Articles

Organizing Resolutions for the New Year

Cook at Home to Fatten the Wallet

March Spring is in the Air!

Tax Mania Solutions

If Only I Could Jam My Car in Here

Vacations Are Fun, Right?

Organized Gardens

Tag Sale Season

Teenage Survival Skills

\Erasing Holiday Stress

They thought I died the day I stopped emailing

Toy Extravaganza

If Only I Could Jam This Car in Here

Written by Jen Doyle

My parents recently decided to downsize and move out of their home that they lived in for 26 years. I’ll spare the details of the day-long yard sale in the beautiful sunshine, the dumpster that was filled to the brim a week before their move, and the bountiful of bruises on my legs and arms after two days of moving them. The event that lingers clearly in my mind is the cleaning and packing of the garage. Bedrooms are not hard to really pack. There are great boxes now to hang clothes in and fold your sweaters into. The kitchen also has boxes that allow you to pack your plates and glasses without fear of them being broken. But how exactly do you pack a backhoe? What is it that you do with your son’s beautifully broken in catcher’s mitt from Little League? Never mind that he is 38 now and hasn’t seen a baseball field in more than 20 years. It’s good stuff, as my Mom likes to say. When my Dad and I were cleaning out the garage we determined that if we threw a penny into a jar every time we asked each other where we should put something and we said answered, “put it there for now” we would be rich enough to throw everything out and buy it all new. Sometimes when a terrible accident has happened to someone they say they want to help out others so they don’t have to go through what they went through. So that’s what I’ll be doing with this article. I can’t have anyone go through what I went through cleaning out that garage. But all kidding aside, getting the garage organized is also very important for safety in the household. Some things to keep in mind while organizing your garage:

1. Hooks, hooks, and more hooks: Hooks are great for hanging the bikes in the winter and the sleds in the summer. Lawn chairs can be swapped for snow shovels between the seasons. This will free up a lot of floor space and prevent the little ones from falling over items strewn about.
2. Hang Shelving: Shelves are great for storing items together. Garden equipment can be kept together on shelves or better yet old kitchen cabinets that can be mounted on the walls. Be careful to store the heavier items lower. Children can be very tempted to do some climbing to reach items. By keeping the heavier items near the floor you can prevent any tipping accident.
3. Locked Storage Bins: For items that seem to be especially dangerous like garden shears or hedging clippers an investment in a storage bin with a lock is a great idea. It will keep them organized as well as safe.
4. Divided Areas: Keep an area inside the garage for sporting goods and toys so that the kids can run in and grab these things without having to rummage through your ceramic pots.

My parents did embrace a few of these tips. But the one thing that they didn’t do was throw stuff away. Maybe you will be able to fix that old weed whacker someday. But has it been worth storing it for the last six years? Perhaps throwing it away and buying a new one will be worth the aggravation. Just imagine the feeling of fitting that car into the garage once again. It’s worth all the collected tin cans of nails to accomplish that.