Sunday, July 31, 2011

The garage is done

We haven't had much summer, but my goal for it has been met:

I cleaned the garage.

Most of what I threw out (for the Happy Hauler to pick up on Tuesday) was left over from the previous owners' remodeling 10 years ago. I realized I was never going to need a box of bolts the size of Havana cigars or large sheets of drywall the cats had peed on. The 8-foot lengths of extra molding required their own shelving system. I realized I could rip down the shelving system, chop the molding to 7 feet, 6 inches, and store it upright in a Rubbermaid wastebasket in the corner, regaining access to the entire wall.

I also discovered I had three orbital sanders, two skil saws, and 35 slot-style screwdrivers (but only 5 Phillips head drivers, which makes me crazy since they're what I'm always looking for). And my beloved circular law seems to be missing.

Hank came over and tested all the electric tools and told me which ones to toss or give away and which ones to keep. He told me one of the orbital sanders just looks like an orbital. It is really a polishing sander.

The duplication was due in part to all of my dad's tools, which I got when my mom moved to Florida last year.

After clearing out all sorts of crummy scraps of drywall and lumber, I had enough wall space that we were able to put up an additional pegboard, and some gigantic wall hooks. Then a lot of the stuff that was hidden in drawers and piled on shelves got hung up, including my dad's  Oreck mini shop vac and heap of extension cords in orange, yellow, and green.

The sorting process involved hauling much of the stuff out to the driveway, including the mini-freezer, which desperately needed defrosting. Once the garage was relatively clear, I swept and washed the concrete floor. That was pretty disgusting.

This took all day Friday, Saturday morning, and Sunday afternoon — and Tom ran all the errands to Home Depot while I kept at the organizing. At 8 p.m. tonight I was still affixing labels (in yellow electric tape) to plastic storage boxes and shelves.

It's rather astonishing how much room there now is in the garage. I still need to organize the shelf with the drills and drill bits.

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