Rhonda Lee, I have been wrestling with a similar problem for about 6 months. Our new home is about 1/3 the size of the old home. I lost a lot of storage and when we moved in, all my fabric and sewing was put in the garage -- in both cardboard boxes and plastic totes. I am slowly organizing things, but it does get overwhelming. The biggest issue I have is that the folks who packed (I was not able to do much) failed to label things. My DGS is helping me unpack and organize and we just opened a box labeled books and it had only fabric in it (sigh)... I still can't find my serger (the only machine that I did not have an original box for).
I would not try to organize and unpack until I had all my shelves in -- since my room is still a work in progress, I clear a space around a machine and play for a while since all work and no play make me grumpy. We rented a POD for a while so we had room to move around the garage (literally) -- only needed it for a few months but it sure helped. I wish I could have bought tubs for all my fabric because the stuff in the boxes is a mystery.