Can we talk for a quick second about storage?  I want to tell you a story: in graduate school I moved into a two bedroom house with a good friend of mine.  It was a cute, old, VERY quirky house in a nice section of Dallas.  I loved that house and lived there just over three years before moving to the suburbs and buying my own casa.

But the dark side of this story… this house was OLD and had very little storage/closet space.  And because we live in Texas: no basement.  I quickly learned that it had a GREAT BIG attic space– perfect for storing all the things my minuscule closet and non-existent kitchen and bathroom storage couldn’t.  So I did what most Texas homeowners do… tossed a whole bunch of CRAP in the attic and promptly forgot about it until I moved three years later.  When packing up I opened the attic, and began to pull down box after box of things I should have THROWN OUT! And I vowed never again would I use my attic to hold all of the things I should have just thrown out.

The good news about my current casa is that it has TWO attic spaces!!! (and I know you are all thinking… WAIT I thought she just said she wasn’t going to use those!!) But seriously…

I did decide in this house that I would only truly use one of the attic spaces: the walk in space that has a door off of our laundry room (just to the left of our washer):

This is the perfect attic space to use because it has a regular size door that is easy to get in and out of (not one of the pull down ladders) and only has so much space for stuff because it is also the area where the AC unit is.  I’m hoping that since we have replaced this unit fairly recently we won’t have to access that as often as we have in the past, but always a good idea to keep it fairly accessible.  Which clearly I wasn’t:

So I decided this space needed to be taken care of.  Most of the items in here have been organized in the past (I have one Rubbermaid container with high school memorabilia, one with college, and one with wedding things I want to keep) plus some empty boxes, extra luggage, etc.  AND since we have been re-doing Reese’s study (in the longest re-do ever) I needed a place to store the red dressers we didn’t have space for anymore, but that I don’t want to get rid of.

So first things first, I pulled out everything in this space and began setting aside the things to throw away (old linoleum that we were never going to ‘patch’), things to give away (the old wicker laundry basket that we don’t use anymore) and things to put back–more orderly this time.

And finally I put everything back in: mostly like putting a puzzle together… what pieces go best where, and how can I do this in the most easily utilized fashion. One thing I try to always think about (especially with those easily stackable Rubbermaid containers) is in what order will I need to get to these: for example… my wedding box has some leftover boxes and bags for favors that I occasionally use for gifts, so  that container went on the top shelf of that bookshelf, whereas my high school memorabilia (which I almost never have an occasion to need into that box) is on the harder to get out shelf.  And then since I had an old Ikea rug that I had been tripping over for almost a year in here, I decided the room would be more put together if I rolled it out.  (Not that it really matters if an attic is ‘put together’ but maybe it will help keep me from junking it up? Here’s hoping!

And the final product:

I can easily access our additional luggage and things like the ski helmets, sleeping bags, picnic things should I need those; and there is still plenty of clearance to get to the A/C unit (just off camera to the right).  I’m using the drawers of the red dressers to house some additional curtains, linens etc that I am not using now, but may use again in the future!

All in all this project took me about 2 hours, so it was a great way to spend a Saturday morning.

In case you are wondering, our other attic space is above the house, accessible only by a pull down ladder and has tons of space, but so far the only thing I am storing up there is empty boxes for moving (appliance boxes to make it easier to pack up our things should we ever make the terrible decision to move again) and our Christmas tree stand that just gets in the way every other place we store it in. So I would consider this a success! But I would borderline give up my left arm to have a basement for storage a la all my Kansas friends.  But they tell me jealousy is unbecoming, so I’ll live with my attic spaces for now.