Week 02 - Garage Organization

Week two in the Organization challenge has found me a bit stressed. With having recently moved, the garage is a mess!!! It has most of the boxes that still need to be moved in, we went from having a garage and a shed to having just a garage so there is a lot more items needing to be stored in the garage as well. I have decided that this will be an ongoing work in progress as I cannot simply finish it right now due to time and budget constraints.

 Here are the before pictures:

A view from the kitchen doorway

A view of the wall with the existing shelving

From the outside looking in:

Overhead shelving:

Work in progress, first set of "after" shots:

View from the kitchen doorway

Outside looking in..Look to the right against the wall, there are a TON of paint cans that will be going away in the future that was left by the previous home owners.  We want to dispose of these in a safe way.  Behind the paint cans are about six to seven boxes of books we are going to donate.

Shelves above.  The shelf on the left has all the holiday decorations which will be reorganized during each holiday and repackaged into different totes to eliminate clutter and some boxes.  The shelf on the right has camping and beach gear along with the coolers.

This is the wall with the existing shelves and will become my overflow side with my bulk items that I get like paper towels, baggies, soda, water, etc.

So there you have it...my garage is not entirely finished but after 12 hours of working in it, you can already see a huge improvement :)

Yesterday's Adventures

So yesterday we started the garage organization.  I must admit I was a bit overwhelmed considering we recently moved and still had piles and piles of boxes waiting for us to go through, unpack, put away and decide what we want to keep, sell, donate and toss.  We have big plans for the garage, however, they are not scheduled to happen until sometime next year.  We need to get a workbench and some more shelves for my husband's tools.

We also have a TON of paint that was left by the previous owners that cannot be used.  We were able to dry up some of the paint and dispose of it properly, however, we still have a lot left that are almost full and colors we will never use.  We are currently looking for a place close to us that we can dispose of these safely.  The paint we are keeping and using (the new paint we purchased for the house) is being stored in the basement in our unfinished laundry room area.  This area doesn't get hot like the garage and will keep the paint at an even temperature all year long so the paint won't be ruined.

In the garage we also have 100's of books that we are wanting to pass on.  We are going to try to see if we can get some money from them from 1/2 price books, and then the rest (whatever they don't take) will be donated.  Both of us were book hoarders and we now have nooks and kindles that have our digital books on them so it's time to part with the books we no longer use.

I do have to say this, my husband was out there in the garage with me all day long.  We pulled items out into the driveway and brought things back a little at a time.  We are not finished, but it already looks 1000000 times better!  We can actually walk in the garage now which is even better!

I will post the before and after photos at the end of the week after I get rid of the paint and hopefully the books :)

Luckily, this time around, I only have to purchase one item for the garage from Home Depot and that is an organizer for the garden items (shovels, rakes, hoe's, etc.)

Such a great challenge we have this week!  A big thanks to ABFOL for doing such a great challenge!

Until next time,
Shonda