I have hated my basement for years.
We don’t have water issues or problems with bugs. The space is large, it gets natural light and the finished portion will eventually be the perfect playroom for our daughter.
But then there’s the storage area, a 15-by-20 unfinished space that houses the washer and dryer, water heater, a half-bath and a second refrigerator.
It’s also home to boxes of books, bikes, exercise and home repair equipment, outgrown baby items, furniture we no longer use, holiday decorations, leftover paint and piles upon piles of everything else we have no other place for. Retrieving something from this area typically requires equal doses of hunting, digging, sweating and cursing.
I have decorated and organized every other inch of our home (some rooms multiple times), but when it comes to the basement, I’m paralyzed. Each time I go to tackle this space, I take one look and come up with a thousand other things I need to do instead.
“Terri,” my husband said recently after spending an excessive amount of time in the basement searching for the bicycle pump. “This is absurd. We’ve become hoarders.”
“Oh, stop exaggerating,” I said, not because I thought he was but because I was trying to make myself feel better. But he was right: It was horrifying. And we had avoided the issue long enough.
At the recommendation of a friend, I contacted Alejandra Costello, an Arlington-based certified professional organizer and productivity coach. Costello, who teaches people how to organize their homes and lives through an online program as well as a series of YouTube videos, was recently featured on HGTV as one of the nation’s most organized people .
When she arrived at my house, I gave ample warning of the visual assault she was about to encounter as we headed toward the basement.
“Oh my goodness, it’s not that bad at all,” she said, laughing, while assessing the space.
She pointed out that I was focusing on all the negatives of the space (the unfinished walls and ceiling, the disorder, the general dreariness), rather than concentrating on the positives: the size of the room, the rows of shelves and a wall of pegboard (which was obscured by shelving).
She also said the size of the project was probably overwhelming me, and she guessed I had a mental block. Then she said something that really hit home.
“If you’re a perfectionist, you can sometimes think of a space in terms of: It’s either going to be a complete mess or magazine-worthy beautiful.”
As we continued talking, I realized something: I knew exactly what I wanted to do in the basement (a gut job and complete remodel), but I also knew it was very low on our house priority list.
“If the space ultimately won’t look the way I want it to,” I wondered out loud, “why should I waste my time working on it at all?”
“If that’s the case,” Costello said, “you need to make your expectations more realistic. Determine your definition of perfection and agree to meet yourself halfway.”
Lowering my expectations is not something I ever do comfortably, but in this case, it’s a necessity. My compromised plan: Organize now, upgrade later.
Loading...
Comments