Cleaning the Garage

The garage.  It's a space of chaos and clutter, full of cupboards holding gardening, painting, plumbing, bike repair, and car maintenance equipment, as well as two cars and many, many, many tools and bits and bobs of stuff.  It's overwhelmingly full, with all flat surfaces covered in stuff, as well as all vertical surfaces covered in suspended stuff.  All through the winter, the stuff piles up or lays on the ground, or is just generally in the way.  

But! This weekend I was committed to cleaning the garage, and not just rearranging stuff.  I wanted to get rid of things that we were not using that were just taking up space, like a car bike rack that doesn't work on the back of the car, and the weed whacker that I'm unable to fire up, and five large tin cans Kent bought at a garage sale and hasn't found a use for.  In addition, we had a ceiling rack I wanted to hang up that has been lying around for months and months, and this weekend was the time to do that, too.

Kent agreed to help me and we started with the hanging rack.  Last year, when Eugene and Sharae moved into their new home, I gave them two large hanging racks for their garage as house warming presents.  Apparently, due to duct work, they only had room for one rack and returned the other to me.  I thought it was a small one, maybe four by four feet, but it turns out, it was a big one, like four by eight.  I was so thrilled! We installed it at the front of the garage, along the garage door edge, and put all of our camping coolers up there, along with other large items that take up space, aren't too heavy, and needed to be out of the way.  We got some camping equipment from Georgianne recently, and by moving stuff around, made space for tents on one rack and the coolers on the big new one.  We also hung up a ladder we use, but not often, a step ladder we use frequently and can get to easily, but isn't sitting on the ground, and then sorted, sifted, and swept.  By the end of the day, the garage looked absolutely fantastic, and I felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.  Maybe it's resting up on that hanging rack.

Looking at this picture, it still feels like there is lots of stuff in the garage. 

I'm confident that is never going to change.

Kent isn't one to get rid of stuff, but if the stuff is organized and contained,

I can live with it.