Unveiling the Catch-All Room

Have you ever moved into an apartment or house and used one room as a catch-all room for those extra things you don’t have room for?  When we went apartment hunting, we knew we needed an apartment with extra storage, since we would be combining all of our stuff, finding a place for our wedding presents, and storing out-of-season things close by.  We didn’t want to rent a storage space, since most of the stuff we keep in storage are things we use, just not every day, so we want easy access to them at any time.

We were beyond excited when we found our apartment which includes a HUGE storage/laundry/utilities room.  We never thought we would be able to fill the room, but as time has passed, we have made great use of the living space we have, but have done a horrible job in the storage room.  We got rid of a lot when we got married and combined all of our things.  But, we received tons of wedding presents, which we are incredibly grateful for and will use, but we cannot keep all of them out right now.  Since Mr. Converse Sneakers is a chef and both of us are huge foodies, we received mostly kitchen-related presents.  Our kitchen is majorly lacking in storage space, the pantry is overflowing (which I hope to do something about and will keep you posted on when I get around to it), so we dedicated a whole bookshelf in the storage space to our wedding presents, just so we can access them easily when we need them.

We also have been purchasing Christmas decorations and other things that have filled up the space, such as wedding leftovers (which half of are still being stored at my parents house and will be coming back with me shortly meaning even less extra space in there) and a punching bag Mr. CS bought to change up his workout regimen an release stress.  Even after getting rid of a lot, we are left with much less extra space than we had when we first moved in.

I decided we need to tackle the storage space in there – and fast – because it’s just going to get worse as time goes on.  One of my first steps for getting something major accomplished in our apartment is to blog about it, so that I have people waiting for an update which is much more pressure than actually living with the lack of adequate storage.

So, today I am going to share photos of our storage room.  I deliberately didn’t even lift a finger in there before I took the photos so you could see how badly it is working for us right now as we are currently using it.

Please don’t judge me for how horrible it looks and the poor photos (the lighting in there is subpar).
Here we go . . .



Along the wall to the left of the photo is a built-in shelf.  We have tons of things stored on it and below it (which you can’t even see with all the crap in front of it), such as leftover art, empty boxes for when we move again, leftover office things we don’t use every day, a file cabinet, tools, workout equipment we rarely use, and so on.  In front of all of that are laundry baskets, Mr. CS’s office chair which we will probably use again in a future house, Craigslist Christmas scores (ornaments, pine cones, a tree, lights, and some accessories), an exercise ball, a full-length mirror, and a punching bag.  Behind the punching bag is our big freezer we barely use, but hope to use more (luckily it only uses about $15 to power for the whole year).  To the left of the freezer is the bookcase that holds our wedding presents.



The wall to the side of the main storage wall is our washer and dryer.  We don’t have enough towel storage, so there the extras sit.



The wall the runs along the back of the apartment has cleaning products, paint, bulk items like soap, and an old dresser with some craft supplies, irons, and other miscellaneous makes-no-sense things.  The bag hanging off the wire shelving is our makeshift garbage bin, I guess.  To the right of all of that is a hanging rack where we dry our delicate clothes.



If you scroll back up to the photo with our washer and dryer, you can see the door that leads to this room.  That door is connected to our basement bathroom, which is inconvenient but something we have to live with.  Beyond the door is extra storage under the stairs.  We keep some extra exercise equipment and an unused laundry sorter.  You can see by the rust stains in the bottom left corner which used to have some metal weights that we have some water problems in here.  It has never been very bad, but when we have heavy rain, some water will make its way into that corner, which is something that urges us to have better storage just in case it ever rained so hard the whole room flooded.

I don’t know if I feel relieved or mortified to have shown you our hard-on-the-eyes catch-all room, but it’s done.  Now we need to tackle this room before these photos are permanently fixed in your minds and you start to think horrible things about me and my non-organizing ways.

I’m off to scout out affordable temporary storage ideas!  Wish me luck!