Organized Tools & Paint

I am finally at peace with this corner of our basement!  It has been driving me crazy pretty much since we moved in over 3 years ago.  Unlike many of my other organized spaces, this one isn't exactly the prettiest to look at even though it is organized.  It's tools and used paint cans.  They just aren't pretty things.  The work bench and old desk could use facelifts, but I have other things to do.  Anyway, when I told my husband I was going to organize the tools, he wasn't too happy about it.  He thought it was fine the way it was.  He could find things when he needed them.  This space is right next to my scrapbooking corner and I don't know about you, but I cannot concentrate in a room that is cluttered.  Something needed to be done.  Here are a few befores.

Ack!  Seriously, why even have the pegboard?!  I don't really know much about tools.  I can use a screwdriver and a hammer, but that's about the extent of what I know.  So to start, I gave the pegboard two quick coats of some leftover gray paint and I divided everything up into piles on the floor.  Whatever looked alike went into a pile.  I then asked my husband to, GASP, purge some of the tools.  It was hard for him to do and you will see that we still have more than enough of certain items.  But all of the drill bits are put away, nothing is in a drawer where it is out of sight and out of mind and all of the old, rusty tools are out of here!  The paint bin has been separated into different, smaller bins and everything is easy to find.  You will notice that we have two drawer organizer units along the right wall.  Those were here when we bought the house and they are still full of the miscellaneous parts that the previous owner had in them.  While I would really love to organize and label everything, I just haven't had the time yet.  That is a very tedious job that is low on my list of priorities.  Maybe one day it will be flawless, but definitely not today.  Anyway, let's take a look!

The big container under the work bench is our outdoor storage container.  We have it here for the winter.  It has our patio table cushions and outdoor accessories in it.  On the shelves, we have toolboxes and electric tools in their containers.

The pegboard, work bench, old desk and most of the pegboard hooks were all here when purchased our house.  There was also a small metal cabinet.  I used what I had of small plastic containers and organized and labeled a few things in here as well.  

I decided to store all of our paint cans and accessories on the old desk.  Prior to this we had all of the accessories in a huge plastic container and it was just ridiculous.  You couldn't find anything easily.  So I divided everything into containers labeled rollers, samples, sanding, spackle, brushes and roller covers.  I also hung painters tape, a 14-in-1 paint tool and can openers on the pegboard.  I am keeping all of my paint swatches in the desk drawer.  The other drawers no longer have anything in them.  Everything that was in them wasn't being used, so why bother.  So much better!

My husband wasn't too excited about me organizing the tools, but he sure isn't complaining.  Like I said, it's not the prettiest organized space in the world, but it works for us!  I spent the past 3 weekends working on this and I am happy to be done with it!  One more time, before and after.  Yay!