Slog, but now with more progress

In a continuation of Saturday's activities, I headed back down to the basement yesterday and spent several hours going through boxes and putting things in piles. It snowed some (6") and it was blowing around, so I decided to stay put, cook (cookies and soup) and keep going on the basement boxes.

I'm pleased to say that it wasn't as hard emotionally to get through the rest of the boxes, and that I have indeed looked inside and sorted every box down there. Phew! I have a tally:

7 boxes of files from school and previous jobs that will get recycled
8 bags of trash
12 bags/boxes of stuff to be donated to Goodwill

I need to buy some more plastic boxes, amazingly. There were things that were in cardboard boxes or just in bags, like Mr W's stuffed animals and artwork from school, that I want to put in plastic for long-term storage.

An aside. A couple of years ago I went to one meeting of a book club here in town. While there, I was chatting with a guy whose apartment was in a building that had caught fire (big story, still unresolved). His stuff didn't burn, but a lot was damaged, A) by smoke, and B) by the SPRINKLERS. He said he had stored stuff in flip-top plastic boxes, and that if he had used the kind that have a solid, one piece lid, a lot of his stuff would have been OK. That thought has stuck with me and if I have to buy plastic storage boxes, I get the ones with the one piece lid.

The plan is to move as much as possible into what I call the furnace room, which is dry, but dark and cellar-like. I have a (more or less) finished room as well, that's about 12 x 20, and I want to turn that into usable space. The ceiling is kind of low, but it think it will be nice to finally have another room that Mr W can use if he's got friends over.

This is an idea I saw on Pinterest for making a rug on the cheap out of carpet samples:

She bought some good seaming tape and taped the wrong sides together. I imagine there are bolder colors out there that would make a fun rec room rug.

Feels good to be making progress, but it'll feel even better when it's done. And then I can move the contents of my kitchen down there when it's being remodeled! ;-)