Tag Archives: basement organization

Creating Useable Zones in the Basement

Our house is 95 years old. We live in a very modest 900 square feet upstairs, and need to use every square inch of our mostly unfinished basement. Previous owners had chopped up the space into small chunks, and until recently, we were using almost every area as just storage space. With our family of four seemingly outgrowing our house, and my husband and I each spending hours working from home, our basement must now function as additional living space.

I have made it my mission this year, to carve out little zones for our various activities. I also need to purge and organize each area and get it looking as good as an unfinished basement can, on a tiny budget. You can do this in your small home too. Just really consider the way you live and what you want to actually do in your space. These are the zones we need for our small house to really work well for us:

  1. Laundry area
  2. Storage for toys, off-season items, and momentos
  3. Music area for drums and piano
  4. Office for me
  5. Art studio for Thomas and Lucy
  6. Project space and tool storage
  7. Lawn care items and extra furniture storage
  8. Office for Chris

While I know where all of the areas will be, and some zones are already serving their purpose, there’s a lot of work to be done before I share more before and after photos with you. So for the time being, I’ll show you how the music area is shaping up.

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The drum corner BEFORE. YIKES! We did a major purge of this area and then set up the drums. The next step was to paint the area white and add some decor. 

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The piano area BEFORE. I had already purged this area of clutter, and was using it as an art studio for Thomas. Then, on New Year’s Eve, my mother-in-law bought us a piano at Goodwill for $25!

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The piano bench desperately needed to be recovered. I used upholstery tacks and some fabric I already had on hand.

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Removing the odd shelving and painting the mismatched walls white totally transformed the drum nook.I still need to paint the wall by the piano, change the light fixture above the drums and hang some pegboard near the drums, for storage of other instruments and drum hardware.I’ll surely be posting more photos as I complete each area.