Clearning

This is my new word: clearning.  A combination of clearing and cleaning, clearning is the perfect piece of jargon to explain what is happening in my garage. I clear, I clean.

Another trip to the Hospice Thrift Store cleared another pile of stuff that is unwanted or far removed from ever being used again -- someone else is bound to need it all. Sweeping and dusting is cleaning the construction dust and autumn leaves from surfaces and the floor.

Clearning, it should be added to the American lexicon.

Not a Living Space

OK, so my garage is not a living space or can accommodate a living activity like sitting with friends and working on a project together. What was cleared out is now filled again with construction debris from a bathroom project from the upstairs. As you can see the handyman has his equipment and supplies in the garage, as well as the bathroom cabinet and, yes, the toilet. In the far back of the garage is the frantic activity of preparing for an art show next weekend at the Virginia Gourd Festival: woodburning gourds and varnishing the finished ones.

No one said clearning (my new word for clearing and cleaning) out the garage was going to be easy, especially when the garage is used as a holding tank for big projects. I wonder if this how it is with most people?

Survey Results - II

Another interesting aspect of the survey came from the question about what is the hardest part about keeping a garage tidy. Not having adequate storage seemed to be the biggest concern at 33% of the respondents. Not putting things back where they were retrieved (16%) was important, and makes sense I suppose. I have found myself having to remember to put things back into the labeled bins I have just organized.

I was surprised that although 6% said time was an issue, 20% stated a garage is dirty with bugs, car oil, dirt, and requires working in a dirty area.

So, having someplace to put stuff, remembering to return items to the places that exist, and working in a dirt space keeps people from keeping their garages tidy and usable.  What if a garage were treated as a living space? Would it then be more apt to be in regular order?

Survey Results

It is interesting to look at the results of a recent survey done among teachers and students at two middle schools. Of the 181 respondents, 48% believed a garage is for keeping a car or vehicle, 19% said a garage is for storage, and 33% responded that a garage is for a vehicle and storage.

These numbers are misleading because in a twisted turn of information, the next question of what the respondents use their garage for tells a different story! Of the 48% who said garages were for cars/vehicles only, 44% said they used their garage for cars AND storage. If this information is combined with the 19% who said, up-front, that a garage is for cars and storage, it would bring that total up to 40%!

I can only conclude that what people believe in theory and what they do in practice are two different things!

Garage Survey - Public Opinion

In taking a moment or two to re-group, I find my information falls into categories:

I Garage: history, uses, innovations
II Reasons for collecting and storing materials: hoarding, scarcity mentality, delayed action (do it later)
III Perception of time when persevering with organization
IV Trends and opinions of general public about organizing garages

I have prepared a survey for the public to take regarding garages and organization. I wonder what others think about garages, cleared spaces, and the importance of achieving an organized area. Feel free to take the survey yourself!

The Huff and Puff Part...

The huff and puff part of this project has started in earnest! The biggest pieces of stuff that has collected in the middle of the garage as I move around the perimeter now has be handled. Either I move it somewhere where it all has purpose, or store it elsewhere (another collection of stuff somewhere?) or delete it somehow. How does one get rid of the last vestiges of stuff that has value, to someone?  The guilt of taking good stuff to the landfill is big...it's bad environmentally of course, and I'll wonder who could have used this stuff that otherwise might not have been able to afford to buy new?

There is a Hospice Thrift store a few blocks from me. They now know me by name for all the stuff I have taken there this summer and fall. One guy sees me back my car up and runs out to open the trunk! Lovely fellow-I appreciate his willingness to help tote stuff into the collection room.

Re-sorting bins...

It's so funny, I just have to laugh. Every time I open a bin, box, or bag of stuff for sifting and sorting, I locate old projects and repeats of the tools I used to generate it. The same model of woodburner, and glues, and Sharpees, and tapes. It is obvious I have favorite materials because when I do something and can't find what I need, I buy the same supplies.

Now, the original bins for the repetitive stuff have to be exchanged for bigger ones, or expand into duplicate bins. The extension cord bin is now 3 bins, and the woodburner bin is on the verge of being 2. I could teach classes with the amount of supplies I have! So, what was considered almost done is now just plodding along, exchanging bins for bins so the same labeling system stays intact and the bins are manageable and not overly full.

And They Make 'Em!!

Yessirree bobbie, garage turntables exist and are used in tight driveway places where someone can't turn a car around or where it isn't safe to back out of a driveway! As you can see, this car has a steep, narrow driveway and YIKES! to back out of there would make anyone's heart skip a beat.

In this picture it appears the garage is at a right angle from the driveway, so the turntable positions the car to pull in then when the owner leaves and backs out onto the turntable can be positioned to pull down the driveway into traffic with a clear view of traffic.

I'm not going to install a turntable in the present house, but there's always hope for a future abode!

What Is A Garage, Anyway?

Alan Moore explains that garages evolved with the automobile, especially as automobiles became a prominent part of American lives. Initially, they had to be large because cars did not have reverse gears so the structures had turntables -- can you imagine!  What a cool thing that would be now! Then I could always pull into and out of the space without looking behind me. Super good, and really keen!

The early garages were modified structures from other uses to accommodate the automobile. Although interior details have changed to include garage door openers, lighting, shelving, doors into the house, the garage itself has not changed much since the mid-1950s. It's a shame in a way, wouldn't you want a turntable in your garage?

Different Garages, Similar Stuff

In a moment of rest, I did what I thought would be a quick Google-y search for cluttered garages using various keywords: messy, cluttered, decluttering, and chaotic. By golly, looking at all the messy, cluttered, decluttering projects I began see strong similarities. In fact, several times I had to do a double-take because I thought I was looking at my own garage back when I first started this adventure.

More often than not there was the big plastic blue bins, a shop vac, cardboard boxes, suitcases, extension cords, posters on the wall, and metal shelving. Stuff balanced on top of other stuff. I have balanced stuff forever, and it was gratifying in a strange way to see that other people do this too, probably walking around towers of belongings hoping not to topple anything. My only conclusion is humanity needs basic stuff to live the day-to-day lives of adults, with or without families in tow with a parallel conclusion that many people just don't know what to do with the stuff they need and can't do without. This is not hoarding, which is irrational collecting, but bewilderment. What to do?

The pictures of Past Projects of A Good Sort are inspiring though. This area of A Good Sort, an organizing company owned and operated by Olwen Turtle, is nothing more than before and after pictures of areas in the home where clutter was organized and bettered. The garage went from piles to order. Take a look at the other images on the site. The junk drawer is a particular study in organization.

Is professional organizing necessary? At what point do people cross the line into needing professional help? I suspect everyone has their own line in the sand and when anything goes too far will rear up and do something they wouldn't normally do in other

circumstances. Animals will attack when backed into a corner.  I have tripped over the stuff in my garage and fallen face first into a pile of easels. I have lost woodburners needed to complete projects making me purchase new ones only to find the others later (which is now why I have a BIN full of woodburners!). I found the spilled can paint so old it had dried solid. What was excuse? I was busy; I was working on a new Master's degree; I was waiting to add onto the house; I....I..I...who knows why I waited to start this process. At some point, I backed into a corner of some kind and decided to attack.

A Houston Garage -- the dream!

Another solution for garage messiness is evident in this Houston garage. A quote from the Industrial Shelving folks gets right to the heart of garage-ness: "Getting to the point where your garage is organized and can function as a space for your car is what you are aiming for when you opt to choose from the various garage storage solutions in the market."

Put the car IN the garage?!  There's a concept!

What, More Stuff!?

Remember the cleared space along one of the walls? Today, I am surprised by the delivery of a desk that had sentimental memories...right into the cleared space. **sigh*  To add an additional twinge of pain, the desk is broken and has to be repaired. **double sigh*

Another project...

Peeling it up...

Initial scraping did not get the paint blob up, and boy have I been regretting my blinded ways to have allowed such a spill to occur in the first place. I have been walking right past this mess for years since it is right at the garage door!

Luckily, the kind fellow who is currently rebuilding our staircases took pity on me and gave me a chisel. He said that, since it is latex paint, I could pick an edge of it enough to curl back enough of it to grab. It should come off in one peeling motion.

And it did, paint can lid and all! What's the German word for that?  There's a word for when something happens that seemed counter-intuitive, but what is it?

Oops!

...and here is a prime example why good lighting is so important!

In the corner, between one of the cabinets and the drill press is a white blob of spilled paint that has been there so long the can was stuck to the hard mess as an angled sculpture rising out of the whiteness. The lid embedded in the dried paint.. I pried off the can and will need to chip the paint off the cement floor.

Light is filling the dark corners of my garage and my mind!

Let There Be Light!

The new lights have been installed and a new point of view is illuminated!  The bright light makes everything appear clear. I am ready to spend time in the garage and finish up the last bits of organizing!

Everything is so bright and illuminated!

Garage Enigma

While waiting for the lights to be installed in the garage, I came across this quote: “Surrounded by darkness yet enfolded in light” ― Alan Brennert. Found on GoodReads, a quote website, it intrigued me.

Surrounded by darkness yet enfolded in the light - what a circle of thinking. In the garage and studios spaces in which I am trying to make order, there can be both darkness and light on many levels. The disorganization is a darkness if I take it as a jumbled up mess into the dark side, and yet I am enfolded in the light of orderly achievement as things get put away. The garage can be a darkness of unknown, where the detritus of living accumulates, hoping for a future. The garage is just dark, even with the light bulb switched on it can seem dark because the light is always at my back and my shadow falls on whatever I am doing.

A single bulb in a dark room.

Lighting in Dark Spaces

It seems that the darker spaces in the garage have the most clutter! All this time, I've been working in the garage with the door open so there was plenty of natural light...and I could sort and sift with no problem. Lately, however, the days have been rainy and the fall season is gobbling up sunlight so the days get shorter and cooler necessitating a closed garage door. There is a single incandescent bulb in the middle of the garage so no matter where I work, my own shadow falls on the area I am trying to clear.

 As the blog, Twisted Shifter, shows so well, light can play strange and hallucinatious (is that a word?) visual tricks. Shadows and reflections can make appear what is not there, and delete from view what clearly exists. The poor lighting in the garage has slowed down the evening work which is done after the sun goes down. there are dark spaces where objects disappear.

Tomorrow a genlteman installs lighting at the ceiling on the interior wall side of the garage. Since that is the area where the 'workshop' will be, it is the area I am most concerned about. This fixture from Lowe's, the Utilitech ceiling flourescent should fix things handily! One will be 4 feet long and one will be 2 feet.