So now that we've already downsized into a 650 sq. ft. apartment it should be really easy to fit everything into the garage, right? I dearly wish that were the case. Let's look at some pictures taken of the garage at the beginning of this year, shall we?
We'll begin with the view of the back right side of the garage as you enter from the double doors in front. All the gray bins stacked so neatly are garage stuff from when we lived in the house, so it's stuff that we really don't use much. However, a lot of it is extra parts for things that may come in handy when we need to replace/repair things. Scott will have to spend a lot of time going through this to determine what to get rid of and what to keep. All the boxes and stuff below were from our house and just got placed here because they wouldn't fit in the apartment. They kayaks and workbench will stay, they just need to find a new home outside where they'll be safe.
Meet the view of the back left of the garage. Here's where most guys are thinking? Is that a lift? In a normal garage? With a truck on it and all sorts of crap stored below? Yes, yes and yes. Scott bought this 1960's Chevy with dreams of restoring it to its former glory. I should kiss this truck as it prompted getting the lift, which prompted raising the ceiling three feet, which will allow us to loft our bedrooms and actually make this space work. Scott was able to get all his truck stuff gathered into the bed of the truck, but doesn't think that it'll be a problem to sell...if he could just clear all the stuff out from underneath and actually get it down. There's also lots of yard waste in the picture that needs to be taken out at the quarterly pickup as well as some miscellaneous things that will need to get hauled off to the dump- when he has time.
This view was taken while standing under the truck. It is the view of the stuff directly to the right of the double doors as you walk in. It has the most space in the garage to move around, but the truck blocks the floor to ceiling shelves loaded with bins and other things yet to be sorted.
Finally, this is the view directly to the left as you walk in the double doors. There are more floor to ceiling shelves and lots of tools. Scott will need to really go through his tools for an eye of what he absolutely needs to keep and what he can sell.
That's pretty bad, right? Because it's not easy to get to, we didn't even show you the bump out which you can kind of see with the cabinets in the picture directly above. Imagine more cabinets and more stuff taking up all the floor space.
What I have yet to disclose is our dirty little secret. Because we downsized so quickly into our apartment and didn't have time to go through and sell everything, and because we weren't sure exactly what there will and won't be room for in the garage, we also have a 10x20 storage unit.
Luckily, it's deep but it's not stacked terribly high. We have some furniture that will need selling in here, lots of boxes of our daughter's things that will be sold at Spring consignment sales, and some patio furniture and bikes that will go outside. There's many boxes of things that still need sorting through, but I think that this space is more intimidating than it looks.
So how's this for keeping it real? Have we accumulated a staggering amount of stuff in our approximately 40 years on the planet? Absolutely. The next seven months will be a great exercise in downsizing once and for all. We definitely have our work cut out for us and our main obstacle is time. Weeknights are full and it's hard hanging out with our toddler all week and then all weekend while Scott sorts through everything and gets it ready for sale. Any tips on getting rid of/selling this stuff most efficiently?
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