Saturday dawned bright and beautiful - but crazy windy.  Yet another day that I wasn't able to put down my weed killer.  I mowed the lawn instead and figured since my dad just helped carry my chest freezer down to the basement, there was no time like the present to get the garage cleaned out so I can finally park my car in there.

I hadn't done much to the garage - when I first moved in I used it as sanding and painting central for kitchen cabinets.  I did park in there for part of this winter - until the door finally went wonky enough that I couldn't get it lifted open anymore.  You could've colored me surprised when I drove home from Wisconsin a bright and beautiful April afternoon and found my friends Justin and Megan just leaving after installing a new garage door and automatic opener for me.  They're the bestest friends ever.  I think Justin did most of the manual labor, but I'm sure Megan did a great job supervising.

Back to the story.  I could get the door opened, the big chest freezer was out of the way, so it was time to get the place cleaned and swept out.  I started with the important things first - getting a radio and ipod out there so I could clean to some tunes. Then I sprayed down my lawn mower - did you know that you get green sludge under there?!  And cleaned out the cooler I used for softball last week, since I had the hose out anyways.  While those were drying, I started hauling things out of the garage.  And hauled and hauled and hauled. 

Trash, recycling, bike, lawn chairs, mower....

I couldn't move everything out of the garage - my new storm doors were too heavy, the scrap aluminium will just stay until my dad takes it to the junkyard for cash, and all the scrap wood boards have a nice home leaned up against the wall.  I found some old windows - the windows in their frames, the screens and the storms.  I actually had a taker for the windows from freecycle on Sunday, so those have a new home and the trash will be filled each week with the other useless stuff - old baseboard, the old screens, etc.

Scrap soffits and aluminium, shovels, rake, sawhorse.  Isn't that workbench made out of a headboard awesome?

I moved the scrap wood to the corner in the back of the garage (upper left in the photo above).  Moved the storm doors next to the scrap wood so there's more room in the storage on the right side of the garage (in photo below).  I leaned the shovels up against the wall below and put the bike there.

Scrap wood, old paint cans, new storm doors

I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture when I was done cleaning it all out - I'll do that tomorrow and update it here.  Needless to say, it looks a lot better and I'm getting all the cardboard out to the recycling tomorrow.  Sometime in the near future I'll get some pegboard to hang up and start the actual organizing of the garage.  But, I needed a cleaned up space to start with. 

Cost = $0
Labor = heavy
Time = 1.5 hours
Spiders = endless *shudder*

Here's a question for you - if the pegboard doesn't cover up the Panther grafitti (and the Miguel was here that was behind the storm doors) should I paint?  I don't want to be mixed up in that hardcore Panther gang...

Real Quick "Real Simple"

This morning in my email (from B3) I had an email about Real Simple's 19 minute speed cleaning guide.  Sign me up!

Literally, you have to sign up to get it in your email.  They had a bunch of other email newsletters you can sign up for as well.  This winter I ordered a subscription to Real Simple through Amazon (for only $5) so I figured I wouldn't mind them sending things to my email either.

Follow this link to sign up for their newsletter guides...I'll let you know how the 19 minute speed cleaning works for me.

ETA:
ZOMG, checklists!!! I love checklists.  Srsly. 139 of them...just waiting for me.

I've Got a Little List...

or, in my case, several giant lists.  I *love* list making.  It is entirely satsifying to type out everything for the list, put it in bullet points, format the page to make it fit exactly right and then print it out.   Where it festers in a pile of paper almost never to be looked at again. 

I'm a list maker, but not really a list do-er.  My most recent list was a spring cleaning checklist.  I have yet to check anything off on the list though - even after I laminated it with tape at work.  On the bright side, its hanging on my fridge and staring me in the face everytime I open the door.  The down side is that I have no desire AT ALL to start making headway on it. *sigh*

Spring Cleaning List - 1
Debbie - 0

Has anyone else been summarily defeated by a list before?  What did you find was the hardest part? Do I just need to suck it up and get started, or would I be better served to hire out and spend my time doing the things I like to do?

I'm sure you could guess what I would like to do...