Pack it Out, Pack it In.

Let me begin.  Can you guess what we packed out and packed in?  The contents of our garage of course.  One of the compromises we made when choosing our house was the fact that we do not have an attached garage.  Which is kind of a bummer for us in Minnesota, where we have to brave below zero temps and biting wind just to get in our car (which may or may not start) during the winter.  However, we are lucky enough to have A garage even if we do have to walk ten feet to get there.  It is a small space.  We call it a one and a quarter.  Since we are still saving up for our mopeds or smart car, we currently use that spare quarter as our dumping ground for our growing crap heap.  It is not actually all crap, but it sure looks like it when you store like we have been doing for….oh….a year and a half.  As in the whole time we’ve owned said dumping ground.  I finally snapped last weekend after tripping over one too many things getting in and out of the garage.  And Dain was obviously obligated to join in.  Marriage code or something.  Since I certainly did not put it all in there myself.

First of all, let me clarify that we are neither heathens nor hoarders.  With that said,  you can now look at our garage as it stood for many months.

Yes, now imagine our little red car just barely fitting in the middle of all of that junk.  It was a tight squeeze that resulted in many run-ins with propane tanks, rakes, and shoes.  While Dain painted the trim in the sun porch on Saturday, I took everything out of the garage in mad flurry.

The best part was when cars started to slow down to see if we were having a garage sale.  As if we would sell our two-wheeled cruisers or winter lightning sleds since obviously we need both our summer and our winter transportation.  Eventually I just put out a sign that said “keep on moving unless you would like to help me clean out our garage in this heat.”  I tried to pile like things together in the driveway so it would be easier to organize them, and after about an hour of hauling, the garage was looking a little better.

I basically only left all of our wood pieces and a few tables that are too heavy for me to move solo.  Then I swept the floor, which was apparently also long overdue.

I waited for Detail Dain to finish his painstakingly time consuming trim painting.  Then we tackled it together.  The first thing I made him address was his shoe collection.  You may recall the embarrassing amount of shoes we had back when we cleaned out our front closet (in this post).  Well apparently Dain has secretly been keeping even more in the garage.  His “work” shoes.  Three pairs of them.  Wait, are those two pairs of the same tennis shoes?  Yes, yes they are.  Busted.

After Dain picked one pair to get rid of, we moved on to an even more controversial item.  Dain’s hideously ugly and rusty filing cabinet that has been sitting in our garage since we moved in.  What pray tell does one keep in a little filing cabinet in their garage?  Funny story.  Last fall, when we were preparing for our honeymoon, I asked Dain where his passport was.  He gave me a confused look.  I gave him a “seriously?” look.  He shuffled around the house looking in drawers and closets.  Then I heard the front door shut.  In about five minutes, he came back in and announced that he found it so there was no need to worry.  To which I said, did you just get your passport from that creepy filing cabinet in the garage?  And I quote….”Yeah, and I found my social security card too.” And then he tried to spin it like it was a good place because nobody would think to steal it in such a hidden spot.  Obviously, I am now in charge of our documents since Dain struggles with that.  Yet somehow he is holding on to this piece.  It is unexplainable.

I’ve given him one week to address the issue.  After we dealt with the contentious items, we moved on to sorting out the rest of our stuff.  And we have a lot of it.  Some of it is totally random.  Like the signs from our wedding.  Dain made them for the occasion, and although we have no purpose for them at the moment, we are hanging on to them.  The fish actually goes on the other side of the fisherman and then you can stick your head in the holes for a photo op.  We had it outside of our reception hall, and it was a big hit.  So perhaps it will make an appearance for a party or something.  As for the two smaller signs, we are debating whether to paint over the “reception” and “wedding” parts and put them somewhere fun.

We also addressed a few issues, like this rack to hold yard tools that came with the garage.  It reads “ultra-hold,” but it really is just over-priced ultra-crap.  So Dain took matters into his own hands with a simple replacement.  It was a cinch to take out the ultra-hold since one of the screws was stripped.  It just pulled out.

Dain rectified the situation with a 2×4 and screws that we already had along with a few hooks that we picked up at the hardware with the remainder of a gift card we’ve been holding onto.

He screwed the 2×4 into the wall where the old rack was, and then he just screwed the hooks into the 2×4.

Which created a very sturdy and easy to use storage solution.  And it didn’t cost us a dime.

However, we are going to shell out for a few more hooks to go in between these so that we can store even more items up there.

And as we hinted on Monday in this post about our trip to the Goodwill, this $7.99 shelf was for our garage.  Another affordable and incredibly functional storage solution.  Because as you can tell, we have a lot of stuff to organize from tools to yard supplies to coolers.  And do you notice that dresser next to the shelf?  That’s a gem we picked up last summer thanks to somebody setting it out on the curb with a “free” sign.  Thank you best neighborhood for free stuff ever.  We had plans to refinish it, but since we haven’t gotten around to that yet, we decided to use it for storage for all of our smaller garage items.  Like Dain’s shoes, hose nozzles, and gardening supplies.  All of the essentials.

Here’s where it stands today.  In the left corner you can see the table that Dain set up as kind of a mini-workshop.  It’s not perfect, but it’s such an incredible improvement.  We also have hooks (thanks to my dad) for our bikes that we are going to hang at some point.

If your garage is looking like ours did, you should probably just bite the bullet and organize it.  If it is already organized, good for you, and don’t ever let it get as bad as ours.  It was a pain.  We will file it in our imaginary “joys of homeownership” project list (along with semi-annual window washing……who does that?).