Day 10: 01/16/12 - The Garage

I guess I really should be taking those before pictures so you can see what we are up against in most of these projects. However, I think I'm more embarrassed to even give the after pictures because you'll still see the rest of the disaster area. haha

The week after Christmas was when I took down all the Christmas decorations. Of course that happened to be a day that the football game was on or DH was at work so I did it all by myself - as usual. The only thing I asked was if he would please take all the boxes and put them in the rafters so that I wouldn't hurt my back.  Silly me! Football is on during the weekend. Not just one game, many games! Why on earth would I even imagine that help from DH would be on it's way?

Today I tackled that garage in full spirt. I put on my crappiest clothes and headed out to put it all away. I took the heaviest things first and put them up above. I creatively made stacks so that I wouldn't have to bend down on a ladder to get the boxes lifted. With my bad back, I'm an absolute idiot to attempt this stuff - especially the way I did it.  First the Christmas tree went up.  That one was the toughest and I prepped myself with getting that as high as I could first. Within 10 minutes I had it up there and situated nicely so the rest of the decor could go up.  The lights and outdoor decoration boxes went up, the Christmas plates, kitchenware, stocking and table runners went up next. Then the wreaths and faux fir tree railing decor and all the boxes we plan to reuse. The last thing was the wrapping paper station and a few coolers that were taken down the last time we were up there.  With all this extra room, I have a big area to use now.

I created the gap at the end of the garage so that I could put some of the bikes and play toys inside the garage. Since Santa was able to get scooters, bikes and things that rust, bringing them indoors this winter will make me a lot happier - especially when I realized how horrible the rust stains are on their old stuff.

The garage is neat and tidy, I can get around the car, the boxes and the dog area just fine. Just a few loads of laundry and the garage is semi-presentable to my friends who actually don't care that it still looks like crap - just neat crap. :-)