One Person's Junk....

....is another person's treasure.

I thought of that saying a lot recently. I spent last month cleaning out the garage and it was a project that seemed to take forever, and yes it did take me the whole month to complete. I do have to explain that once I filled the garbage container and wheeled it to the end of the drive each week, that I would quit cleaning out the garage for the week. A couple of weeks, I only spent 20 minutes, but there were some days I was out there for what seemed like hours.

Part of garage cleaning dilemma was the fact that you do an awful lot of shuffling. I started cleaning off one shelf and putting things in other spots where they were next to like objects, and it only made for more objects to move when I then got to that  spot or the next shelf. Once I got one shelving unit cleaned off and moved to the next one, I then had to shuffle everything off the shelf into a new spot so that I could sweep it down and try and organize stuff in their right spot. When the shelving was done, then I had to shuffle stuff on one side of the floor space over to the other side of the garage, and then back. It seemed like for every step forward I took, I took two steps back. I didn't want to take everything out of the garage at once because of a chance of rain, and I didn't want piles of junk just sitting for me to cart out, hence the shuffling.

Adding to my woes were the fact that I kept coming across stuff that I had no clue as to what they were or their purpose. I thought to myself, if only I had a digital camera, I could take pics and post them on here and play a bit of guessing game. If I couldn't figure it out, maybe you could... I'd even been willing to mail off that prize to the correct blogger. I had to enlist the help of one of my brothers when he came to visit to pull things off the shelf and ask, what in the world is this?...Do I need it?...Or is it just junk? While I had him in my garage cleaning clutches I loaded him down with some of my precious treasure (cough) junk each time he came to visit during that whole month. He got nails and screws, nuts and bolts, some kind of clamp thingies, storage bins, anything I could think of that I wasn't using, hadn't been using, and just wanted gone.

It was a bit overwhelming when taking inventory of just what all was out there. Even though a person could still pull a vehicle in the garage it seemed to be full of junk. Some of it good, and some of it past it's prime or usefulness. Three string trimmers, one working, one brand new and refusing to work, one kept for parts. Three lawnmowers, two riders, one push. Ten fishing poles....good grief, where in the world did 10 fishing poles come from? I remember having two, but somehow 8 more appeared. Four jugs of windshield washer cleaner. Five water jugs, five hoes, 3 rakes, 4 shovels, two sprayers, four hose-end sprayers, six sprinklers, the list goes on...and on. How does one acquire so much stuff?

I blame part of it from having a past love of going to auctions and garage sales. I use to think nothing of spending my Saturdays at an estate sale or auction. It was fun poking around and sifting thru boxes of junk for any kind of treasure I would spy. I would end up bidding on the whole box just to get that one or few items that I wanted in the box. The remains of those boxes eventually ended up in the bottomless pit that I call the garage. I gave up my auction going ways a few years ago. It seemed that more and more I stood around all day to bid on wanted items only to see the prices go to high, or watch others sift thru those same boxes and shuffle the items they desired into other boxes to combine their treasured wishes together.

Another culprit in my messy garage woes were past remodeling projects. Leftover bits of drywall, boards, molding, paint, stain, etc. etc. seemed to fill a good part of one wall. I was back to my dilemma of sorting thru what does one save or toss? It's a well known fact that if you have something for twenty years and throw it out because you have never used it, that you will end up needing that item the following week. I ended up tossing anything rusty, moldy, broken, or not used in years. I am crossing my fingers that hopefully there was nothing too important in that mix.

Eventually the garage was finished. I now have shelving lining one whole wall with all of it's items neatly in boxes or totes and everything else hanging on hooks or neatly stacked and out of the way. I found a few surprises along the way, along with some long lost treasures found. My old felco pruners, found, once thought lost out in the garden somewhere to rust. Found the fourth ball to the croquet set (small cheer, I thought it was lost forever). Two padlocks WITH their keys...

I wish life could be so easy. We toss out the old, broken stuff that isn't working and shuffle the better stuff til it fits in a way that makes it more workable. We keep hanging onto stuff that's long since filled it's purpose, or doesn't work at all, and yet we still cling to the hope that it will eventually work the way we want it to. It serves no purpose other than to clutter up things so that it's harder to see what stuff is the real treasures...

I take a sense of pride when looking at my newly cleaned and organized garage. It was a lot of hard and sometimes dirty work and something I don't want to have to do over, or let it get to the point that it becomes that cluttered again. It just involves taking the small steps needed at the time to deal with things and not to keep putting things off, something I am bad at,... procrastination has always been my middle name.

I'll keep working on it though. The only downside to my garage cleaning efforts...

Yep, you guessed it... It looks so clean and organized, I'm afraid to park the car in it...