Kitchen Sink

Underneath my kitchen sink...to be more specific. That space is a mess.

I keep all my cleaning supplies down there, plus a vase or two. There are plumbing pipes to get around and a garbage disposal but just look at it. I'm clearly not using the space as well as I could. From all the organizer blogs I've been reading lately I think the solution is a combination of lazy susans and undersink shelving. I'm thinking something like this  and maybe something like this too, to hold my most used cleaners.

If OrgJunkie, OMF or OTO or anyone else happen to see this post..I'd love ideas for products to help organize this space better. I'm going to tackle it some time this weekend I think.

I also need a solution for all our CDs and DVDs. They're taking up way too much space on a storage shelf in the storage room of the basement. We don't even use the CDs since we stored all the music on our media server. That shelf could be much better used..I'm going to tackle that this weekend too, now that the super hot is finally going away (right? it IS going away isn't it?) and I won't be obligated to swim with the kids every single day.

these need to move, i could better use that shelf

I should have taken before and after pictures, but I'm super lazy so I didn't, but I rearranged the sort of hallway at the bottom of the basement stairs. You come down the stairs and at the bottom, toward the right there's a mini fridge and wine fridge, shredder and trash can. We're going to move the minifridge over by the couch (no pictures of that) and the wine fridge somewhere into the storage room. I'll likely leave the trash can and move the shredder into my pretend new office area.

bottom of stairs

 The door (on the right wall) to the storage room is there, with a wall. Along that wall we had a deck box with all our swimwear and towels (we have A LOT of beach towels) and a bookshelf holding all our games and some random books we were keeping for whatever reason. Anyway, since I'm selling the hope chest there's room in the storage room, I pulled out the hope chest, and slid in the deck box - perfect fit.

hope chest going soon, used to be bookshelf and deckbox here

 Moved a few other things around and pulled the bookshelf of games in there too. Now that wall is empty (well, once the hope chest goes it will be). I love it. And now I've sort of started imagining turning it into a nice desk area. Putting the main family computer down there, as well as using it as a place to work when the kids go back to school in August.

is this wishful thinking?

 There's definitely enough space for a small desk and I'd put the main family tower on the floor with the monitor on the desk, and a lamp (which I already have) and move the shredder over to this wall. Then my new laptop that's coming from the office, I'd work at the desk here most days, but it'd still be portable of course for summertime or if it got too cold down here. This would also allow us to get rid of the desk that's too big that's in our living room. It works ok, but it'd be nice to just have a chair there and no bulky desk.

this is far right wall in storage room, opposite the DVD shelf

I'll likely put the wine fridge on top of the pool supply cabinet, I think it'll fit best there and I might switch places with these things depending on where my outlet is. I don't love that brown shelf - it's the husbands from living at home eons ago with his parents. We'll see where that ends up. To the right is the deck box - which replaced the hope chest.

deck box

See, it fit perfectly and I intend to store the bin with the pool cover on top of it during the winter. And next to it is the bookshelf. There used to be a file cabinet there, but since I've gone all paperless and Fuji Scan Snap with our bills, we don't need it. Also, it had rusted leaving a giant pile of rust - which I thought were bugs or something. Gross. Anyway, that went to the dump. So this spot used to have the filecabinet and pool cabinet and I put the bookshelf here with all our games, arranged so the littlest one can reach her favorites. We don't need to talk about the golf clubs.

game bookshelf

On that bookshelf is a book called "Build your own x86". A book about how to build your own computer. From like 1995. But the husband insisted we keep it...for...nostalgia or something. I dunno. I'm on a roll though, I want to finish up this cleanup, see if a desk area really is possible here. I love purging and organizing like this.