Well, the garage has graduated from disaster to simply a huge mess.  It's actually quite the accomplishment, given what it looked like when this all started.  Today's objective was to start from the back door and get as far as I could, dividing things into

• Garbage-- preferably, this is stuff actually in a garbage can by day's end
• Recycle-- Cans and bottles can go in the recycle bin, cardboard broken down
• Wood-- These are burnable courtesy of my sister-in-law, so we can add to the bonfire
• Donations

This then left the other "stuff".  The things that actually belong in the garage.  For now, the idea is to reduce what's there to what is supposed to actually be there.  Later on we can do things like organize tools and hang rakes and shovels.  

 

After about 3 hours of work, the mission was large accomplished.  Both trash bins are full and ready for the city to dump next week.  We then have one overflow can about 1/3 full.  The recycle bin is full and there's a loosely organized pile of cardboard on the floor.  Donations are gone-- having make a trip to Goodwill and only coming back with the baby gate and stroller that they did not accept.  A bunch of larger items to dump in the trash have been identified-- old car seats, strollers, a trashed crib mattress, etc.  There are about eight florescent bulbs, one computer monitor and one microwave oven to deliver to the city recycling plant tomorrow.

It was a good start and there is a noticable difference.  I'm still not able to park a car in here, but we are getting close.  After the trash and recycles are gone, the next step is to identify a home for the extra furniture that's out there-- two bookcases and two storage lockers.  If those can vacate the center of the garage, then we'll have at least some hope of getting the van out of the elements this winter. 

Meanwhile, I can ponder what to do with the tandem jogging stroller that doesn't fold up...

Posted by Jason at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that my better half has been working on cleaning up and organizing the kids clothes and generally, everything inside the house.  I've been meaning to do something with our garage for some time now and thus it's been brought into the project.  The idea is to make one stall a workshop/tool area and have the other stall as a functional place to park our minivan.  On the surface, it sounds simple enough.

However, we have a couple of challenges.  First off, it's now December 28th and the daytime temperature is about 20 degrees.  The next time we'll see the north side of freezing is March.  After all, it is Wisconsin.  So, it's a cold, unforgiving environment.  However, it is something you can prepare for.  One thing that I've learned after living out here for five years is that gloves and a good hat can do wonders for your outdoor experience.  I'm still looking for a way to keep my ears warm, but with a good set of thinsulate gloves and a hat, you can function in winter.

So with that out of the way, the other problem is that the garage is an absolute disaster area.  There are at least two reasons for this that I can think of.  First, we generate a lot of trash.  We have three little ones in the house and with a household of five comes a lot of messes to clean up.  For the longest time, we didn't have the bins provided by the city for automated garbage pickup, so we end up with a pile of garbage and recycling boxes to deal with.  Frankly, we never really had a good system for that, and thus we had a lot of just junk out there.  

Secondly, we underwent a major, major, remodeling project that we've detailed in this blog over the last 2 years.  The garage became the staging area for everything.  At one point, we had boxes and boxes of kitchen cabinets filling up one stall.  Later, we had flooring components, furniture, you name it.  It was also the workshop, especially as the weather turned.  So, we have the miter saw, table saw, etc.. out ans scattered about.  Finally, the hand tools were all over the place and we just grabbed what we needed and were not good about putting tools back.  Add to that a baby born in the middle of the project and we have the seeds for a hellish garage.  

So, we'll see how things work out.  

Posted by Jason at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)