Garage: Before and After

So, I've previously mentioned that I did some work out in our garage.  Okay, maybe more than some.  Try A LOT of work.  We are true Oregonians and do not use our garage to actually park our cars in.  Why would we do that when a garage can be so much more than a car port?!  Add in the fact that the garage gets very cold in the winter and all the crazy projects we have been doing around here and you have a recipe for disaster.  Just know that it takes a lot for me to share the befores of this space.

Do you have a place in your home that is your dirty little secret?  I rarely would open the garage door so that no one would know what was lurking in that space...

A partial view from the outside...not too bad you might be thinking, but it's what is hiding in the shadows that you have to be worried about!

Yes, that is exercise equipment under all that junk.  And no, it has not been used in over a year.  Kind of hard to use it if you can't get to it!

This picture doesn't do this space justice.  It literally took me over 5 hours alone to organize this mess and I like to think that I am a pretty fast worker.

Like the laundry basket?  That would be the clothes the kids grew out of and I was too lazy to sort into the correct bins.  I know it was sitting like that for months:(

Looking back at this I have to laugh.  All those empty jars just waiting to get broken and the teetering boxes all around.  What was I thinking????

Not too bad right?  There is enough space to squeeze through to get to the freezer at least!

Now it took me 3 days of hard work to get everything organized and cleaned out.  There was a huge pile of garbage, a bigger pile to donate, and things to give away to family/friends.  I am trying to live with more of a desire to have the things we own be things that we need or use.  If it doesn't have a place or a purpose I don't want it around.
The after pictures are a little out of the order of how I worked.  I started in one corner where our "donate" pile was (more like giant pile of unorganized crap) and worked in a counterclockwise order.  I did something I have always wanted to do and took everything off of every shelf.  Then I put stuff away together.  Like with like and most used in the most convenient places to access.
Drum roll please....
Here is our "new" space!

What?!  A clear path to the freezer?  Be still my heart:)

Oh snap.  There is no more food boxes/containers/glass jars/misc junk on the floor between shelving units.

I can hear the angels singing--is that floor?!  (Oh, and that white/green box is a box of stuff to drop at goodwill.  My goal is to drop off a box of donations when it is full and not wait for chaos.  I only drive by the goodwill every time I go to work!)

 There are a few things that we haven't decided quite what to do with yet on the work bench, but the shelves are totally organized now!  I put all the tools together, the hardware is together and sorted, the paint is in one place, the car stuff in another.  I can't handle how awesome it feels to know right where the tools are that I need and right where to put it back!

The back corner of kid stuff.  The best part is that 4 of those gray totes actually moved out here from my bedroom closet.  That's how much room we gained from organizing and getting rid of stuff!

That armoire moved out here from the living room.  (Just you wait until I show you what I did in there!) and now houses all of the supplies for my vinyl business.  No more boxes of vinyl and other randomness:)

In some ways I am most proud of this corner.  Mainly because I finally put all of the outdoor/camping stuff together!  The shelf on the left is where all of the tents and other stuff belong.  I gained a whole shelf behind the vinyl cutter.  I am going to move some of the books out there that we don't read that much, but can be used for "homeschooling" type information.

I am so in love with this space of my home.  The best part of the whole thing was that I actually made money off of doing it!  We sold two beds, a cradle, and some more books.  Organizing this space only cost me the time.  I didn't spend anything on the whole project!!!  (I think my husband likes this part the most...)

What space are you going to purge and organize now?!