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Garage is a disaster zone - time for action

January 7th, 2007 at 01:14 am

Our garage used to be a total mess - barely room to walk through it to enter the house. A year or so ago, I finally buckled down and cleaned it out pretty well and it was great. Then my mom decided to sell her house (my childhood home). I still had a ton of stuff stored there. You guessed it. I helped clean out her house and all the stuff ended up in our garage. Back to just a narrow path from driveway to door.

It was a beautiful spring-like day today, 71 degrees in January. I took the opportunity to spend some time in the garage, though not as much as I had planned. I did manage to pack 4 carton boxes with stuff to go to Goodwill. I didn't get to drop it off today, but I'll get it over later this week. That barely made a dent in the appearance of the garage, but it got me motivated to keep at it. I'm not sure what we're up to tomorrow, but if nothing is going on, I will get back in there and do more cleaning and organizing.

ETA: My biggest problem is I always hold out hopes of selling the stuff we don't want. We've done a few yard sales in the past, and have done well with them, but the stuff piles up far faster than it sells, and last year we never managed to have a sale. At some point, I just get to the point where I'd rather have the space than the money. Decluttering is very therapeutic.

7 Responses to “Garage is a disaster zone - time for action”

  1. Cheetahwoman7 Says:
    1168133691

    You can come do my garage when your's is done. *smile* I have taught 4 grades in 5 years and my garage has become a storage facility for all of my 'realia', books, instructional materials for each of those grades.

    One of my goals for this year is to go through ALL the stuff, one box at a time. What I won't use or has been ruined some how, is getting either sold ($20 Challenge), donated, or tossed!

    Good luck on that!

  2. nance Says:
    1168137673

    Seeing my garage would make you feel much better! I'm married to a pack rat!
    This is going to be the year to purge, or so I tell myself.

  3. Champion Cheapskate Says:
    1168142057

    Out with the old, in with the new. Yes, now is the time to get organized. As you say, decluttering is very therapeutic. So don't stop with your garage. Good luck.

  4. baselle Says:
    1168156472

    4 boxes is
    4 boxes
    and 4 more
    than no boxes.

    When I declutter, I toss or donate. My time is precious to me and often you'd get more for the charitable tax deduction than you would from the yard sale.

  5. Ima saver Says:
    1168176230

    I had planned a garage sale for fall and it did not happen. I plan to have one this spring.

  6. kealina Says:
    1168203561

    lol.. yeah, the stuff really does come in faster than it goes out... sometimes i just want to clear it all out... of course, when we clean out we're lucky because of my mom's flea market stall... i can clean slowly and just take stuff down every couple weeks... it tends to trickle down like this... first, i will give it to family... then i will try to sell it... if it won't sell, i give it away to friends or acquiantances.... if not, then i will simply donate it or give it away to whoever can use it...
    if there's stuff that donation places don't take don't forget that there's always craigslist and freecycle... good luck cleaning...

  7. scfr Says:
    1168219629

    Before we put our former house on the market, I wanted to do a really quick purging, so I hired a FoundValue (www.foundvalue.com) specialist to sell some of my things on Ebay. It wasn't the most frugal way to sell things as I had to pay a rather hefty commission. But what I liked about it was that the specialist came over and took everything within a couple days so it was GONE, I did not have to take the time and effort to sell things during a very busy time, and I did recoup a fair amount of cash for unneeded things. What was interesting was that some things sold for less than I thought, and some sold for quite a bit more ... Who would have thought that the Bob Mackie dress I bought for $30 off of the clearance rack at a consignment just because I needed formal wear would go for nearly $400?!?

    Might be worth calling an Ebay consignor and making some money.
    Also, if you need inspiration to stay motivated, check out the show "Clean Sweep" on TLC if you've never seen it!

    Good luck!

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