GARAGE (The After)
Voila! Much more organized and for under $50.00!
What worked for me was dedicating small increments of time when the weather was nice or when I had a little free time.
As you can see, this garage is a bit unusual. It’s approximately 10 feet by 5 feet only, so I had to be very picky about what I used this space for if I wanted to be able to get anything out of it.
Here’s what I did …
1 - Identify your goal, decide on the purpose of the space and visualize your ideal end result
I enjoy drawing my ideas and so I sketched out a few quick pictures of what I hoped the garage would look like for The After. It also helped to ask myself what I really tended to use this space for.
2 - Get Rid of Stuff
Anything that doesn’t belong in the space needs to get thrown out, donated, given back to who it was borrowed from or find another place in your home.
This project consisted of …
dump run – old broken sliding glass door and various waste
moved my Christmas and Halloween decorations to the tiny loft in the roof of my garage as I only need to access them once per year
donated boxes of unused goods to charity
dropped an unneeded porch gate to the Restore (we already have one so why were we keeping this?)
sleds were put in the backyard shed as these get used in the backyard generally
returned any borrowed tools
moved wood chips outside to be used for this spring
3 – Choose and Purchase Storage Products
My purchase list:
1.25 x 6 mesh bags Dollarama to grab toys on the go
5.99 x 4 black bins Giant Tiger garden décor/car stuff
12.99 duck tape Lowes lines for bike parking
2.00 tall black bin Thrift Shop to hold folding chairs
Total … $46.45 + tax
(you could also use dollar store duck tape but I liked the look of the hazard tape for the bike parking)
4 - Clean
Once I had most of the junk removed it was easier to get in and give it a good clean. Did a quick sweep of the floor, removed leaves that had blown in, mopped the floor and allowed to try before putting down duck tape.
5 - Arrange and Put Away
In the end for me this space is really a transitional space, used for garbage/waste, bikes, toys that we grab on our way out of the house and a few smaller items like garden décor and car stuff. Actually, one of the bins is able to fulfil two purposes, for example, when I take my garden décor out in the spring I can use the same bin to store my driveway salt.
Summer fun here we come!