The garage decrapification (again)

Awww, you SQUEEZIES. Thanks for your sweet comments this week. :) (If you haven’t seen The Nate Show segment, you can see it below. Ignore the cat.)

So, there’s one thing about blogging – I’m held accountable to finish up certain projects. I finished up one this week that I mentioned about six weeks ago. It would have been so easy to let the little final details slide till…oh…the spring. Or summer. Or next fall, when I’m sure I’ll have to tackle it all over again.

But I told you I’d show you…so I finished up and I’m showing you. I hate being responsible and stuff.
This all started when my Sis (affectionately known as Stink Eye) decided to go and get a new, boring, well paying, professional job instead of being my minion assistant. Whatev.

Before she started her new job, I paid her to help me out with a few spots in our house that were overwhelmingly full of crap. I showed you the completed Sanford and Son deck here, and this week I finished up the garage.

It was bad. BAD. Here you go:

Receipts all over the floor? Check.
Sheet hanging from wall? Check.
Christmas tree stand from eleven months ago? Check.
We are AWESOME.

Here’s the other side:

Chaise lounge waiting to be reupholstered? Check.
Weight machine we haven’t used in five years six months? Check.
No access to my BFF…my SAW…check. (That’s a problem.)

Here’s a closer look:

You can imagine my glee every time I had to get back there to cut something. And my saw sat on this since the day I got it:

It’s about 18 inches off the floor. Talk about comfortable! NOT.

So…the decrapifying started. It was fun. It felt GOOD. I think we took four SUV loads to Goodwill?:

I lost count. There were also three bins full of trash.

When I get to this point, I have zero patience for a garage sale or Craigslist. It has to go NOW. The weight machine was on Craigslist for two weeks for a steal, and no bites. So it, and most of the other stuff we didn’t use or need was GONE baby!

Once we got it cleared out, we took a trip to True Value for some organization goodies:

Ahh…just look at it. Beautiful!

My goal was to get anything and everything possible up and off the floor. If I could hang it, it was going up. We got some holders that worked great!:

And a TON of these:

I use these a lot just because they’re so easy to install and they hold quite a bit:

And we picked up a packet full of different sizes and shapes of these screw in organizers:

 

I hung everything:

Last year, I was trying to avoid spending much on the clean up, so I organized the back wall full of wire shelving as best I could:

But I gotta tell you, it was driving me NUTS. And open shelves meant we would stuff things into them wherever we could. It was a MESS. So this year, I made the investment and got a few storage pieces from Target:

OH MY GOODNESS. So, so, SO worth it. Ack!

I used my dollar store bins and tried to organize things by shelf:

Do you see my spray paint shelf and how it sags in the middle?

:) I’m just happy to have it all in one spot. Giddy, actually.

So here’s the before and after goodness – before, the pit of despair:

And after, with everything off the floor:

If I could hang the lawn mower, I would have. :)
Here’s my little workshop corner before:

And here it is now:

We had a light installed in that spot last year so I can see while using the major power tools. A good idea – I recommend it. ;)

I picked up another storage chest at True Value and it turned out to be a perfect spot for my saw!:

No more kneeling down for every cut!

I have to tell you something – my scrap wood was out of control. I’m not kidding. It was insane. But of everything, it was hardest for me to part with. I swear I was shaking – I love my molding peeps. Sis would stand in front of me, giving me a pep talk – Do you really need an eight inch piece of wood? Really? Do you really need the wood filled with nails? Really? Do you really need 200 scraps of beadboard? REALLY?

It was hard. I waffled often. I’d put something in the bin to get rid of it, then I’d sneak back, pick it up, think about it, take it out.

Then, when I wasn’t looking, STINK EYE got some red spray paint, went over to the bin and sprayed it all over the scrap molding I was supposed to be getting rid of.

CURSES! She’s brilliant! I hate her!
No really, I love her, but you know. I hate her and her smarty pants!

I did keep a fair amount and the smaller sections were organized on the wire shelving, the long pieces we placed in an old trash bin:

 

I cleaned up everything as best I could, including wiping down the black door I painted last year:

Don’t use cleaning wipes on a black door. They don’t work so well. :)

A little organization and a whole lotta decrapifying, and we have a garage that’s so much more relaxing:

It makes such a difference when we drive into this clean space every day! As always, the decluttering was FREE! And that is the very best part, in my opinion. :)

Of course, there’s some huge projects we haven’t tackled yet -- someday I’d love to paint the walls, but seriously, I have about 2,949 things I want to do before that. Our plan was to insulate and drywall the exterior walls this year, but we haven’t gotten to it. And I’d LOVE to do a treatment on the floors, but that requires taking everything out of there for days – and that gives me hives just thinking about it. :)
Is there a space you want to tackle before the holidays? I know, time is running out -- but everything we did only took about six hours, over two days. It was SO worth it!

Now, if I can just keep the Christmas tree stand out of there this year! That would be a first.

P.S. No idea why Live Writer is shrinking my text this week. Sorry you’re going to need glasses for this one!

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

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A hidden memo board

WOW!!

What a surreal day! TDC was highlighted on The Nate Berkus show today and it’s been so cool seeing all the new visitors around here! :) (I don’t think the segment is up on his site, but I’ll video tape it and post it for those who didn’t see it if you’d like!)

Thanks to Nate for the wonderful mention on his show, welcome to my new visitors and thanks again to my readers for all your sweet comments. Whew. Crazy!!

OK…only to the organization goodness. I started this project just a teensy while ago. OK, maybe it was about eight months ago. It’s sat half way done for all that time.

About eight months and day ago…I decided I was tired of the all of our random notes, phone numbers and pizza coupons cluttering up the side of the fridge, so I had a bahhhrilliant idea. I still had magnetic paint from the chalkboard I created in our kitchen years ago:

(You can find out more about that process here. )

I decided to utilize the cabs right next to the fridge – I wanted to paint the insets of the doors (inside) with that fun magnetic paint and make it into a little, private memo board.

I was all YAY – I’ll use what I have, it will take about 20 minutes, and BOOYAH I am good. Well, in my world, as soon as you think it or say it out loud, the opposite happens. Like when I was five minutes early to a dinner the other night (which never, ever EVER happens) and congratulated myself (to myself). Then I drove into the parking lot only to realize I was supposed to be at another location fifteen minutes away.

Gah.

Anyway…I know better to say it out loud folks.

The thing with magnetic paint is that it needs to be shaken SUPER, freaky, well. Every time I’ve used it before, I’ve taken it to the hardware store and have it done in their machine. If you don’t, the magnetic goodness sits at the bottom no matter how well you stir. At least for me. I must be a wimp, cause I can’t get that stuff up into the paint to save my life.

Because I didn’t have much paint left (and Paint Guy tells me they can’t put an almost empty can in the shaker), I figured I could mix it myself.

About five coats later I finally gave in. The stuff was not magnetizing – so the inside of the doors sat like this for eight months:

Isn’t that lovely. I had taped them off, but I left the tape up there so long, it wouldn’t come off all the way:

So when I decided to finally tackle this again, I had to use an x-acto knife to get the tape off:

It had become one with the cabinet after all this time. :)

I got it cleaned up and went ahead with my idea to fix my failed idea. I found some perfectly sized pieces of galvanized metal at a local True Value:

For MONTHS I tried to find the perfect metal pieces to fit in there – I’d find the right size, take it home and find out they weren’t magnetic. GAH!

Then I got galvanized metal roofing stuff (that was magnetic), but I was going to have to cut it all down to make it work…and I just needed a teeny bit, not a whole roll.

So THIS stuff was perfect!! It was something like 80 cents a sheet? And I found it at a little bitty small town True Value store – who would have thunk that?

I put it up with hot glue, just in case I ever wanted to take it down:

I am NEVER taking it down, now that it’s done. But you know, just in case. :)

Now I could hang our random bits of paper! But when I went to find our magnets, I couldn’t find one. It had been so long since I started this project, I had gotten rid of ALL of them in a purge. :)

Since I’ve been feeling crafty lately, I decided to make some new magnets. I made some of these cuties last year for little Christmas gifts:

(Sorry for the crappy pics – my battery was dying on me!)

I know…you’re wondering why I didn’t just use these. :) Well, I found them when I dug through my craft stuff – I forgot I still had some. And I remembered that the roll ‘o magnet that I used on the back of them last year wasn’t nearly strong enough for my liking.

And I wanted to craft darn it! OK?!

So I gathered my supplies:

The French Onion dip is optional. :)

You can find these little glass jobbies at any craft store – I think they’re a few bucks for a bag?:

I use Aleene’s clear glue:

Just brush it on the back – you don’t have to use much!:

I kind of forgot that and globbed it on. It took forever for them to dry!

Just lay them glue side down on the paper. You’ll want to push them onto the paper well, so all of the air bubbles come out. After they dry, use an x-acto knife and trace around them to cut each one out.

I used some heavy duty magnets from True Value for these, and glued them on with liquid nails:

Oh yeah…they’re totally Christmasified:

   

Aren’t they too cute?!

I used some square glass pieces I had as well -- they make adorable little magnets too:

I was so motivated, I printed out a list of pizza places and their phone numbers:

Now our pizza place memo board is complete! And caauuute!:

Now the coupons, lists and phone numbers are hidden, but still easily accessible. All for less than $3 in metal sheets – that is what I’m talking about!

And it only took eight months! I rock.  ;)

Unless your kitchen is all fabulous and you have ALL glass cabs, you could easily do this to the inside of any cabinet! Five useless coats of magnetic paint not necessary. :)

 

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

 

Thank you to my sponsor!:

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