house versus garage

14 years ago

So my house is clutter free and pretty well organized and I continue to choose a drawer or closet every month to go through. However, my garage is a disaster. Part of the problem is two of my adult children are in transition and storing all their stuff in the garage. Up until then we would clean and organize the garage twice a year but now it's hard to get around the garage. My youngest daughter will be moving out in March and taking the majority of it but until then I am too overwhelmed to attempt anything.

What does this say about me?

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Comments (5)

LuAnn_in_PA
14 years ago
It says that you are letting your kids temporarily use your garage.
That's all!
jannie
14 years ago
I agree with Luan. I had a divorced neighbor who let her ex-husband store his furniture in her garage temporarily. They had divorced years earlier, and she bought the house all on her own.
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talley_sue_nyc
14 years ago
I agree w/ LuAnn.

It also says that you're frustrated by the current state of your garage.

And so you should look at it and see if there's some sort of "moving stuff around" / "stacking stuff higher so it's not so spread out" that you can do now. Organizing the stuff that's there into clearer and more space-efficient stacks, etc., can help a lot.

It also says that you've got two adult children who can help you shift stuff so that you can get around your garage a bit more easily.

Such an organizing session might also actually protect some of their stuff more effectively in the meantime. They can get some cardboard to set on top of the dining-room table to protect it from scratches, and some sheets or dropcloths to shield them from dust, etc.

And it might help them reposition stuff so that the thing they find themselves really wishing they could get to sooner were on the outside/top of the stack. So, an incentive for them, in terms of taking better care of their own stuff. (It's common for stashes like your kids' to be a bit haphazardly established.)

And if you do that, you might find that you can actually do a little bit of decluttering even *with* all their stuff there.
clg7067
14 years ago
Bins are really good for stacking stuff.
mommabird
14 years ago
Look UP. I still had a pile of exhusband's boxes that prevented me from parking in the garage. It was stuff he didn't need right now but didn't want to throw away, so I agreed he could store it in the garage for now. I was so tired of it being in the way (for a year now). I found some used plywood sheets and put them in the garage rafters to be a "floor" for storage. I used a stepladder to take all his stuff up into the rafters. It's all out of sight and out of the way, overhead. If you have room in your rafters you might want to do the same.

Plywood is pretty expensive new so ask around. I found it at a salvage store that re-sells used building material to benefit Habitat for Humanity. If you have to buy new, you'll have to cut the big sheets into smaller pieces in order to get them up into the rafters. The largest piece I have is about 4' long by 3' wide and it was hard to get into position.

I even stored the little 2-seat cafe table I have for the patio in the rafters. The table and both chairs fit up there. Now they are out of the weather for the winter.

Good luck to you!