Start Small

Do you ever look at a room/project and feel overwhelmed with all that needs to be done?  Do you have a space in your home that has been neglected and has turned into a dumping ground for numerous random items?  Raise your hand if you have an area of your home that you’d feel happier just pretending doesn’t exist.  Ok, now put your hands down.  I’ll go first so you feel better about coming out with the truth.  Hi, my name is Carmel, and my garage is a disorganized, disgusting disaster.  Ahhhh, now I can breath.  It feels good to just get it out there.

We have a rear entry garage.  It’s integral to the basement which is good in some ways.  It’s good because no one but us (as in the 4 peeps and 2 fur peeps) ever comes into our house through the garage.  It’s bad because no one but us ever sees it, so it stays in a constant state of hideousness.  There’s so much work needed to get it organized that I feel tired just thinking about what needs to be done.  I decided the best way to tackle this nastiness was to start small with just one project at a time.  There are so many other projects going on in our house right now that I just don’t have the time/money to do everything that needs to be done in the garage right now.  I figure one small project at a time will make the task seem less daunting and make me feel more accomplished when each small area is addressed.

So a couple weeks ago I started by painting the door otherwise known as the employee entrance 🙂  It was the ugliest color – looks like – well – something smelly that comes out of a newborn.

YUCK!

I used some left over paint from our shutters that we had painted last summer.

Just doing this made such a huge difference.  I added a wreath (Target) to the door too!  The employees are feeling happier when they report to work now 🙂

Maybe someday we’ll replace the door knob too!

I also organized the tool area.  We had this workbench in the garage that the hubs dad gave us when we bought our first house, and I’ve decided to use it somewhere else (more on that later).

So I cleared it off and needed to use something else in it’s place.  Enter the random folding table collecting dust in the corner.  I popped it open and laid down a vinyl tablecloth on top – well just because 🙂  I like the color of the tablecloth ok?!  I finally got the hub to hang the other pegboard up for the tools.  I like to keep the stuff we use more often out in the open for easy access.  I decided to use some big plastic bins to store things like paint rollers, trays, and drop cloths.  They fit nicely underneath the table.

How much fun is the red and turquoise together!

I used some flower pots and little plastic drawers (from a broken organizer) to coral other tools and things.  I didn’t want to spend a dime so I found ways to use all the random items that were already junking up the place.  At least now they have a purpose.

In case you were wondering that snazzy looking red tool chest was a trashy treasure my brother-in-law picked up for us when we bought our second house.  Man, I wish he still had a pick-up truck 🙂

Ok, so two small projects down, one meeeeeeelllllliiiiiooooon to go!  How do you tackle the big stuff?  Do you start small or are you the hunker-down-and-git-er-done type?