Join me on our family adventure of cleaning out the garage. It took us two days to get the garage from a staging area of stuff to useable space that can fit our large mini-van.
In the previous blog, I talked about how we started the organizing process by sorting our stuff into separate piles: toys, tools and household. We also had some boxes set aside for donation, and a large trash can for obvious trash. I mentioned how there were some things that my husband couldn’t let go. But I had my own irrational item that was taking up space.
So what is this thing? An old cabinet that belonged to my great aunt. I used it in our old kitchen, and it was quite useful there. It has cubby drawers that are just right for sorting rebates and coupons, a great area for a microwave or other small appliances, and storage space underneath. It is made out of real wood and decorated with delicate strawberry decals. It is both useful and sentimental…and headed for the donation pile.
Of course, it has no place in our new kitchen. It is the wrong color and style, and we have two really nice pine pantries that we purchased in Lancaster for the kitchen. So, objectively, it has to go. And that was tough. But, you can’t hold on to something if it serves no purpose at improving your home or your life. I was able to let this go on the first day.
So, back to the organizing. The rule was that once something hit the donation pile, it was no longer ours to keep and couldn’t be pulled back out.
Among our other treasures that made it over to that pile were: a carpet steam cleaner (we have no carpet), a computer scanner (that isn’t compatible with our computer), a breakfast tray (I have never had breakfast in bed despite the tray), and a few things that were left here by the previous owners (someone else’s stuff trying to sneak into our lives).
With everything out of the garage, the temptation was to run out and buy an organizing system, but we resisted. We needed to do more de-cluttering, first.
At the end of the night we moved some items into the house and put them away. Then we placed everything else back in the garage for the night, keeping them together and in the middle of the garage, away from the temptation of wandering elsewhere.
So did it all eventually get organized? Check back to find out what happened the next day.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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