This past weekend I tackled the garage. Again. You might think to yourself, but she just did that like a week ago! Allow me to explain entropy to you, as exemplified by my garage. In a very simplified explanation (leaving out thermodynamics), entropy is when something ordered disintegrates into disorder or randomness. For example, when my nicely organized garage is used over the course of a week, where I toss a bunch of laundry in, take laundry out, move the bikes, take the stroller out, bring in a headboard, move some bins, try to unpack a box or two, paint some furniture but don't pick up the paint rollers....my nicely ordered garage slowly disintegrates into a large pile of junk again.
Its not my fault; you can't fight physics.
When we moved in, the movers lined up most of the bins along the far wall, then piled our fancy dining table, four dining table leaves, and a toddler bed in front of the bins. This left a tiny corridor between this pile of furniture and the row of boxes in the middle of the garage. This tiny corridor is also usually filled with bikes and scooters. The door to the backyard is directly at the end of that tiny corridor.
Our property management company provides a gardener. The gardener can only access our backyard through our garage, and he needs to take the lawnmower through the back door in the garage as well. As you might imagine, this furniture arrangement was annoying to both us, as I find it difficult to access any of the bins, and the gardener, who needs to hurdle an obstacle course with the lawnmover to get in the backyard.
This weekend we pulled out all the bins, and put the fancy dining table and the leaves and the toddler bed behind the bins. We will not be using the fancy dining table or the leaves (its too big for our dining space) for a while. We may use the toddler bed in the next year, but its easy to pull out the bins and get it.
This is much easier for us to navigate.
I went through more bins and consolidated and purged and donated. I found a pair of unopened white curtains that will probably go in the boys room, woohoo! If you're wondering what's in those bins...at least half are hand me down clothes for the my younger two. As Greg outgrows stuff, I pack most of it away for the next kid. There are two bins of my professional wardrobe. I will go back to work someday. Haha. There are two bins of bedding for guests on two different size air mattresses (twin and queen). There is an Easter bin, a Halloween bin, out of season clothing for myself and the Mister, and two bins of coats. There is one large Christmas bin and three small Christmas ornament bin.
The decor bins are mostly in the middle of the garage, and you'll notice I have not showed you that shame. I havethree two ok three bins of curtains. Dude, my tastes have changed, don't judge. I have a lot of windows.
On the other side of the garage....I did not take a picture. I'm doing very poorly with taking before pictures these days. Look at the below picture, in the upper right hand corner, in the overexposed light--see that blank corner with a bedframe leaning on the wall, and a bunch of paint cans?
That now looks like this:
We bought the Ivar system at Ikea, and it only took us six tries to build (and unbuild and build) it correctly. Yes, six tries. FYI, if you buy this, the hardware is only little pins contained in the shelf edge. In case you can't find it. Like me, going "where the hell is the hardware???" for twenty minutes.
Weekends are always a DIY adventure for the Von Trapped family.
Contained upon those shelves are all of our tools. Finding my label maker would be helpful, but generally, each bin contains a different type of tool, and there is room for my burgeoning paint collection (oh, how I miss the paint collection I had to leave behind). The Ivar system is adjustable so that we could build around the spigot on the lower left (right above my box of nine hammers.)
This doesn't look like much, does it. Sadly, those pictures are an entire Saturday worth of work.
Slowly but surely I am chipping away at that garage. We will never be able to park in there but we might at least be able to find stuff.
I am linking up to Pancakes and French Fries William Morris Project.
Its not my fault; you can't fight physics.
When we moved in, the movers lined up most of the bins along the far wall, then piled our fancy dining table, four dining table leaves, and a toddler bed in front of the bins. This left a tiny corridor between this pile of furniture and the row of boxes in the middle of the garage. This tiny corridor is also usually filled with bikes and scooters. The door to the backyard is directly at the end of that tiny corridor.
Our property management company provides a gardener. The gardener can only access our backyard through our garage, and he needs to take the lawnmower through the back door in the garage as well. As you might imagine, this furniture arrangement was annoying to both us, as I find it difficult to access any of the bins, and the gardener, who needs to hurdle an obstacle course with the lawnmover to get in the backyard.
This weekend we pulled out all the bins, and put the fancy dining table and the leaves and the toddler bed behind the bins. We will not be using the fancy dining table or the leaves (its too big for our dining space) for a while. We may use the toddler bed in the next year, but its easy to pull out the bins and get it.
This is much easier for us to navigate.
I went through more bins and consolidated and purged and donated. I found a pair of unopened white curtains that will probably go in the boys room, woohoo! If you're wondering what's in those bins...at least half are hand me down clothes for the my younger two. As Greg outgrows stuff, I pack most of it away for the next kid. There are two bins of my professional wardrobe. I will go back to work someday. Haha. There are two bins of bedding for guests on two different size air mattresses (twin and queen). There is an Easter bin, a Halloween bin, out of season clothing for myself and the Mister, and two bins of coats. There is one large Christmas bin and three small Christmas ornament bin.
The decor bins are mostly in the middle of the garage, and you'll notice I have not showed you that shame. I have
On the other side of the garage....I did not take a picture. I'm doing very poorly with taking before pictures these days. Look at the below picture, in the upper right hand corner, in the overexposed light--see that blank corner with a bedframe leaning on the wall, and a bunch of paint cans?
That now looks like this:
We bought the Ivar system at Ikea, and it only took us six tries to build (and unbuild and build) it correctly. Yes, six tries. FYI, if you buy this, the hardware is only little pins contained in the shelf edge. In case you can't find it. Like me, going "where the hell is the hardware???" for twenty minutes.
Weekends are always a DIY adventure for the Von Trapped family.
Contained upon those shelves are all of our tools. Finding my label maker would be helpful, but generally, each bin contains a different type of tool, and there is room for my burgeoning paint collection (oh, how I miss the paint collection I had to leave behind). The Ivar system is adjustable so that we could build around the spigot on the lower left (right above my box of nine hammers.)
This doesn't look like much, does it. Sadly, those pictures are an entire Saturday worth of work.
Slowly but surely I am chipping away at that garage. We will never be able to park in there but we might at least be able to find stuff.
I am linking up to Pancakes and French Fries William Morris Project.
I would never judge someone's garage or crafty supplies...I resemble that remark! Looking good.
ReplyDeleteWo. What a project! I hope you find that label maker, too. It's hard to deal ith moving and setting up house and finding things. You are doing exceptionally well, really.
ReplyDeleteHey, anything you can do to make it easier to find things is progress! I wish I knew of a good way to corral all the bikes and scooters in the garage. In the winter we hang them up, but in spring/summer, the kids need to reach them. Forever a dilemma...
ReplyDeleteYowzahs!! You have come a long way. So...is that a bed frame in the foreground of those photos. Need someone to take it off your hands?? ;) Blessings of continued gusto on your garage clean-up!
ReplyDelete-Leilani
Oh my word, what a transformation. Good tip about the shelf hardware. I'll keep that in mind if I ever encounter the same dilemma!
ReplyDeleteI love a good hardware hunt! But really, a shelving system would be a livesaver in our garage! It looks so good! Tubs like that are the best thing ever...
ReplyDeleteI love your wall of bins, as I have one too. My husband always asks "what's in there, again?" and shuts off after I detail the contents of more than one. Meh. They are handy, sturdy, and better than a pile of garbage bags. Progress is progress, no matter what.
ReplyDeleteI don't even want to go near my garage! Thankfully it's mostly my husband's domain, but there's a whole lot squirrelled away in there. Kudos to you for tackling this!
ReplyDeleteoh, that ended on a sad note. I do believe that was a whole Sat. I had tackled many a job that when finished didn't look like as much as it felt like it should!
ReplyDelete