Garage Re-Do

It seems like this time of year is just conducive to getting organized.  We don't have kids in school yet, but all the kids are headed back to school and cooler weather is approaching, which always seems to give me more energy to get things accomplished.  Plus, you can't beat all the sales on back to school/office supplies, so there's almost no excuse not to at least get SOMETHING organized!

    Our first project was the garage.  I know I posted a garage clean out post a while back, but with summer toys and bikes and random STUFF, our garage had gotten back to worse than before.  So we went out and bought some heavy duty shelves and actually put some thought into where to put things so that they would get put away and not just thrown somewhere when we were done using them. 

 I just printed the labels on some yellow card stock and taped them to the containers.  These containers have been great for getting stuff separated and categorized, so that I don't have 15 different piles of Christmas decorations floating around.

    At some point during this process, I had an "AHA" moment.  Maybe it was after I picked up the fourth t-shirt or the ninth sock, but I realized that we needed a laundry basket in the garage.  That might sound stupid to some or common sense to others, but I realized that a lot of times when Marcus comes in from working outside or fishing or working out, he is dirty.  And it would save me from having to pick up dirty, muddy, sweaty clothes off the garage floor if I just put a hamper by the door to the house!  So I got a laundry sorter for about $3 from Wal-Mart and stuck it right by the door on the way in.  So far, so good!

 

    Along those same lines, we had about 12 pairs of shoes strewn in various places around the garage, all with various (outdoor) uses, like old, ratty tennis shoes for mowing grass or boots for fishing.  So I got a cheapo shoe organizer to get them all in one place and off the floor.  Again, DUH! I seriously don't know why I didn't think of this sooner!

Things are much improved from where we started, but we've still got a long way to go.  I think the garage is going to end up being my nemesis since I am a minimalist by nature.  There are just some things that have to be stored though, and as much as I'd like to get rid of all of it, I know that it's handy to have on hand when we have a project come up.  I plan on taking the garage organization pretty slow and instead of running out and buying a billion cheap containers, getting the good storage boxes once I find a need for them.  I'm sure that means that there will be many more garage organization posts in the seasons to come, but I guess that's life, right? :)