STYLE Savvy: Basement Blues

Lisa Hess undertakes an unexpected project and finds an equally unexpected payoff. 

Our basement is a one step forward, three steps back organization project. Late last year, I’d finally begun to get one section into shape when my husband discovered water in another area. Fortunately, there was little damage to our belongings — my lidded plastic containers had kept things dry — but all the containers stored in the area affected by the leak needed to be moved to another part of the basement so we could clean up the mess from the water. 

And the part of the basement that was available was — you guessed it — the part where I’d worked so hard to create clear space. 

Fortunately, we needed to move only a few bins and boxes, and even more fortunately, the space where they’d been stored could be cleaned up relatively easily. So, we relocated the bins temporarily, with a plan to sort through them before returning them to their original space after the plumbing work had been completed. 

But Wait, There’s More 

Meanwhile, upstairs in the TV room, we needed to clear off the bottom shelf of the closet along with everything stored beneath it so the plumber could access the pipes behind the back wall of the closet. There was much more stuff crammed into this space, which was home to a reasonably well-organized collection of vinyl albums, along with paper and craft supplies. We removed what seemed like more items than the small space could hold and relocated everything, creating stacks on a table and around the perimeter of the room. In the process, we managed to eat away at a substantial portion of the clear footprint of the room where I settled into my favorite chair to relax at the end of the day. 

Spoiler alert: Clutter is not relaxing. And when the repairs are incomplete after the first visit from the plumber and the clutter spends over a week or more, well, cluttering up what’s supposed to be clear space, it’s frustrating.  

This too shall pass, I told myself. We’re lucky that things simply needed to be moved out of the way and not thrown away.  

And there was an organizational upside: The unanticipated plumbing emergency provided us with a perfect opportunity for sorting and decluttering. How much of the stuff did we really need to keep? Should any of it be moved somewhere else? Did I really need to keep the art supplies I might use someday in prime storage space? 

It's a Process 

Slowly, I chipped away at the piles, reclaiming clear space and disposing of as much as possible between the first plumber visit and the second. In the end, a lot of happiness emerged from the chaos. I found a new home for my daughter’s outgrown Barbie paraphernalia, clearing space in my house (win!) while also making my friend’s twin daughters very happy (win!). I reorganized the closet in the TV room, relegating infrequently used items to new homes in order to maximize the space in the closet for things I need to have easy access to. Above all, we got our plumbing problem solved, which means all my stuff will be safe in its new (or old) home.  

Sometimes, when it comes to organizing, things get worse before they get better. If we can navigate the process with some degree of patience, the end result can be worth the effort and inconvenience.  

And it might even generate some happiness beyond what we expected.  

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Copyright 2026 Lisa Hess
Images: Canva