It was clean

If you read my posts very often you know that I have a love hate relationship with my garage.  I love that we have a garage and I hate that we have a garage.  Why?  Well, I am a neat freak - I want everything put away.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I know that a garage is to use - and my husband uses it for a workshop - and that's okay.  What drives me nuts insane is when you can't see the floor for all the junk.

Case in point.  This was our garage right after we finished remodeling the house.  Absolute disaster!

Seriously, I would get so depressed when I walked outside that I just wanted to cry.  It got to the point where I refused to go into the garage period - I just couldn't face it anymore.  I had reached my breaking point.

So, my darling dh agreed knew that it was time to clean it up.

Phase One:

One of our goals was to downsize our storage unit that we share with our daughter and sil.  We had the largest unit available - and at one time - it was filled to capacity.  However, in the last year, with our remodeling project being completed and just getting rid of stuff, we had gotten to the point where we thought we could downsize and we wanted to go to the smallest available. 

My dh and I went to the storeroom and got our two cabinets.  We knew they would give us a lot of storage that would be closed off and I wouldn't have to look at it.  There are just some things that we have not been able to let go of through all our moves and these provide the perfect place to store those items.

After a couple of days work we could actually see the floor - YEAH! - and we could see that we had made tremendous progress.  BTW, all those paint cans  that you see were recycled at the local center.

However, there was STILL so much work to be done.  You see, this is Dan's work space.  No matter how much we do - Dan still has to have a space to do the projects he so loves to work on (and I ask him to do for me!)  I don't want to take that away from him, I just want it to be a little neater (okay, let's be honest here - a whole lot neater).


                                                                            Phase Two:
So, a couple of months ago we found these plastic shelving units on clearance at Walmart and thought that they might help with our storage issues in the garage.  So, we purchased four of them and placed two side by side and then one set in front of the other.  This gave the same width as the shelving unit that Dan had on the "workshop" side of the garage, and the storage cabinets on the "pretty" side of the garage.

                                            The pretty side. 

The shelving unit beside the extra refrigerator we bought at a garage sale for $5.00.  It is the perfect size to fit in this little awkward space and gives me a place for paper towels, garbage bags, etc.  I have also put the recycling container for newspapers on this shelving unit. 

As you can see - on this side of the shelving units you can see the floor and the floor is even clean!  However, that is not the case on the other side of the garage.

The workshop side still needed some major help.  We wanted to purchase Dan a real workbench instead of using a folding table, but we were going to have to save up the money first (paying cash) - so that was going to have to wait.

Fast forward to last weekend.  We were finally able to go purchase that workbench Dan wanted from Lowe's.  He spent all afternoon on Friday putting it together and Saturday we spent working on the workshop side of the garage.  By Saturday evening it was all clean - everything had a place and was put away.  I was so  happy and proud.   Sunday I was all ready to take pictures.

Then, we realized, much to our chagrin, that it was the last weekend of the month and we HAD to get the larger storage unit emptied of all the stuff that we had saved to go in the garage sale.  We had moved all the stuff our valuables we were going to keep into the smaller unit (we fit everything in the smaller unit and have room to spare - YEAH!), but had left the garage sale  junk  treasures in the larger unit.  Now, it had to be moved and right away, or we would owe another month.  NO WAY am I going to pay another month's storage for junk, I mean treasures, that we are going to sell!

So,  guess where all that stuff had to go ------- yep, you guessed it.  Into our clean, for less than 24 hours, garage!

 

If you look real close you can see Dan's new workbench - there in the background.  Look down and you'll see the floor under all the boxes and stuff is clean.  Really, it is!

So,  my garage is once again, a huge, bloody mess!  However, it will NOT be this way forever!  There is LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!  I have seen the promised land and I will get to it again - in a couple of weeks, when the garage sale is over. 

When I do,  I will take pictures before it disappears again!