Storage

The day that Slice goes back to work you can usually find me dragging myself out of bed, house torn apart, trying to recover from six days of work and play.  Today is one of those days.

Our goal for the month of February was two-fold: storage room under the stairs and case lot sale.  Truth be told, we did it late and in the wrong order.  Saturday we hit up the grocery store and spent over $400 on goods that, hopefully, will last us a long time.  It was a little bit emergency essentials (wheat, oats, water barrels) and a lot of what we eat on a regular basis (mandarin oranges!).  It looks so pitiful in this photo.

Monday we took everything out of the storage room under the stairs, which is a room I have pretty well managed to avoid for the two years we've been in this house.  It was scary.  Bare foundation walls, water streaks, cobwebs, decades-old food stains, perpetually cold ... out of sight, out of mind, right?
It doesn't look pitiful enough in this photo, because Slice had already started painting it.

We vacuumed and wiped and scrubbed it all as well as we could, and yesterday Slice started painting the whole thing.  Paint sprayer, folks, I highly recommend.  A thin coat of primer took several hours to dry because the walls were so cold, but by evening it was finally ready to insulate.

We cut 3/4" foam in pieces to fit between the walls and the shelves.  Every single shelf opening is a different size, naturally, so it took me a few hours and a few razor blades and a few episodes of Word World to get it all done.

Then we put down some wallpaper to preserve the shelves (brightens it up a bit!), and put everything back in there.  I'm pleased to say I don't have nightmares about it anymore.

this is only half the room.  well, a little more than half, because it's under stairs ....

You can't see the walls in the picture but trust me, the new white is MUCH better than the old dinginess.  The foam keeps it a little bit warmer, but still cold enough for good storage.  And we might still put down some epoxy floor coating just for kicks. 

Another day, another day.