy but wet basement was neither and followed by a "whop whop whop" sound like when people fail on a game show.) While neither is as minor as the triggers Doland refers to, my things have greatly contributed to our disorganization. (And we've had plenty of those minor things that have thrown what little routine and organization we have out of whack. They're just really minor in our grand scheme of things.)

In May 2010, when cute, lovable Claire was just shy of two months old, we had a flash flood that caused water to pour into one of our basement windows. I was fortunate to have my parents and younger brother visiting, so with Nick at work and Mom watching Claire, Dad, Eric and I set to work clearing the office and bar and bailing as much water as possible. 

We were left with soggy carpets, a relatively unusable basement and a jam packed upstairs guest bedroom.  I was basically camped out in the master bedroom with Claire anyway, so it didn't really impact my routine. 

But that's mainly because my routine was fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-figure-out-how-to-be-a-mother. Yes, that's right, everything was already up in the air and disorganized (and my routines have complex dashed titles). 

(I just had to pause and take a deep breath. Just writing this is giving me anxiety.) 

We got the basement back together, but never completely organized and finished. Claire has grown a lot, but we're still taking it day by day with her. Then in early May it began to rain and it didn't really stop until the end of June with intermittent downpours and showers in July and August. And we've found ourselves in the same place again with a damp, disorganized basement and a cluttered upstairs guest bedroom.

(Here, guest, whom I love enough to host in my home, just step over that pile,

leap the next pile and from there you should be able to jump into bed.)

So, a number of things have led to a state of chronic disorganization in my home. (It's been over a year! I consider that chronic.) It has to stop. We have to get everything back together. My sanity is at stake here. Throughout the fall, and undoubtedly into the winter, we'll work to get everything back together and finished. As I go, I'll share my solutions and tips to an organized, usable and, most importantly, a finished basement.

Have you had a similar case of chronic disorganization? What set it off? How did you resolve it?