Oh boy, this makeover has been a long time coming! And truth be told, it still is to come… first, some background info, then what happened to derail my plans. And some progress photos in between.
So this space is the attic/loft space at my Mom’s house. Current catchall for all the things, former home to my art and design studio while I was in school and after I graduated. And of course storage, for all my stuff.
When I moved out almost 11 years ago, I left most of it there. And for the most part, I haven’t missed much of it. Every once in a while I would hunt for something from yesteryear, but really it all just sat there collecting dust. There are mementos from my youth and school years that I want to keep. But there’s also junk that I just never bothered going through.
There was a short period during my dad’s illness when he relocated his home office to the loft because it was warmer than the basement. When he was too weak to go up the stairs, we moved the desk and computer out. Some of his office supplies and other random stuff are still up there.
And over the years this space has taken on other things too. All of our suitcases. Old bedding. A graveyard of rejected home decor items. And electronics that have long since passed their expiration dates. Piles of stuff that we don’t use anymore, but we didn’t want to deal with getting rid of them either.
It’s time to go through everything.
Before
Considering how jam packed it could be, I don’t think it’s that bad for an attic space, right? Things could be piled way higher!
The Plan
In general one of my overarching, multi-year goals is to help my mom declutter her house. Last year I started working on the basement which I shared HERE (it’s still a work in progress, are we sensing a pattern?), but because it’s cold down there I didn’t want to continue it in the winter. The loft is much warmer so I made it one of my Q1 goals to declutter this space. The plan was to go through all the stuff up here, gather things to donate, stuff to recycle, and bag up anything that was trash. Collect all those electronics to take to an e-cycling event. Then sort through all of my mementos: to either keep at mom’s for future me to deal with, or take home with me now.
The intent was to complete this space so it could be the subject of my April “Revealed!” post, this very post you’re reading right now. When I saw that I wasn’t going to have it done by 3/31, I decided to give myself the couple of weeks at the beginning of April before the post was scheduled to go live to finish it up. But the dust up here had other plans for me.
During
My first step was to set up zones and do a rough sort of everything that was up here. The main categories are: decor items (furniture, curtains, bedding, accessories), mementos from my childhood and school years, stuff from when it was my dad’s office, and other random things I just never bothered going through before I moved. I think the clear space in the middle of the floor was quite an improvement, don’t you?
A close up of the mess…
Slowly getting somewhere…
A little more progress! Maybe? Maybe I just moved piles around…
Working on the last of my school papers… and a peek behind me at the wire shelves that still need to be sorted. And my feelings about the upcoming task.
Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. These suitcases had been living in the closet that you can kind of see on the left side of this picture. I pulled them all out and brought them downstairs for my mom and I to go through almost two weeks ago. The next morning I started with a dry spot in my throat, then a dry cough, and it has progressed into a full blown I don’t know what… Dust-mite-itis? Sinus infection? Whatever it is, it knocked me out.
So that’s where things currently stand. I think I made pretty good progress so far. We attempted to go to the county sponsored e-cycling event in March, but the line of cars was SO long we abandoned that adventure. We still have to sort through the suitcases, and go through my dad’s stuff and the home decor items. Then I just have to get it all organized. We have no plans for the space other than storage.
Stay tuned for Part 2, the real reveal, coming…soon?
