The Basement Redux

This project was about 7 years in the making.  From the day we moved into the house and determined the basement would be the "project messy room", I dreamed of having a wall of shelves.  It wasn't in the budget - in terms of money or time - so instead I made do with what I had... which was a hodge podge collection of Rubbermaid-esque organizers and shelves.  It grew over the years... a  box here, a pile there... all placed with the most innocent of "I'll get to that later" intent.  Until it became the Wall of Doom.

So I pulled everything off of that wall and stacked it on the other half of the room.

Then I felt much better about the Wall of Doom.

To answer a few questions...
This is how the house was when we moved in.  I don't know why there is a big ugly patch job on the wall.  The black cord is the cable - the basement was the original family room and this wall used to house the entertainment system.  The beadboards?  No idea... my theory is that the space behind it is foundation, but it runs along the length of all the other walls as well, so it might be hallow.  I just haven't really had a desire to yank it apart and take a peek.  Some day, when we "re-do" the basement, D will probably take a sledge hammer to it.

This project is more of a... "Dear Lord I need this room to be FUNCTIONAL again or I will go insane and take everybody with me!" emergency, lowest budget possible, throw some damn shelves on the wall already and be done with it - project.
After shopping around, I decided to go with ClosetMaid - easy to install (thanks to the wonderful top-rail)  I didn't bother painting because I knew I'd just be covering the wall up anyway.  And, you know, eventually we'll "re-do" the basement.
Maybe in another decade, but I digress...

In the installation process I discovered that the floor joist for the kitchen appears to run about mid-way down the wall.  The middle screws of each vertical track were rather difficult to get into the joist (requiring the drill instead of my normal +2 Electric Screw Driver) but the tracks are incredibly sturdy.

The clearing and installation of the shelves was the relatively easy part.  The sorting, reorganizing, and finding homes for all my supplies was difficult.  I shopped for quite a while online, looking for "anything but clear rubbermaid" boxes that would not break the bank.  My favorite were some larger sized fabric boxes with lids, however they ran an easy $25.00 each at the cheapest, and that was just too much.  One night, as I read the description of one of these over-priced dust collectors, I thought to myself... "I'm not spending $25.00 on fabric and cardboard.  I *have* fabric and cardboard!  Wait a second... I *HAVE* fabric and cardboard!  Why not just cover boxes with fabric from my stash?"

I still didn't have enough boxes, but Home Depot had banker's boxes for $1.88 a pair.  Those, plus  my fabric stash and a bit of hot glue, and I had much more appealing storage containers for a fraction of the price.

Then it was time to put everything back.

The Craft Wall of Goodness.

I still have a couple of boxes to eventually replace, and I need to get a hanger of some kind for my quilting grid rulers (which will help to cover the ugly patch on the wall) but my room is organized and clean and functional again, and I've already used my project table!

Just as I finished clearing the last of the old rubbermaid out of the basement, the further light fixture (the horribly ugly light that shines so bright in the photo with the piano) has decided to go on strike.  I haven't decided if the basement is protesting the general upheaval, or if the ceiling is just saying "hey, LOOK AT ME!  I'M UGLY AND NEED FIXING UP TOO!"  In either case, I now need to get a floor lamp for G's project area until we can fully address the basement "re-do".

*sigh*