You know those little 4x4 grids that have 15 tiles in them, and you have to slide them one by one to make a picture? Organizing anything in our house is like doing one of those puzzles.
For one of the Eagle-required merit badges, my Alex has to do a family project and an individual project around the house. He decided that he wanted to take the little room in the northeast corner of our basement and turn it into a listening room. This was the idea my husband had when we first moved in eight years ago, but like many of the ideas we had when we bought this house, it was still just an idea.
In fact, it seemed pretty far from reality. When it's rainy or cold, the kids have Nerf battles in the basement. Joe had taken over that room with his Nerf gun collection; various costumes had been ferried down to that room from upstairs; someone had broken a beaded necklace on the floor without bothering to pick up the resulting mess.
Elwood said, "There's no way we can get that room in shape in a weekend."
It looks like he was wrong.
Alex has done a fantastic job today. He enlisted all of his brothers to help, and they sorted and organized and purged together. There were no silly quarrels and there was no slacking off. Getting the kids' stuff out of there took less than an hour. There was an unexpected spillover effect, too, so the rest of the basement is tidier than it was.
This was the room where purged books went to molder. We now have four crates of books in the back of the van, awaiting the judgment of the used bookstore guy (who knows my husband well, you guys, as the person who always says, "Store credit would be great!"), and the Harvard Classics have found a new home atop a duct. (I find this a creative but slightly worrying solution. Is it going to cause problems for the seam between that bit of duct and the next? Elwood and Alex think not but I am not 100% convinced.)
This was also the room where my husband had been storing his vinyl collection in crates. I'm not even sure how many linear feet of vinyl he has, but it's in the double digits. After we got rid of all the stuff that didn't belong in there, Alex and Elwood put the records on the empty shelves. Of his own volition, Alex tackled the cobwebs (and egg sacs! ick!) in the beams overhead and vacuumed the carpet. Tomorrow they're going to hook up the stereo equipment.
It hasn't been a particularly restful Sunday. I emptied sweaters out of a chest so Joe could have it for his displaced Nerf guns, which meant the sweaters needed a new home (a new storage bin that slides under my bed). My 13yo is trying to figure out exactly which furniture belongs in his room. At the moment he is trying to fit in a desk and a little dresser from the basement; I don't think they can both stay there. (And the bookshelf from that room -- where did it go? I don't even know.) It's been a good Sunday, though.
I'm excited to kick back in the recliner and listen to U2's October on vinyl for the first time in...I don't even know. More than 25 years, I'm guessing. I might have to wait my turn, though. We're all excited to make better use of that space.
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