A Garage Clean Out Challenge...Week 1: Creating Zones

As you know,

I am in the middle of a month long challenge

to clean out my garage.

This weeks challenge was to plan and remove.

First up, the planning part.

I sat down on the steps of my garage with some pen and paper and

I thought about how I wanted to use this space.

I basically listed the top 5 needs of my garage:

1) Store and protect vehicles

(the cars are way more expensive than anything
currently being stored in my garage)

2) Woodworking/Tools area (cause I like to build)

3) Mud room (we don’t really have the space inside the house for one)

4) Freezer/paper pantry area (store extra stock up paper items)

5) Garden items/Miscellaneous area

Then I decided to draw out a map with those 5 needs
labeled as zones in my garage.

You thought I was kidding, huh? Nope, no joke.
I wanted to visualize it before I started moving things around.

Next step, remove stuff.

I hate this step! But I know it needs to be done.

I thought I would tackle my boxes first.
So I gathered them all up…

Yep, I actually had that many boxes in my garage. Crazy!
Hey, if anyone is moving give me a jingle, I got your boxes! 🙂

Honestly, the reason why I store so many boxes is
because I occasionally sell stuff on Ebay.
I don’t know why the thought never occurred to me to break them down
and store them in half the space.

But thank goodness it finally did…cause this is what my boxes look like now…

Are you shocked? I was.
I still get to keep my boxes but now they don’t take up half the garage! 🙂

I know what you are thinking…
I thought this part of the process was called remove–not figure out how to keep.
Okay smartie pants, check this out!

I did fill my van full of stuff to take to the Goodwill.
This will qualify under remove, right?

I am sure the Goodwill is going to know me on a first name bases
by the time this challenge is done.

I also decided that I am going to move everything to one side of the
garage and focus on one wall at a time.
I mean really, I can’t set everything out in my driveway for a month.

Well, technically I could.
But I feel the neighbors would not be fans of that idea. 😉

So how did you do with this weeks challenge?

2 Comments

wow! I’m impressed with your drawing! Don’t you just love when you figure something simple out that makes a huge difference like with your boxes!

You are off to such a great start! And I love how you sketched it out to give yourself a real solid game plan before you got started!
I can’t wait to see what you’ve accomplished this week!
Warmly,
Sharon from Momof6