Interesting thoughts -- we could all improve on paperwork storage in our homes. Two things I think I'm doing well that differ from the above mentioned Script, and someone else might find some ideas in my methods: Taxes. Yes, like Script, I am scrupulous about maintaining records for my taxes. About a dozen years ago I went to the office supply and bought two big boxes of BRIGHT GREEN folders (green like money). I labeled them Taxes 2000 ... Taxes 2001 ... Taxes 2002 ... Taxes 2003 ... and so on. Given my family's typical lifespan, I made enough green folders to take me to age 110 -- probably more than I'll need, but I'm ready! They're all stored in my file cabinet, taking up very little space. Now when I receive anything tax-related -- a charitable receipt, an end-of-the-year bank statement, whatever -- I have a place to file it. In April, I have a place to file a copy of my taxes, and I can go back and see previous tax years. For the rest of my life, this system is in place. Death folder. Ours is a notebook. Two identical notebooks, actually, since we have two children. Our girls are young adults now, but they've never dealt with an estate -- even if they don't open it 'til they're old, it'll be useful to them. It contains a lot of stuff: - A personal letter to the two of them - A list of our wishes about funeral and items we'd like donated to various family members or charities - A list of things they must do immediately; it starts with going to our house and taking possession of the dog, but it also includes small details like canceling our voting registration and destroying any medicines in the house. At every turn this list includes addresses and phone numbers, including the lawyer we suggest for probate, the funeral home our family's always used, and family members who should be contacted. - A copy our will; they know what's in it -- everything split between the two of them - A list of our financial assets -- bank accounts, investments, insurance, deeds/maps of real estate ... when our youngest became a legal adult, we made the two girls co-beneficiaries of every account; note that this was done before either was married, so our two kids -- not future son-in-laws -- will own these items. - A list of the bills we pay each month -- electricity, phone, even the guy who cuts our grass. - Official copies of our birth certificates, our marriage certificates, and the girls' birth certificates -- they might not be needed, but the girls won't have to scramble to find them - A flashdrive with all of the above in digital format plus photographs that might be useful in putting together the funeral Our rule: We keep two years of tax returns in the notebooks ... the reason being that someday an accountant will file our final estate tax return, and he or she will want our last two years of returns -- so every April we pull out the notebook, discard one old return and insert the newest ... so our rule is that every April we look over the notebook and update anything that's changed. For example, last year we changed bank accounts, and someday we hope to add items concerning grandchildren to the book. Our girls know that the notebooks are stored in the safe, and they know where the key to the safe is hidden, and they know it's labeled with a misleading name so that a thief wouldn't look at it twice. Last thought on this notebook: Though this project took us the better part of a year --- we kept remembering one more thing, one more thing that really should be included -- we didn't find it difficult emotionally. I suspect that if we were older and/or one of us were in poor health, it might've been different.

For hand tools for someone with difficulty gripping, hunt down a local SnapOn dealer. Yes, they are hard to find. Yes, they are expensive. But SnapOn's hand tools are the easiest to grip and stay in your hand of any of the gazillions of brands I've tried. My "go to" on screwdrivers is a 40 year old phillips head set that was handed down to me from my dad. I add in other hand tools as I can afford them. What kind of saw will work best for you as a general purpose saw will depend on what you're trying to cut. Sheet goods and general lumber will need an electric hand saw. My Porter Cable has been in service for 25 years with no issues at all. A Milwaukee Sawzall reciprocating saw will actually cut small tree branches, or through a car body depending on which blade you have in it. My Bosch sliding compound miter saw can serve as a chop saw, or it can do the complex angles required for installing molding. If you are handling a lot of longer goods, you will need sawhorses and/or a work table to set up your good on to be cut. For someone with arthritis issues, I hate to say it, but you need some family member or friend involved with your projects. You are probably as able as you are ever going to be right at this moment, and you need a backup plan for when a flareup comes, or just plain degeneration happens. Do you have neices or nephews or neighbor kids that you can pay a couple of bucks for them to help you with projects so they too can become familiar with tools and learn about them together? It always amazes me that no one thinks that kids need to learn about how to do anything with their hands anymore! Everyone needs to know a bit of something and to own a bit of tools. It bestows a type of independence that really mentally liberating when you don't have to always wait on a tradesman to do a job.

Mcgillicuddy, I'm not a terribly sentimental-about-stuff person either, so I can sympathize. If we had a fire and lost everything there are maybe half a dozen things in this entire house that I would be truly upset about losing, except for the inconvenience of replacing everything. ;-) I think it's a result of moving so much as a kid (my parents split when I was 5, and joint custody was a truly evil creation from my POV), I just couldn't take along much from house to house so I learned not to get attached to things. Some people go the opposite direction and get very possessive as adults, but I continued on the "frequent flyer" path and was just as brutal and dispassionate about culling. I have a bunch of boxes that we moved from the last house to this one in February of 2004 and have never even opened because I had a friend help me pack and she bullied me into keeping everything rather than pruning as thoroughly as I normally do pre-move. I hate that. I feel suffocated when I think of the closet and storage room (the sorta half-a-bedroom) full of all that stuff. I don't understand either how other people can be so tied up in my having certain things or not, even if they didn't give me that item (and occasionally if they did). It's a perfectly good whateveritis that I have absolutely no use for, I should keep it and let it rot in a closet just because person X gave it to me? Wouldn't it be better to give or sell it to someone who would actually like (or even love) it and put it to use? If I kept everything everyone gave me just because they gave it to me I'd need to live in a mansion! I'm beginning to dig through the stored stuff and am half considering setting up a separate account on eBay for selling things off, lest I get nastygrams from relatives, screaming "how can you get rid of that whateveritis??" On the adjustment issue... we moved to this house with weird small rooms from a house with only 300 more square feet but much larger rooms, so most of our furniture is suited for larger rooms. Unfortunately, we can't afford to just get rid of everything and replace it all, although it would be fun, so we just have to work around it. There are so many small-house features that were the norm in past generations that have been overlooked in more recent decades, like built-ins. Kneewall drawers under these slanted Cape ceilings are almost unknown nowadays but it's such an intelligent use of wasted space. If I could design a house from scratch (thinking rationally instead of daydreamily, I don't think we'll ever be able to afford to do so unless we win the lottery - just the lot alone is way out of reach) it would be loaded with clever things like that so we would not need so much furniture. Our bedroom felt so much bigger when I fitted wire drawer units into my silly little dysfunctional closet and took out the big dresser!

Thank you ladies! Now the horrible task of wiping down every little tube and doohickey before it's put away. I can't seem to find lighting I want. I will use a floor standing multi light near the desk but would like somthing like this plug in light box for the top of the storage center. I remember this light from a Au. site. If any of you see something like this that's reasonable please let me know.