Attic Organization Speedy Fix

I took off one Friday, around early June, to organize my attic. The project unfortunately took the whole day, save lunch, and then a few hours during the weekend on Saturday and Sunday. But I did finish, and finishing is what's important!

Here's the story, organized chronologically.

My husband brought all. the. things. down from the attic and into our living room.

Yikes, that's a lot of things!

I started placing the things I definitely wanted to keep in front of our TV (so, moving them away from the couch area). When possible, I tried to use clear storage bins. And label, label, label! I mean that literally, as I labelled at least two sides of each box, sometimes three!

The not-yet-sorted pile grew a tad smaller.

Break for lunch - Indian buffet!!

The pile of stuff to take back up to the attic grew larger. Note that I don't really like Space Bags because they tend to open up, making the items you're saving inside them smell like, well, an attic. Plus, Space Bags tend to fall over.

How was there still this much stuff left to sort?

I started moving things back into the attic in zones (groupings based on type of item). I put the stuff I was least likely to need the farthest back.

This is what it looked like at the end of my Friday.

Living with the living room was challenging, probably more so for the adults of the home than the kiddos.

 Progress...

Clothing sorted by age and gender, yes please.

And now, a break in order to sell this piece of furniture on CraigsList. Do I recommend doing more than one project at once? No. Do as I say, not as I do here.

Look, a deer! When you go to the zoo with your kids and they find animals that aren't part of the exhibits... (so, yes, I did make time for fun during the weekend).

So. much. free. space.

This is the other side. Not sure where to mention this so I'll just say it here - I found that it made sense for us to have one box of Halloween Costumes and one box of Halloween Decorations. Why I used to just smush them together in one box, I don't know, but sometimes you need a costume and don't want to sift through, say, pumpkin-carving stuff.

 Ah, the new (green) dresser, a secondhand snag from CraigsList, pleases me so much!

 Labels, for when you're brain is exhausted and can't even. Labels = less thinking, more doing.

 Yes, that's a lot of donations!

 Another angle of the giveaway stuff.

 Wow, so little left to deal with!

 Oh, hey there living room without an entire attic's worth of stuff in it!

 Still some space in the attic, for whatever life throws our way in the future.

 The sports and camping stuff (my husband's).

 Kid clothes. Boy stuff on the right, girl stuff on the left.

Another view of the kid clothes.

Couple things to clear up here. First, why are we keeping so many kid clothes? Some of them are in sizes that are larger than our kids - they are hand-me-downs that our own children have not yet grown into. Second, one thing I keep in the attic is Toy Rotation toys. What's that? It's toys that are age appropriate for our kids right now, but that don't all fit in the playroom. If the kids want one of them from the attic, they can trade out one of their toys that's in the playroom for it.