30 x 30; Clean Out & Reorganize the Garage

Y'AAAAAALL! This weekend we cleaned out, repainted, and reorganized the garage. This is what I looked like on Sunday - midday. We weren't even close to done. 

But before I talk to much about the middle, let's go back to the beginning, shall we?

We bought our condo in 2010. The garage was already half full of junk - old paint, extra drywall, you name it. Then T's parents moved from the Bay to SD, so all the stuff he'd left at their old house, was moved into our garage - along with a pretty huge collection of random tools and supplies we "might need someday". Then I finally got most of my stuff out of my parents' house (there's still a little over there, I think) and that went into the garage. Then over this past Christmas, T's parents made a final trip up North to clean out their storage units, and on the way down left boxes upon boxes and even some furniture for us - which we sorted through and then ultimately stored in THE GARAGE.

The garage... which was already painted dank dark grey and had built in shelving units that were falling apart, including one that jutted out into the garage so we each hit our heads on it more than once - many a gash and bruise were had. 

OH! AND! For a long time we were keeping rolls of carpet because one of the couples' my aunt sold a house to ripped out the brand new carpet and gave it to us. The trouble was that it had been rolled up for so long, it was in terrible condition, so we couldn't use it. So, in the weeks leading up to this little renovation, we'd been slowly throwing away rolls of carpet. 

But enough back story! Would you like to see what our garage looked like last weekend?

So. Much. Stuff. It's piled almost all the way to the ceiling.

This is where we had the carpet stored - with my old papasan chair.

Another angle for ya. You can kind of see how the shelf at the front of the garage juts out passed the washer and dryer.

So, Saturday we emptied off the shelves.

Hubs got started by demolishing the shelves on the right. Panda was on guard duty.

No more built-in plywood shelves.

We started painting the far wall.

Demolished the big hanging shelf in the front - thus proving that whoever installed them had no freaking clue what they were doing.



There were so many nails, we ended up with a hole in the ceiling - don't worry, it was patched the next day.

Panda was thirsty. She worked hard guarding the garage all day. 

END DAY 1. 

Day two we got a much later start than Day one. We fully intended to get up early, but we were SO tired that we ended up sleeping in a little bit, but we got going right away. I spent the better part of the day in this stairwell. I don't have any photos of it while it was a work in progress, but Panda already likes it better, see?

I do feel like I should tell you how majorly cranky this stairwell made me. I didn't take any pictures of how high the walls go or the slanted acoustic ceiling, but they are very high. I spent too much time with my head turned back so I could look up at the ceiling and my neck was KILLING me.

When a friend of mine called in need of a distraction, I was more than happy to take a break to go get her and put her to work. :)

When we got back, hubs had written his name on the wall.

I was jealous. So, I made some room for mine too.

And when we started to lose sun that night, the garage looked something like this.

I took my friend back home around 10pm, and T and I kept painting and cleaning until just shy of 2am. We left it looking like this.

Tuesday I was lucky enough to be able to take the day off, so I snapped some of these while we had daylight.

New rack, built by moi. The papasan chair may still go back up into the house. Not sure about the rocking chair yet. They're both articles of furniture that we can't agree on what to do with. 

You can see over on the far left, T installed a hook to hang one of the ladders. 

The far right side of the garage still needs a little work. We're buying another tool chest that will double as a laundry table.

I also moved my bike there on Tuesday. It had been out on the patio all weekend.

I like this picture because you can really get a feel for the new brightness in the garage. Not so dank anymore. I also moved the luggage downstairs so we have some more space in the guestroom.

and finally, this corner looks like of "meh" right now, but this is where we're going to set up a little "laundry corner". T's going to install a wire rack and shelf so we have a place to hang things to dry and keep the detergent and whatnot. I have high hopes, but we just didn't have time for it this past weekend.

I know this isn't my typical philosophical happiness post, but redoing the garage certainly makes me happy, so why not include it, right?

This is a linkup!