Garages,
Basements, Attics,
Sheds, and Other
Neglected Storage
Areas
A Clearer View of Garages
With dampness and temperature fluctuations, the garage, attic or basement is not the best place to store many items. Add the inevitable dirt, dust, and critters, and those valuables can become not so valuable. In practice, these storage spaces often become a catchall for the things we don’t have the guts to part with. What goes on in our minds when we store useless things in the garage, and our $40,000 investment is parked unprotected on the street or driveway? Hmm, sounds like prime real estate is going to waste! Yet, these spaces have great potential for storage, when we make the most of the space and store appropriate items there.
Mary Lynn Murray
It’s About Time Organizing Services
Walnut Creek, California
www.marylynnmurray.com
Americans love cars. They also love the space cars are supposed to fit in—the garage. Ninety-seven percent of all new homes come with an attached garage. Three-car garages are fast replacing two-car garages as the size of choice.
Sometimes all or part of the garage is used for an overflow family room, a rock band studio, a home office, an exercise room, or many other activities. In today’s world, overloaded as it is with possessions, one of the main uses of the garage is as a large storage unit. Rightly done, the garage can be very useful for storage as well as a home for the car.
Ideally, we will store things only on the walls and ceiling of the garage. Sometimes the walls are lined with shelves to hold items. In many garages one “stall” of the garage is dedicated to a purpose other than the car, such as storing bicycles, exercise equipment, or mowers. And woe be to the family whose garage is so full of items that the car won’t fit in, they are unable to enter, and nothing is accessible. That kind of situation is a containerized trash heap. If you’ve got it, you need to face it in the Bare Bones fashion.
Basements and attics, like garages, are significant storage areas. However, they are often used as places to stash items about which we postpone decisions. Definitely not a good idea. Later we are forced to go back and make hard choices about a lot of things we should have cared for one at a time.
What Do You Want?
When you tackle the storage area, what do you want to do? (check all that apply):
___ Get rid of a lot of the stuff.
___ Organize and label what’s there for easier access.
___ Move the things to another area.
___ Make significant change, such as be able to get the car in the garage or use the basement as a playroom.
___ Clean the area.
The Bare Bones Approach
Things have gotten out of hand, way out of hand! Treasure, trash, and maybe critters live together in the garage. The job may have gotten too big for you to handle alone. Depending on the situation, you may need to follow a plan similar to the one below.
IN THE TRENCHES WITH SMART HOMEMAKERS
From Susie:
Dear, dear Ladies, When you work full time, have a household to run, have children, spend 2 1/2 hours commuting, have a debilitating illness/are coming back from one, are in mourning, &/or you have special caretaking responsibilities (frankly, any one of these), for goodness’ sake, it’s okay to need help, and, Guess what? Professional housecleaners will understand!! You deserve a hand with getting things under better control! It sounds as if y’all think there’s something wrong with you, that you can’t be three (healthy) people all rolled into one!
Sure, it may be really embarrassing to expose how bad things have gotten, but it would be really worse if you didn’t get help and you and your family had the ongoing drag-coefficient of a house-out-of-control on top of everything else. That’s debilitating. The disarray won’t go away by itself, &, with all the other things y’all are dealing with, you are perfect candidates for housecleaning assistance. Please, don’t let mere embarrassment keep you from getting a hand. As L’Oreal says, “You’re worth it!” So is your family, and so are those husbands who aren’t getting time with their wives because the house stands in the way.
You can always explain to the prospective housecleaners that things have gotten out of control in your home and that you’re not expecting miracles overnight, but you need help to start whittling away at the backlog. You will not be the first family they’ve worked for who needed this help. I hope those of you who are only holding off on getting help because of embarrassment will love yourselves enough to do it anyway.
I am a sadder but wiser mom of grown children. I never realized my own value until my children’s childhoods were over. They missed out on so many experiences because I was always trying to get mastery of the house by myself. I would have been so much better off getting over the shame and getting assistance with housecleaning, so my kids could have the best parts of me.
Susie, with love for all of us who have dreams to fulfill
Continuing with the plan:
3. Decide on a disposal system. Have a truck haul things away or use some other kind of disposal service. You will probably give some things away, throw away some, and keep some (go easy on this one), so you will need to make arrangements to handle these different categories. If you’re getting rid of items, do it as soon as possible—preferably on the day of the project.
You may decide to sell some items. If you are going to have a garage sale, obtain containers, labeling each with a price, and deposit items into them as you clean your garage. In other words, price them as you go by grouping like priced items together. Then later you won’t have to go back through the things to decide on prices. Some people then just sell the things right out of the box. Others display them in groups according to price.
Before you start the garage-cleaning project, set a date for the sale. Make it close to the cleaning day. Otherwise, it is easy just to let the garage sale items sit in boxes indefinitely, and they may even become a starter for a new collection of junk. Whatever is not sold should be boxed and transferred to your nearest charity. Notice I did not say your “dearest” charity. Unless you have compelling reasons to do otherwise, your stuff needs to move swiftly out of your life, preferably on the afternoon the sale ends.
4. Plan a storage system for what you keep, using the principles of the three Cs. Before you begin your organizing project, have a storage plan and materials in place.
5. Take care of yourself while you are cleaning the garage. Plan lunch, have plenty of drinks available, and in the evening, have a preplanned, wonderful meal waiting in the slow cooker smelling great for you and your helpers. Maybe even set the table before you start the job.
IN THE TRENCHES WITH SMART HOMEMAKERS
From Gail:
I went out to my garage to put a few pieces of counter clutter away yesterday and saw a shambles. My garage is trashed! Why? Well, every single thing I looked at that was a mess is a mess because
a. I didn’t take the time to put it away properly.
b. There is no proper way to put the stuff away, so I just let it sit there.
c. I abandoned a project part way through.
d. I didn’t clean up after myself (packing paper all over the floor).
e. Stuff is piled up waiting for “just in case”—empty useful containers, which I will probably, or might need later.
So, right now, I’m melting down in a puddle of frustration. I’m grumpy, I’m mad, I’m . . . everything! Grrrrr! I’m also probably under the influence of hormones, but that’s just served to bring this all out in the open instead of letting me ignore it.
Last night I just wanted to start tossing stuff out into the driveway, all night! When the inevitable people drove by asking if it was a garage sale, I’d just say, Yes, take it all for free!! Thieves, help yourselves!!
So, the first thing I’m doing this morning, now that I’ve reached the limit of sitting still, is to put together a notebook of all this diet stuff I’ve been working on (for a new yahoo group and for dh [dear husband] and myself). Then I’m going to do some long overdue cleaning while making notes on all the whirling declutter thoughts in my head, and then my neighbors better duck because by the time my family goes camping at the end of the month, I’m going to have made some changes to this cluttery mess!! Arrrgh!!
From Cheryl:
All the donation fabric I put into my yard sale last May was still hanging around the garage, and today I took it to a good home—a church that makes all kinds of fabrics into quilts. I know I should have gotten rid of it sooner and that I shouldn’t have had the mental block against letting it go no matter what was going to happen to it later, but this makes me happy. Not so much that “my” fabric is going to a “good home,” but that resources aren’t being wasted. Is that a touch of the Idealistic Messie coming out in me? LOL
So, my garage is getting emptier and emptier. I have a donation pickup scheduled for next week, and they’ll even take it out of my garage if it is near the front and labeled and the door is open. No problem! I can stack it and cordon it off so that it can be considered gone already. I may even really truly be able to get a car in there, but maybe not by Sept. 30. We’ll see.
Big progress! Woo hoo!
Tips for Garages
The Bare Bones Approach for Basements and Attics
Like the garage, the basement and attic that have not been transformed into finished rooms are not generally climate controlled. What is stored in them is often subject to heat, cold, and moisture. Unlike the garage, which is often used as an entryway to the house and therefore often visible, the attic is seldom seen and the basement, unless it houses laundry equipment, is also out of sight.
In most homes, the attic is the least accessible area. Move seldom used items, heirlooms, and light things that are easy to carry upstairs to the attic. Because heat rises, it is probably hotter and dryer than the basement, and the basement may be more subject to flooding.
Taking these factors into consideration, the basement and attic should be organized in the same way the garage is, using the three Cs. However, when these three steps are finished, one more step is helpful.
Because things stored in these areas are seldom seen and seldom or never used, they can be forgotten or even “lost.” A dearly loved children’s tea set, which had been saved for the first little granddaughter, may disappear into the black hole of forgetfulness only to emerge years later at an estate sale long after the little one’s teatimes are over.
To avoid this problem, do not only number and label boxes in large, clear letters, noting what resides therein, but also make a master list of what is in each numbered box. Put the list near the storage area in an obvious place such as right inside the door or taped to the inside of the attic or basement door. Keep a copy either on a paper or on 3 × 5 cards, one card for each box, with your other papers. You may want to keep a list on your computer so you can use the Find or Search button to locate an item you need. But of course, computers come and go and cards get lost. However, that yellowing list hung by the attic entrance will be a gold mine of information for years to come.
Decision Time—Choose Your Top 20 Percent
As you know, the premise of this book is to focus activity on the areas of your house that will produce the best results, leaving the rest undone, at least for now. Of the storage areas mentioned in this chapter, which one would be most helpful to improve?
____ garage
____ attic
____ basement
____ other areas such as shed, utility room, outhouse (no, not that kind!), or barn
In the area you chose, what is the least you can do to bring about significant change? Chucking an old bike, broken lawn mower, bent golf clubs, or some such thing? Chucking all three of these plus the rusted out barbecue grill will really make a difference! Will purchasing new shelving do the trick? Or reboxing? Or placing hooks or grids for hanging? How about discarding one or two boxes? Is there some other little thing you have been meaning to do but haven’t yet? Do it today.
Let’s face the facts. If you are going to do a drastic reorganizing job on any one of these areas, there is no way to make any of these projects simple. So we need to give serious consideration to the question of what can be done to bring about the biggest benefit. If only a serious reorganization is reasonable in the light of your need, make plans to do it all as quickly and easily as possible in one day using adequate help.
My plan is to: