Garage Cleanup 

The dreaded Saturday approaches, and the garage mocks you when you wade through the huge piles of mess that try to drag you down into the abyss of clutter to consume you slowly over the years. It's the real life nightmare of all teenage boys and girls who often get left holding the bag of the dreaded garage clean up task force. It's all fun and games to joke around about, but the reality is that the garage is often the place we just shove stuff to get it out of the way. This creates a cluttered unusable garage that won't hold the car or your tools, which may be currently abiding in the floorboard of your beat up truck. You can make cleaning the garage easier, and more importantly, there are steps you can take to ensure that it will stay clean.

The first and most important task to cleaning the garage is to get rid of the clutter. Our garages are most often filled with junk we haven't used in ten years and won't use in the next ten. Start cleaning your garage by making a firm resolution to get rid of all the stuff you don't need or use and you've won half the battle. You might also want to call your mother-in-law and explain your new clean garage plan and arrange to relocate her antiques that won't fit in her overfilled garage. Once you have resolved to be hard hearted about what goes and what stays, you’re ready to dig in and eliminate that clutter monster that keeps trying to eat you alive.

Start cleaning up by organizing and sorting all the items in your garage. Clear an area as best you can. If the weather is nice enough, you can carry items outside, while you get everything sorted. If it's cold, then you will have to clear an area as best you can by relocating items wherever space is available; porches and utility rooms might be options. Once you have a clear area, bring in a big trash can, and start by picking up all the garbage and putting it in the can. As you pick up trash and items that should be thrown out, sort other items into piles. You might have a pile for giving away to charity, a pile of borrowed things to return to the owners, and probably a few piles to keep. Be sure you are only saving good items for charity; they don't want your garbage and often have to pay extra to have it disposed of, so you aren't helping by giving them things nobody wants. Organize your piles of stuff to keep by type such as tools, sporting goods, and so forth. As you throw out the trash and organize your possessions, the floor will gradually emerge, but be ready for the mess to look worse for a while until things are organized into piles. Once you have the piles organized and the trash out of the way, you are almost done.

At this point, you have piles of stuff all over the driveway and yard and things look worse than before you started, but this is misleading, you’re almost done. Take out all the sacks of trash, and load up your car or truck with the items for charity. If possible, have someone take them and drop them off now; if not, you can do this Monday on your way to work or at lunch, as well as return items to their owners. Now that the trash and stuff you don't use is gone, you can start putting away things to keep. If you have shelving, then you might stack it there; be sure to put everything away in groups so that related items stay together. If you have nothing for storage containers, then you might try plastic trash sacks just until you can build or purchase what you need for storage. Once everything is organized, you should have room to walk and maybe even park the car without losing it in the clutter.