Garage Organizing Project - Status Update

We have been working on finishing our garage for quite some time now, like a couple years. My husband got it all nicely insulated and then the project came to a halt. It simply wasn't feasible for him to do the drywall all by himself because of skill and mostly because I would have nagged at him constantly for spending every weekend in the garage to finish it! So he hired someone to drywall the garage last month. They did the project in a day and a half! We'd still be at it if we hadn't done that. Especially since the ceiling of the garage is a major puzzle of triangles and strange shapes.

We have spent four weekends working in our garage. One to prepare it for the drywall folks, emptying the place out and prepping it.

The second weekend we started painting it and hooking up the washer and dryer which I was without for 8 days. (For a person who does a load of laundry a day on most days, this was hard for me.) But everything is back together and that wall looks fabulous.

The third weekend we finished painting the loft area and all the rest of the walls. That was a long weekend, but it made the garage look wonderful. We even got some of the new shelving up on the walls. It was getting very exciting to start to put things back in an organized fashion! Plus, it was supposed to rain so we had to haul everything back into the garage regardless.

The fourth weekend we put up the rest of the shelves and put away most of our belongings. It's so nice compared to before. However, it's also a challenge because we need to find new homes for everything. We get to decide what stays and what goes, and which shelf everything will live on. It's nice to work with a clean slate.

Today the UPS truck delivered the new shelves I ordered for the garage to put my stockpile of food on. The shelves have wheels so I can move it out of the way of the furnace area if it should need to be looked at. I love it! It's so nice to have all my stuff on one nice tall shelf and be easy to see and easy to get to. My previous shelves were too small and were toppling with boxes. I also know now that my stockpile cannot exceed my space allowed. That's a basic organizing principle anyway. You only have so much space, fill it appropriately, don't over fill it! That goes for closets, garages, and houses in general. Live within your space!

There are just a few more things we need to tidy up and give a home and then I can post pictures of the new garage! I'm so excited about this! Plus, I should be able to park my van in the garage again after that. Woohoo!