While you may not spend your summer leisure time here, if you have a garage, carport, shed, or something similar, you might want to take a closer look at it the next time you pass through. Chances are, this extremely useful space has become a haven for much more than its share.
This is our dirty, messy garage.
Our embarrassingly messy and oh-so-dirty garage (#thisisreallife)
It houses two vehicles, which fortunately limits what we store here to the perimeter. I have to be honest. I definitely have trouble keeping up with this space. My mind is naturally and primarily focused on the interior of our home, and while I pass through our garage daily, it tends to fall under the, "I've got to tackle that soon” bucket of things.
Well, "soon" was this past week.
Just shy of a year after moving here, my love and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We toasted our decade by visiting a few local wineries (an homage to our honeymoon trip through the Okanagan), but before that, we went to town on our garage.
It felt so good to clear out the dirt, purge the old, and reorganize what we kept in a new way.
So good, in fact, that the garage clean-out has become an annual anniversary ritual! We get to spend the day together and admire our efforts for months to come. Perhaps unromantic, but to us it feels like double the celebration.
Here's how we get it done:
get pumped
We're already motivated. Even a little excited. Upbeat background music makes the job more fun and helps us push through in one shot.
empty it ALL out
Starting in one corner of the garage, we take everything out. If what we pick up is no longer needed, we put it in an appropriate receptacle -- trash, recycle, or donate. We also regroup like things together, making it easier to put each grouping back later.
dirt, be gone!
Once our stuff is cleared out, we sweep around the perimeter and collect all dirt and debris into the center of the garage floor. Then we pull out our shop vacuum to address tight corners and where the ceiling meets the wall area (bye-bye cobwebs!). I was pretty reluctant to get one of these, purely acknowledging it as another thing to store and maintain. But it's so much more effective at vacuuming the garage, car interiors, and our unfinished basement. It also avoids schlepping our interior vacuum outside and potentially damaging it with the type of debris that lives out here. In short, highly recommend getting a shop vacuum!
Lastly, we use a leaf blower to blast any residual dust out. We do wear masks and safety glasses for this wave of the clean to protect our eyes and lungs.
bring back what stays
It's the home stretch and my favourite part: finding a practical home for everything we chose to keep.
We've been wanting to install a real organization rail system for the larger landscape tools, and this is going to be the year we do it. While the system is en route to us, we repositioned things where they will end up. For instance, the wood shelf below is going to be removed and replaced with a rail to hang most of the tools on and below it.
The wire shelving unit was relocated to the workbench wall, and since we purged and consolidated a few things, we actually have space for items to spread out and breathe a little.
I also want to note that many of the storage containers we have are repurposed, such as:
- Nuts, bolts, and miscellaneous tool attachments in the orange shoe boxes.
- Kids' sidewalk chalk, jump ropes, and small outdoor toys in the green bins from a gifted art easel.
- Miscellaneous plastic recycling in a tall blue bin that doubles as our car wash bucket!
This entire process took us 3-hours, leaving us the afternoon to relax and reflect on the last 13 years. Moreover, giving our garage a few hours of attention lets us feel good each time we drive into it -- a clean space with everything we need in its place. What a great way to be greeted home.
what fun anniversary tradition do you have?
Let me know in the Comments below, and if your anniversary is still a ways away, be sure to make time to do that fun thing just because.
Always,
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