Cleaning Out the Garage

My oldest son came and we purged the garage. Really, you could call it a carriage house because in the past that is all it would hold. Thankfully, it is not attached to my 100-year-old farm house, because it has become the storage space for everything besides a carriage. So on this day that the cleaning out took place, if you could have been a mouse in the corner, I am sure you would have had lots of laughs. This went like one of the TV organizing shows – he wanted to discard what I felt was important. For instance, I came out of my office to see him sawing in half long poles. To him it was trash - to me, great stakes for my tomato plants.

As some of you know, when I work with clients, I ask questions and they make decisions. My typical question is “tell me about this?” and depending on the answer I will ask more questions but clients make all their own decisions. I am a sentimental person and want people to keep what is meaningful or useful to them. That is not how this went…Son:  “You don’t need this!”  Me:  “ I like to garden and I want it.”   Son:  “It is just taking up room!  Get rid of it.”

Well, 6 hours later we had not killed each other and were still speaking to each other and the garage was purged of 35 years of stuff. I put my foot down on major remodeling projects like “let’s saw this book case in half and hang the pieces up here.”  I reminded him I couldn’t reach “up here”.

One big stack was made for his brother to come and claim anything he wanted.  A mountain of discarded stuff is waiting for a big trash day.  I really do appreciate all his help, and now all my gardening things are where I can get at them.

This was a good reminder to me not to ever take over my client’s decision making. To each of us our stuff is important.

So if you are doing a family garage project here are some pointers…

Organizing Tip 1. Working on a big project with a partner helps.  (Really, it does!)
Organizing Tip 2. Purging equals freedom and space.  Go for it!
Organizing Tip 3. Offer unneeded items to a family member, friend or neighbor.  Check with local charities to see if you can contribute useful but no longer needed items.  (See my website, www.clutterfree.biz for suggestions.)