Our Garage

Organizing the Garage

This was the challenge at week 2 at ABFOL, to simplify and organize your garage.  We were up for this challenge or at least I should say I was up for this.  I had to drag my husband into it.  Our garage was a disaster.  We had a new roof put on our house and all the old paint in the garage chipped and fell all over our stuff.  Believe me, when I say we have a lot of stuff to clean off.   We had to dust and clean everything.  However, it was good because I think it is always good to clean out the garage at the end of summer.  

I wish I had taken a picture of all the paint chips on the floor after my husband took the leaf blower and cleaned out the rafters in the garage but we were so busy working I forgot about pictures. 

I do have a picture of all the stuff we organized into a goodwill pile and a dump pile.  

even more wood for the dump

We took a lot of metal things to the road to see if anyone would take it, and yeah someone did, even and old grill.

Our 2 car-garage is nothing fancy because we live in WI and it gets very cold in the winter.  We do not heat our garage.  We park two cars in the garage to keep them out of the elements.  During the winter snow and slush collects all over the floor so it does not pay to put nice things in there.  Also there are lots of bugs and sometimes litter critters, so I like to keep our things inside the house. 

However, we do have a lot of stuff.  We tried to clean and purge and much as possible.  We are still holding on to things for two of our children who have not left our nest and who knows someday we may even have grandchildren. 

This is our organized shelf of stuff like, brown paper bags, jars that I save for grease, wood for the fireplace, mats for the cars(yes we have winter and summer mats). 

I repurposed this can to keep my painting supplies outside for the summer and fall.

This old metal cabinet is for rags and old sheets.  We also keep our boots that we wear in the heavy snow on the bottom shelf away from bugs. 

I added these cubby shelves with plastic containers to hold things that I don’t want bugs to get at.  For example:  our biking stuff, my mailbox flags, dog toys for visiting dogs, sidewalk chalk, my husband’s hard hat, trash bags.

I made these cute labels with address labels and scapbook paper.  I like to label things to make it easier to find everything.

We store a lot of stuff up on top of the garage that we do not use very often.  My husband also has the ladders hanging on the walls.

This is our recycling can and shopping bags.  I would like to fix this entrance area up more after we paint.  New carpet for the steps and maybe a door decoration.  

Husband’s tool area……it will stay clean for one or two days, or maybe a week until he goes out there again.   He has all his tools on pegboard.........

and he has a tool bench for little stuff however you can rarely find the top of it.  My husband cleaned and organized the table himself.  

I do have painting the garage on the "HONEY TO DO LIST" and as a back up I have offered to pay my son to paint it as well.  

On my wish list for the garage........ I would like a "Girl Tool Bench"  so I have an area to work.  However my husband thinks the garage is sort of like a "man cave" and I have yet to convince him I should have some work space in there.  This is where I think I should put my workbench. What do you think?