Garage of Doom

I cannot recall if I ever discussed our travel plans.  Our belongings are currently on a truck wending its way across America, which will take two weeks.  Because that means I have no furniture in New Jersey, and no furniture in California, we are currently staying with my in-laws in New Jersey for two weeks.  We will fly out to California on the 14th, and our belongings are scheduled to arrive at the new place on the 15th.  Its a few days before I get to start decorating yet.

When we found out we were moving, the Mister and I knew that we would have to tackle the garage.  The garage has been crammed full of furniture and bins of stuff since the day we moved in.  The use of space was not very efficient.  I do not have a true "before" picture, which is a shame--the furniture literally came up to the garage door and in the middle of the garage, with a tiny, narrow corridor to get to all the bins arranged on the right side.

Here it is after we started shifting some of the furniture out.

A few weekends ago my family came up for dinner, and my sister's awesome husband helped the Mister play a game of furniture Tetris to rearrange the garage.

We gave these bookshelves to my mother.  My sister took a brass headboard and a campaign nightstand, a stroller, and a bunch of clothes for Denise. My other sister took the two bright turquoise chairs, which I recovered on the spot in some Robert Allen Kiki Pinata fabric for her.  Sadly I didn't take any pictures of this.

I went through every single one of the bins on the side of the garage.  They contain mostly boy's clothing in sizes from 3T to 7, off-season adult clothing, and other household items.  I consolidated, donated, and purged.  I finally found the bin that contained my sweatpants, now that I bought replacements a few weeks ago.

Many, many, many things went to Goodwill:

True story:  this trip to Goodwill took a very long time because the road to Goodwill was shut down in both directions for Whitney Houston's burial.  We took the long way around.

After the furniture tetris, the garage looked like this:

When I was notified that the moving estimate was over the weight limit, I decided to leave behind some furniture.  I planned to leave the big black bookshelf and the china cabinet, because I had no place for them in the new house, and the campaign furniture, because it weighs a gazillion pounds.  I discussed this with the movers when they showed up, and they moved the china cabinet into the garage for me.  My sister was going to take the china cabinet and the campaign dresser.

Yesterday she asked for the measurements, so I went out to the garage to take them, and realized....the movers had taken the campaign furniture and put it on the truck.  Oops.  (We made it under the weight limit anyways.)  Sister is only getting the china cabinet.  The black Ikea bookshelf was finally given to someone off craigslist yesterday afternoon.  I gave it to them for free in return for getting it out of my garage.

And now the garage looks like this:

My sister will be picking up the china cabinet on Saturday, and then I am finally done with this house. (That chair belongs to the landlord.)

Over the course of the past week I have cleaned up, patched all the holes in the house, primed over all the crayon on the walls, and painted over all the dings and scratches.  This should have been a post in itself, but I was sort of busy and did not take any pictures.

Onwards and upwards!  The next house is lacking the basement we had here, so all of the stuff that lived in the basement will be in the garage, plus all the stuff that was in the garage here...so....I think its safe to say that there will be a William Morris organizing project or two in the garage of the next house.

I'm linking up this post to Pancakes and French Fries William Morris Project.