Other titles I kicked around for this post…. “holy mother of batman…I can park two cars in our two car garage!”

“Got crap?”

“Hold me…I’ve been in my garage for 5 days straight…”

“Intervention: when you hoard…but you have no room to hoard…”

A couple weeks back….my instagram feed was covered in garage organization goodness. I had to keep posting my progress to keep myself motivated. We have lived in our house for almost 10 years…and have never parked both cars in the garage. My hubs has always had either a pick up truck or large SUV…so I was never really motivated to keep the other half of the garage clean because I knew he couldn’t park in there. But now…his car will fit…so I began my decluttering/cleanup/getterdone girl garage clean up.

Before: During: I didn’t go out and purchase any fancy system. I used what I had….and I came up with some useful solutions for you to use in your garage too. My goal was to have 2 cars in the garage by winter….yahoooooo….I’m actually ahead of schedule;) what say what…?!?! Hands-in-the-air-like-I-just-don’t-care…..

Here are a few tips that helped me along the way….

1. Tackle one section per day. The corners in our garage were so messy and cluttered. I did those first. Then I moved to the sections of wall space. Everything was looked at and placed in a pile.

2. Make piles. Piles for craigslist, trash, keep, seasonal….etc…whatever works for you. Once the craigslist pile grew I took a few pics and listed it. Most things were free to whoever came first. Some things I listed to sell…and I ended up making about $125 with things that were not being used. I love the “free” listing on craigslist. It gets your junk out of your hair quickly!! And they come an pick it up!

3. Use the wall. As I took things out of bins and boxes that didn’t belong together…I looked at items that would be better off hanging. I used hooks and nails that I had on hand to organize these items. It could look prettier…but I really wanted to just keep moving and a simply nail in the wall worked great.

4. Clean as you go. When I had one section pared down I swept the floor and vacuumed prior to moving on. It made me feel like I was accomplishing more:) Helped my mojo ;)

5. Containers. I bought a few containers after I was able to take inventory of what was left to organize. The small plastic shoe boxes are cheap and keep things covered…plus they stack easy.

6. Printed paper labels. I don’t have a fancy label maker….but I do have a printer. I used Word to make labels…print them out and tape on the boxes with packing tape. Does the job and looks great.

7. Continue to ask “How badly do I love this?” Yes, I love to repurpose, yes, I love to refinish things….but I cannot do it all. Keep your “to-do” pile manageable…otherwise you may never see the garage floor again.

8. Use jars for small items…and leave them out. I can’t tell you how many boxes of the same size nail we had. I put all nails and screws in these jars (bought these online months ago…for this intent…and just now got to organizing with them) I believe I bought them on thejarstore.com . It makes it so easy to see what you have and when you are close to running out. I also used mason jars to store small quantity touch up paint. Looks preettttttyyyy…..:)

9. Take a break. I had to step back a few times and “regroup” so that I wouldn’t get completely overwhelmed. If you tell yourself…”I am going to tackle this area…and only this area today…” then be good with that. It takes patience…especially in the summer when the kiddos are needing something else fun to do ;)

10. Make it pretty. I used some left over paint (Atmospheric by Ben Moore) to paint the huge workbench. We hadn’t seen the top of this surface since we built it 9 years ago. I cleaned it off really good and painted the top and front. Then I used drop cloths and grommets to cover the front. Looks 300% better for very little money. We are looking into options for the garage floor….since it has remnants of every spray paint project I have ever done;) #myhubsisasaint

More on that soon :) Are you going to go tackle your garage now?? :)

Happy weekend projecting friends !

Where I share ideas:

BeDifferentActNormal, The36thAve, Whipperberry, TipJunkie, Tatertots&Jello, TodaysCreativeBlog, SerenityNow, PositivelySplendid, ByStephanieLynn, TheDIYClub, CRAFT. MadinCrafts. HomeStoriesAtoZ, NotJustAHousewife