Something most all of us can relate to… the basement space that sometimes doesn’t get used to its capacity. We recently had a client that in addition to other areas of her house, wanted to reclaim the basement area for her family. It’s a great finished space, separated by the stairway that goes down into it…a built in divider creating individual spaces which can be used for different purposes. She already had the makings for a playroom and on the other side a family/exercise space but over the last few years the family side became more of a storage room. She had a great storage/utility room with shelves (we added a few) so any items that needed to be stored had a place to go. All we had to do (if it was really that simple, right?) was some sorting and purging to get the spaces ready for use. She did purchase some shelving units for the playroom and a TV mount for the family room side, but beyond that everything was there or repurposed from other rooms of the house. Take a look at some before and after pictures:

We created a great learning center just by placing already existing toys on labeled book shelves. 

Before and After Kitchen zone

The Family room before and after

 

So there it is…a picture speaks 1000 words... and more!

Series One/Post Five -- Jacki and Will's Basement

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS… 

The last words in Jacki’s blog, “And I am very very happy” makes me very very happy. It has been a pleasure working with Jacki and like with all our clients, I will miss spending time with her. Thanks, Jacki, for opening your home not only to me but to all our clients, past-present-and future. 

NOTE: The first 2 entries are November 6 (Caitlin and Jacki’s diary) and December 4 (Jacki’s post 2) if you would like to go back and read again before reading the final 3, 4 and 5.  Enjoy!!

Series One/Post Four -- Jacki and Will’s Basement 

At night I have dreams of old photos and negatives marching, dust-free, into neat boxes and giving up the ghost of free-fire zones past. Old love letters still make me smile -- my God, people had sauce and they didn’t care what they said. All that hand-writing... no wonder these tweeted male and female ‘dudes’ are so bored -- I can still feel the heat coming off of some of these scraps of paper. 

But will we ever... ever be free of the past? We’re still under siege with it in this house. I swear that if I had not married my husband, he would be one of those people who watch as papers pile up around him. Then, one day it’s over -- they tag your toe, and out you go and the papers are dumped. Is that any way to think about the man I love? This cleaning & sorting business is unhinging me. If Caitlin were not in our lives, I would have taken the train back to New York and never returned, no matter how lovely our garden.

I wish I had been able to measure how much detritus is here. Last week, I unearthed my husband’s old Santa Letter and it went to ‘Found’ Magazine. “Dear Santa,” it said. “I want four Creepy Crawler sets with four extra bottles of black plastigoop. Also the board game Stratego. I have been a very good boy.”

We drove to Rockville in heavy rain -- it’s miles from our house -- to go to the Container Store. For me, that store now is kind of like church: all those little vessels to save our souls. Our records don’t begin to fit in the crates marked for ‘records’, but -- these people have probably never seen a record. For the record, it’s black and round and encased in colorful cardboard, often larger than this 14 inch thing you sell for eight dollars.

BEFORE... and AFTER

 

Series One/Post Three -- Jacki and Will’s Basement

The other day I neatly folded a vintage cashmere sweater and put it away, in a drawer, in the bureau in my bedroom. And I thought: This is all because of A Sorted Affair! I hadn’t had a bureau in a bedroom in almost twenty years: I lived out of suitcases and closets and roll-away thingies you buy for exorbitant prices at the Container Store. If you live in a New York loft, as I do part-time, there may be no need for anything more than a closet. It never occurred to me to live otherwise in rooms with bureaus. Bureaus are where foreign correspondents live, and I was ready to go. I have my little stashes already waiting on wheels.

Now, though, I have a handsome teak (sustainable) bureau in the Swedish modern style. It matches -– in spirit, if not in fact, an older one that belonged to my husband (ok, I confess: I had ONE of his drawers, but he had all the rest.) Upon that bureau are a vintage lamp and a traveling antique writing desk from Syria. They look great there. My husband is happy.

And that is a good thing, because he was the whole reason for calling in the professionals in the first place, or so I told myself. A well ordered home does, I believe, provide a well ordered mind — isn’t that why hotel rooms were invented? But when you have to come to your own home and sigh, and moan, as I did, at the mere sight of our basement…well, it was enough to make me want to turn around and go right back out. There were things in there best left in the recesses of memory: the boots that had mice using them as a house; old but usable film equipment that went to a school; and 20,000 negatives that are now in chronological order. I can breathe again.

The Mondays Caitlin and I spent sorting, stacking, labeling, ordering items from IKEA to hold books, re-purposing stuff from the garage (though I am still hearing about an antique oil can I accidentally threw out) and getting an actual fold-out sofa in the basement were, to quote the bard, “Verie Heavyn”. We got a whole new level on our small Cape Cod (we believe in a collection of small houses, the better to rotate around and no, we don’t have kids. I do, however, have a box for kids’ clothes, which I buy all over.) just by emptying out the basement and creating a room. AND, behind a film poster painted on canvas from Iran, storage for suitcases and books, prints to be framed, and holiday décor.

Nicole Unice is a busy mom and writer for Richmondmom.com. She invited A Sorted Affair into her home to organize her home office. She described step of her experience in a two part series on Richmondmom.com. Check it out!

http://richmondmom.com/index.php/funformoms/post/confess/

http://richmondmom.com/index.php/funformoms/page/category/random_rants/ 

http://richmondmom.com/ 

Client: NPR Correspondent and Host, Jacki Lyden and Washington Post Photojournalist, Will O'Leary
Project: Basement Clean-out
Project Hours: 20

Jacki's Project Diary

I used to go down into my husband’s basement whenever I wanted to get depressed. I’m normally a somewhat ebullient person, but there’s nothing like the good old cry you can have, staring around at all that stuff. Old tools. Boxes of first communion cards. Checks from 1991, and those ‘nude not naked’ pictures of old girlfriends my husband, a photographer, took when he was a knave. One of his friends had left behind a life-size thingy of Christopher Reeve as Superman, but I got rid of that a long time ago. The head was bent over. The whole place reminded me of a beautiful novel by the late Laurie Colwin, “A Big Storm Knocked It Over.”

When I moved in here from New York and added, really just a FEW bits and pieces (surprisingly little, being a gal who likes to travel light) –well, I worked on the house and garden. The whole joint was a challenge; and I do like those. But I am not an archivist of anyone’s life but my own and perhaps, my mother’s. Everyone else can fend for themselves… but all this STUFF. Once, trying to write an article, I wound up dumping old phone books all day instead. I wasn’t sure if I had married a hoarder, but it looked like it.

We pared it down over the last few years, but it was still anything but sightly. Sometimes, writing upstairs, I could feel the basement crowding me all the way up here to my garret.

And then Caitlin came. Poof! Things are in ZONES! I cannot touch my husband’s STUFF unless he AGREES. (This brought him around. He had once vowed that she would NEVER darken our doorway. It helped that she is Irish, too.) We have made a small castle of boxes around “his” table but meanwhile, we have gone ahead. It’s too bad that almost 10,000 dollars of new electrical work and a new furnance/air conditioner are not something you can really talk about at dinner parties. Anyway, back to the ZONES! (What if we'd spent that money going to Africa? Then we'd be cold when the furnace broke.)

I love zones! Zone 1, memories. Zone 2, athletic equipment or garden stuff, whatever. Zone 3, maps. She got me a map case—better, for me than jewels. Ok, not better but: good.

She never laughed at us! Not even when she held up an old boot of mine and a mouse had chewed right through it. Do you know how disgusting I found that? About as bad as the niger thistle seed I found everywhere. It’s birdseed, I kept saying. Bird seed.

My husband’s old photographic equipment could have opened a studio, and did something like that at a nearby high school. (I will have to be patient about old film negatives.) I found a movie poster I had had painted in Tehran, a woman’s huge face. I have a loft in Brooklyn; it’s too big for THAT. But now, it is going to hang in our basement AS A ROOM DIVIDER. HOW COOL IS THAT? When we were in Arlington for Will's aunt's funeral, (where the Hibernerian society meets) I lured him into Crate & Barrel and we bought a sofa for the basement. (I don’t know about you, but the last time I got to go shopping with my husband at a Crate & Barrel was about five years ago, once. I think we bought a vase.)

So today, when I should have been upstairs writing, I found my car going to IKEA. Who knew it could do that with me hardly even noticing? And there I was, measuring Billy Shelves again (too tall) and scoping out what else they had: just like I had done in my youth. Because let’s face it: there’s alot more IKEA ahead in our lives than we might have wanted to believe there would be before the term “credit default swap” came to our rosy lips. If I I had a skill with packing crates; you’d be eating on them or THEY’D be the new shelving. But it takes too long to find packing crates these days. And guess what? Caitlin's normally encyclopedic knowledge of organizing products was WRONG about the Billy bookcases; they’re too tall. But I found something else. Some red things with a Swedish name, like LINNEAROP. Aren’t you glad IKEA is yellow & blue for the Swedish flag? If it were Irish, it would be gold and white and green. Soon, though, I am going to need a third dwelling place for all the books.

Caitlin and I talk about our lives while we work. This is curatorial work. When I leave her, or she leaves me, carting off the ugly, useless crap--making our lives a little freer and more functional--I want to do a little pole vault right back up to my desk. Soon, I’ll have to go out to my husband’s man-cave of a garage to have that sobfest; because the basement is becoming a sanctuary of sanity.

Client: NPR Correspondent and Host, Jacki Lyden and Washington Post Photojournalist, Will O'Leary
Location: Silver Spring, MD
Project: Basement clean-out
Project hours: 20

Caitlin's Project Diary

For me, finishing an organizing job is a double-edged sword.

When you really love working with a client, you miss your time together when you have done your job and they are, well, organized. This has been my experience with Jacki Lyden.

Jacki is an incredibly talented reporter and host at National Public Radio. She is married to Will O'Leary, a gifted photojournalist at The Washington Post.Given their respective professions, I knew that their basement would reveal buried treasures--and it did. Over the next weeks, Jacki will recount in her own wonderful voice our memorable, hilarious and creative hours together taming their unruly (though not unusual) basement.

Enjoy and let us know what you think!
Caitlin

Jacki's Project Diary

The Beginning

I met my husband, a photojournalist, after he'd had nearly four happy decades of bachelor guy hood. He'd been based in D.C. all those years; I'd traveled the globe. So, you might think I'd have more "stuff." But my husband had been a filmmaker and photographer; the center of his "men's" club. Our basement was chock-a-block with photos of everything from his enormous clan of a family to mademoiselle--shall we say, temps perdu. There were photo posters, negatives, paint cans, the contents of drawers, tools and twenty of years of newspaper clippings. Quaintly, once upon a time, those were called tearsheets.

Sometimes, upstairs writing in my second floor office, I'd distract myself by wandering down to the basement to see what I could "curate" into the recycling bin. A new bride, this did not make for matrimonial harmony. I had never had either a house or husband before, and the entire undertow of both seemed to consist of a tide of objet left over from the '70s. We got the house looking like ourselves, but what about the basement and garage? The Dungeon of Dark Despair; that was my name for it. And as two active people in the creative trades- I could be spreading out maps and documents and so on in the basement; he could be matting photos and creating cards-- we just needed the space.

When I read of Caitlin's "Sorted Affair," I felt she'd be amusing and understanding. Today she came, and she was both and much more. It was a delight.

She discovered my husband's 20 years of negatives and photos nestled up against the furnace. My husband had devoted his considerable handiness to the upper house since we got together--downstairs; there laid a netherworld of lost lore. Caitlin didn't flinch. With ceiling panels gone and wires hanging everywhere? Hey, she admired the window light. A collection of grey industrial shelves? Why not paint them a cute color? She was acting as a curator and as a journalist, I understood that-- take the best parts to tell the story. And moreover, she couldn't ethically throw anything of Will's away without him being there. That ought to make him happy.

My husband comes from an Irish family that saved every last thing. And I mean, every. last. thing. His father found precious things in his trove-- a triple A ball club invitation, speaking awards, photos of the family in Ireland, and so on. We haven't found those things downstairs yet. But by separating our basement stuff into his and hers and making two work zones-- well, low and behold, order began to emerge from chaos. Plus she gave me a tip: sit there with your husband while he tries to release some of those old clips, term papers and the good times of his '20s. I'm going to try that.

But in the meantime, I feel I have a partner in the draining decisions of what to move and throw first. For the first time I DO think that basement will one day be the beautiful storage, guest, and project space I intend for it to be.

Thank you, Caitlin!

Hello to our clients, colleagues and friends --

We're very excited to be starting our own blog here at A Sorted Affair.  On our blog we plan to share with you some of our organizing tips, tricks and strategies, along with links to cool organizing products, books and news.  Throughout the year, we will also give you the opportunity to follow one of our clients in their quest for control over their living space! 

To begin, we want to share our latest before and after from a client's home in Washington, D.C.  Our client's adult son called us from overseas to see if we could help his dad organize his apartment in a retirement community.  His father had moved into a furnished unit, but the furnishings did not serve his needs well.  In order for the apartment to feel like home, our client needed a workspace for his many projects, as well as space for his beloved book, movie and music collections. One trip to IKEA later and the apartment is transformed!

George is a likeable, sharp-witted sales representative who works from home. His former wife had requested that his home office be in the small finished attic. A year after having the house to himself, he was still working up there! Our first recommendation was to move the office to the first floor of the home. It took a little convincing, but he agreed to try it.

Now he loves being in a room with a large window, high ceiling, and close proximity to his main living space. And he’s quite pleased with his organized files and marketing materials, too. He can find what he needs, when he needs it. What could be better!

Okay we admit it…we “staged” these photos! We were doing a presentation about getting your house ready to sell, and we wanted photos to illustrate a very important staging concept. Though you may live with your sofa planted in front of the TV, the rules are different when your house is on the market.

A room should appear open and uncluttered to a buyer. These pictures show how the sofa blocks entry to the room and obscures the fireplace when it’s in front of the TV. By moving the sofa to the wall, the room opens up, making it seem both larger and more inviting. So Caitlin, keep your sofa on the wall!”