Make Room for Baby (Part 1)

My laundry room is a disaster.  It's not just a mess, it's a danger-zone.  Hurricane Irene hit the weekend I gave birth to Andrew.  We came home with broken hearts to find a soaking wet basement.  The finished part of the basement was a smelly, mildewy mess.  We had to pull up all the carpeting and replace it with area rugs.  The back room ended up being the "toss it and forget it" area as we tried to salvage what we could of the living area.  I don't remember thinking about the laundry or the laundry room for the entire month of September and when I finally did get back into some sort of "new normal" there were so many other issues to address, the basement couldn't make it to the top of the list.

It's been four months since we lost Andrew and the basement.  And now it's time to regain control of parts of our lives.  So here's the plan:

1)  Buy a whole bunch of shelving stuff that I'm not entirely sure how to install.  Because logic and planning are my strong suits.  ($72... I saved the receipt.)

1a)  Snap "before" pictures

2)  Tackle all the laundry in the basement so it's out of the way.  (Bleh.)

3)  Empty the laundry room of everything except the washer and dryer.  This includes organizing my slightly obsessive collection of ironing materials and stain removers.

4)  Dispose of 50% of the junk because I know we don't use even half of what's down there.  (Yes, I will donate it if it's useful.)

5)  Bleach the floor (lots of ventilation and fans... no worries.  Plus, a little bleach goes a long way.)

6)  Figure out what will go on shelves.  Purchase containers if necessary.  Use label maker obsessively.

7)  Hang shelves.  (Those are small words for such a huge project.)

8)  Load junk back into laundry room NEATLY

9)  Take "after" photos

10)  Bask in the glory of a job well done.

Okay, how long is it going to take me to do this?  Well, I'm not working Friday or Monday, so if all goes well... no more than 6 months.  No, really, I'd like to have as much if it done by Monday as possible.

So why am I still sitting on the couch, writing a blog, and putting off getting this project started?  Yeah... I dunno either.