Chaos Looming Over Me

When my husband and I moved into my grandparents' home, we had been warned. A majority of the household belongings were upstairs. The upstairs was an attic renovated into a master suite complete with a dressing room, sitting area, and a built in desk/sewing area. With the downstairs now being used and the primary living area, stuff had to be moved upstairs.

Granted, we made it a bit worse than what we started with. We had things to store and moved even more things upstairs in order to declutter the downstairs. This has been my biggest organizing project yet. And hopefully ever. 

Getting closer! Gigi was admiring my work.

It was quite an adventure going through all of those family memories. I found a dress my mom made when she was in her teens, lots of pictures, things with my grandma's handwriting on it, lots of craft and sewing items, my aunt's wisdom teeth (that was disturbing), and of course lots of home decor and dishes! It was like having a Pier One right upstairs. Lots of decorative bowls and pretty nicknacks for styling shelving and the mantel. 

Another treasure I found was a box full of binders with each grandchild's name and a general letter from my grandparents explaining the purpose of the binders on it. Each binder's side pockets were stuffed with pictures, programs, and artwork from each child. I then found a box labeled "to be divided into grandchildren binders". In the letter my grandma explained that the binder was for a collection of memories and photos, not necessarily of ourselves but of our cousins and other relatives as well. The binders were nowhere near completion so I decided it'd be a nice surprise for my brothers and cousins at Christmas. I'm living in her house rent free, finishing some projects she didn't have a chance to finish was the least I could do. It was such a treat to go through the pictures and see what she had saved. She absolutely adores us all and I could tell by every scrap of paper she saved that we scribbled on. I found a repositionable tape that would allow us to remove the pictures from the pages so we could take them out to scan. Also I kind of just did the pages by age and events but I pretty much just through them together. I figured it'd be nice to have the option to move them around.

When I said I found lots of crafts and sewing items, I meant lots. I set up the desk we bought Jason as a sewing/craft area. We moved the desk upstairs because there was no way we could fit a couch and a desk in the gray room. Jason moved his computer to the built-in. I found everything I would need. A sewing machine, tons of thread, bobbins, buttons, snaps, scissors, elastic, magnet strips, scraps of vintage fabric, a rotary cutter, and just so so so much more. It was quite mind blowing to have literally everything I would need.

A few months later we ended up moving my space to the built-in and Jason to the desk we originally bought for him. He spends more time up there and wanted to be in the path of the window air conditioning unit. I also cleared out a closet and made it our 'garage' (snowboards, toolbox, and boxes of memories).

I wanted to write this post so I can look back on it one day and remember how huge of a project it was. I like having this memory of sorting through all of the family memorabilia from several generations.

So the upstairs is DONE. There is nothing left to sort through or pack up. Nothing is leaving the upstairs so it will remain packed up until the house is no longer in the family.

OK I lied...

We had Dan & Emily (Jason's best friend and his wife) stay with us for a week so I wanted it to look nice. I shoved the closets full with any loose items and moved the extra furniture and the tubs to the covered deck on the side of our house. Here it is in its full glory...

The tubs and extra furniture will return but I decided I'm going to buy more rubbermaid tubs so its at least symmetrical on either side of the bed.