Whew! We had a WEEKEND! It is so nice to have a 3-day weekend when we really need tons of time to get stuff done. It is even nicer to have the energy and motivation for the first time in like 8 years.

The big project this weekend was the garage. Still. This weekend was THE weekend. We were gonna get this baby done come hell or high water. It rained Saturday and so Sunday we dragged out all the remaining boxes (like 10 or more) and went through them all. We threw most of it away or made piles for Goodwill. It was a big, icky, job.

Can I just say right here that we have NEVER ONCE had a completely clean, functional garage? Our first house together didn’t have a garage and then the first house we bought together had TWO garages, both of which came filled with crap already. Let me just say that is NOT the way to move into a new house! We just piled in boxes that never got unpacked and moved them to our last house and stored them in the basement or garage there and never unpacked them again! Our last garage was soooo tiny that there was literally not room for the 2 cars that it claimed to fit much less 9 bikes, scooters, sports equipment, a freezer, etc. It was awful. So this is it - the first time in our entire marriage that we managed to get the garage DONE.

This morning Tony loaded it all (or what would fit) into our van with the seats down and took it in two loads to Goodwill. Here’s the garage after we took away the goodwill piles/boxes:

So during Addy’s nap we dragged all of the stuff out and here’s what it looks like all over my driveway:

See the little walkways?! Haha. While everyone was emptying out the garage, I was grocery shopping. I almost turned around and left again when I pulled into the driveway to this mess.

Then we worked and worked and worked. And worked. And finally we ended up with this NEW Goodwill pile:

And this Garbage pile:

And the small pile of stuff we kept and moved back into the house:

And the finished result:

Here’s the left side of the garage. This is where most of our sports equipment goes and eventually all those books will be sold and we’ll either pitch those bookshelves to make room for toys/bikes or we’ll put them to good use.

And the back of the garage - we still have some room on the shelves but this is where we keep our extra pet cages/supplies, all my packing supplies, painting supplies, gardening supplies, tools and our adult bikes/trailer. We threw away the snow shovel

And the right side of the garage is the previously undiscovered sink (currently without faucet ) and cabinet, our freezer, the kids bikes and scooters and lots of shelf space that we don’t need yet. Maybe we’ll keep towels for the pool out here in the summer!

So its not pretty but it is perfectly functional now. Organized, clean and plenty of room for two cars, bikes and scooters for 9 people and all of our miscellaneous crap.

And the best part? In all of this dumping, cleaning, purging and organizing I found the most beloved thing I had lost for the last 8 years: my tape of Teegan’s birth!!!!!!!!!! THIS is why you can’t just dump out an entire garage of shit just because you haven’t used it in a few years. It is more painful to go through it all piece by piece and it is REALLY painful if you are prone to attachments to random crap (thankfully Tony and I are not attached to much anymore). Noah was better than expected and Addison only had fits when she discovered all her baby toys on the way to goodwill. We did good!

And hence you think this is ALL we did during the previous 3 days, this actually only took us 3 hours start to finish (not including Goodwill trips). Here’s our completed task list for the 3 day weekend:

Clean off stairs and fully clean livingroom
clean guinea pig cage
take random crap to attic
switch computer desks with Tony (now I get the good view of the house AND the yard outside!!)
get wrapping paper bins for under our bed.
finish sorting through 6 book boxes from garage
oil change/car wash for prius
mount / connect wifi camera (now I can see, hear and talk to whoever is at my front door through my computer! Eeek!)
fix stripped screws in playstands
clean off kitchen table / hall table
clean off top of desks/armoires
3 loads of laundry
sort through Addy’s outgrown clothes in preparation to sell them (ouch. it hurts.)
work on playhouse (glue down molding, buy,cut and nail up window trim)
trip to petstore for timothy hay and guinea pig supplies
take down and store Valentines decorations
Get Spring / Easter decorations from garage
major master bedroom/craft/closet decluttering
buy beanbag for playhouse reading corner
buy new hand towels for 2 bathrooms
shop for Noah’s birthday
box and ship any book sales (several!!)
groom Lilo

Whew!!!!!!!!!!!!! We even managed to go to the park as a family - twice. And go out for ice cream as a family once. I also found time to do a bit of work online as well as research hedgehogs as pets (any opinions?) and contact a few breeders. I read a few more “beads” of Eat, Pray, Love which I am LOVING. So it wasn’t all workworkwork.

Here’s my goal list for the next week:

Paint dining room wall brick red (!!)
purge and reoganize kids bathroom/linen closet
clean family room (where all the crap we brought in from the garage currently sits)
research power sprayer/washer for my walkway
figure out how to get my outdoor patio cushions free of algae/green stuff (ANY IDEAS?!?!)
finish painting playhouse roof and look for roof paper, christmas tree lights and small bookshelf for playhouse
measure, buy,cut and nail up last bits of trim for the playhouse
order Easter baskets
replace hammock

The big job coming up for me will be the gameroom reorganization. I can’t even tell you what a huge job this is. It is right up there with the garage. There WILL be before and after pics. But I am doing this next weekend at the latest. I hope we get lots of rain this week - that will motivate me since this beautiful weather will be hard to resist otherwise. The other big job is going through and listing for sale Addy’s clothes. I find the whole process so tedious but she has some really nice clothes and I’d like to recoop some of the cash I spent on them.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 8:19 pm and is filed under House Keeping, Photos & Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.