A few weeks ago, Steve and I embarked on our “Whenever We Feel Like It Which Isn’t Very Often” Garage Cleaning and Organizing Ritual. As always, it provided us with a morning of riotous fun. (I kid.)
And it wasn’t like our garage needed cleaning, or anything. We always keep our belongings in the sort of perpetual order and cleanliness that would cause any surgical operating team on the planet to go green with envy.
Notice the furry white helper who appeared in our midst. He’s about as helpful as a toddler–except not quite as much. (I started writing this post several weeks ago which is why our beloved late doggy is making an appearance in it.)
Steve and I (and Snowy) made ourselves a big ol’ mess as we worked. In fact, the mess we made was bigger than the mess we started with. (We’re efficient like that.)
If anyone is wondering why the matching ottoman that goes with our living room furniture has been relegated to the garage, it’s because we don’t have room for it in our living room.
And if you weren’t wondering? The answer remains the same.
See? No ottoman-ish spaces available.
After creating our even bigger mess, Steve and I stood and pondered yon mess for a great long while. (Well, Steve pondered. I photographed.)
We eventually threw some of the mess in the garbage can and then we pondered some more.
Our pondering led us to escort some of the items inside the house where they were distributed to more appropriate storage places.
The blue basketball shoes made me slightly teary since Nathan played ball in them in High School. Will I ever get over missing my child? (Don’t answer that.)
But after three hours of working? And thinking? And pondering?
And crying over yon long gone son?
We had this!
(Actually since this photos was taken, we covered the ottoman in black plastic, just to keep it safe for a time when our living room might miraculously grow by 15 feet.)
These are our recycling containers. And yes. recycling is a little bit of work and trouble, but it sure does give you a good feeling when you see how much stuff stays out of the landfill every month!
(End of Recycling Commercial.)
And now you may be asking, “Hey! I just read all the way through your whole Garage Cleaning Picture Collection and did not see even one of the promised three cleaning tips.
Well, you’ll be happy to know that Tip Time has come. Here we go!
Never jump into the middle of a mess without some sort of plan in mind. Especially if a certain area is very cluttered, it can be completely overwhelming to just start picking up random things and trying to figure how to proceed from there.
I always start in one corner of a room (even when cleaning up a very messy kitchen) and methodically work my way around. it. Otherwise, I tend to get distracted by something I see across the room and I wander over there and then get distracted again by something else and by the time I’ve been distracted half a dozen times in half an hour, I find that I’ve made no progress whatsoever and decide that it’s time to forget the whole thing and go eat chocolate.
So force yourself to stick with the cleaning path right in front of you without indulging in any superfluous zig zaggery. You’ll be amazed at how much you accomplish.
To go along with first point: As you make your slow, methodical way around the room, don’t just pick stuff up and put it back down, unless the spot where you are standing happens to be very spot where that item goes. (And what are the chances of that happening?)
Instead, make a decision immediately about that item and put it in an appropriate pile, bag, or box:
- Does it belong in the room you’re in?
- Does it belong in another place in the house?
- Does it need to be thrown away?
- Does it need to be passed along to a thrift store.
Four choices. That’s all you get! Make ’em work for you!
And finally? Tattoo on your hand (or any other body part) the words, “Prime Real Estate.” It’s one of the most important cleaning phrases you’ll ever learn.
What does it mean? I’ll give you an example.
When Steve and I were cleaning the garage, one of our goals was to get the top of an old wooden desk cleared off in order to make more space for our recycling containers. (If you’ll look at some of the before pictures, you’ll see that the desk is barely visible because of all the junk piled on it.)
I started looking through the containers and boxes that had been stacked there since we moved in and guess what I found? A large box that stuffed full of empty video tape cases!
I mean, really? Why in the world were we saving video tape cases? And why were we allowing them to take up prime real estate (an easily accessible place) in our garage?
Another example of misusing prime real estate is in the kitchen. If you have a cupboard that’s easy to get to, do not store the turkey platter in there. That platter can be sent off to live in non-prime land, which might be a cupboard over the fridge that you have to get a step stool to reach.
This might seem like such a simple concept but I can’t tell you how many times in our recent garage cleaning process that Steve and I said the words, “Prime real estate” to each other. It was like our secret cleaning code mantra. (Well, it was secret until I shared it with you!)
And just so you know? The empty video cases were very quickly moved out of prime real estate and into the recycling bin and we ended up with a surface completely cleared of non-essentials.
So there you go. A few hopefully helpful hints to assist you one in one (ore more) of your Fall cleaning sprees.
What would you like to add to this? Do you have any organizing/cleaning tips you can share with the rest of us? We’d love to hear them.
(Especially if any of the tips end with the words, “Take a break to eat chocolate.”)
Life often serves up interesting coincidences, and here’s one I want to share here. Krista Colvin is a local woman who is a lifestyle consultant on Portland’s AM Northwest. Her topic yesterday was how to handle organizing all your paperwork! http://networkedblogs.com/BY2Dn
Becky, she’s also a breast cancer survivor who wrote a blog about it and was featured in the Vancouver paper. There’s a link to it a little bit down that main page, entitled: Putting on my big girl panties. I tried to copy the link, but it’s the same as the one for the main page, so that didn’t work.
Jan, thanks so much for the info! I went by Krista’s cancer blog and really enjoyed reading her story. I also subscribed to her organizing blog; looks like great stuff!
Our garage is for cars and all their necessary accoutrements. We’re the only ones on our street who use our garage for its intended purpose (car storage).
We’ve de-cluttered to the point that our basement is almost getting EMPTY. Our closets are full of essentials – only (a good thing in a 120-year-old house) because they are definitely PRIME REAL ESTATE – lol. 🙂 We are hoping to sell & move soon, and I’m 100% down-sizing. I’m getting rid of stuff that doesn’t serve a purpose, doesn’t make me happy, and doesn’t need to be in my way.
I’m definitely cut from the distracted-cleaning cloth. 🙂
But I worry for and about your ottoman. I think it should live indoors. My first thought was using it in place of your coffee table, with a nice wooden tray on top of it. Double-duty in prime real estate: a table AND a seat!
Stefanie, I loved the fact that you used the word “accoutrements!” (Which my spell checker just flagged which I guess means we’re smarter than our spell checkers.)
Loved your cleaning guidelines!
And yes, the ottoman would work in front of the couch, but then we’d have a nice coffee table that would have to go out in the garage. Sigh. It’s one or the other!
I wish I had a garage to clutter and declutter. Since I don’t, I think I’ll just apply the tips to my basement! When I cleaned houses for a time, the company I worked for actually trained us with videos and such (yeah…really). The one “tip” that I’ve always remembered is to start in the place farthest away – in my house that would be the 2nd floor Master Bedroom – and work your way down and out. It actually turned out to be quickest and the rooms I’d usually ignore would get done.
Guerrina, that’s a great tip and probably the opposite of what most people would do when they started cleaning a house. (By the way, I didn’t know you were a professional house cleaner who had been trained by video! Woo-hoo!) 🙂
I have very little storage space, and I refuse to buy more furniture whose sole purpose is to store more stuff (the ghost of George Carlin is speaking here). So I love, love, LOVE your prime real estate tip! Good job on the garage, you two.
Jan, congrats on not buying any more stuff in order to store your stuff-there is definitely something to be said for that mind set. Glad the Prime Real Estate tip was helpful; I use it all the time whenever I clean anything!
I get the zig-zag method too often. It takes hours to go through the paper in my computer room. I’ll get one “pile” clean and after hours it doesn’t look like I’ve done anything except I know I have. Time to start again but not tonight. It’s time for bed and I still have several things to get done first.
Ann,yep, you definitely want to start in on piles of papers when you’re well rested. Hope you’re feeling chipper this morning!
I like the 4 choices rule! I am definitely going to use that! I always find myself getting distracted and end up getting into things that were not in my original plan!! I have found that we get more done around here when we are having company coming! So when I feel the need to clean and organize I throw a party!! This Saturday night our daughters College Soccer team is coming into Pittsburgh from Ohio to play 2 games, so I invited the team and their families coming in to Dinner! so not only to get I get to see both of my daughters, their team mates and some of the other parents, I get to have to the rest of family hard at work cleaning and organizing!!
Shari, I agree entirely; company coming is the best cleaning tip there is! And I must say you are a brave woman to invite an entire college soccer team AND their families for dinner. My hat is off to you! Enjoy!
That was a fun day together. I’ll mess up the garage so we can do it again.
Steve
Steve, I don’t think we’ll have a bit of problem getting it messy again!
last week my garage got cleaned out… fortunately I have two very strong friends!!
Mrs. G and Patty and I spent 30 + man hours (over 5 days), filling a Bagster, 10 trash cans, several trips to the recycle bins, and several trips to church for the charity shop. now I am waiting for the carpenter to fix the damaged posts and door. But I do have four shelves almost filled with stuff. my most exciting find was an old red wagon. boy, does that help when bringing stuff in from the patio and porch, and best of all taking the groceries from the car to the back door. I have about five storage bins with “treasures” from school that the new director did not want. I don’t know when I’ll tackle them, but at least there will be room to store them in the garage.
Mrs. Pam, wow! You accomplished a huge amount of work. What a great feeling that must be. Enjoy your organized spaces!
I use the 15 min rule and never get overwhelmed. Give yourself 15 mins in each room and yes I do use a timer. I start with my bathroom. I spray the sink, counter, toilet and shower/tub. The first 5 mins I scrub the toilet, wipe down the counter and sink and mirror….2nd 5 mins I scrub the tub and shower and shake out my rugs, 3rd 5 mins I put out clean towels and swiffer wet mop my way out of the room. About every other month I take an extra 15 mins and do baseboards and windows. Same trick works for kitchen. I set my timer and first 5 mins is putting stuff in dishwasher and wiping counter and stove, next 5 mins is washing any dishes that didn’t go in dishwasher and putting them away, 3rd 5 mins is setting up coffee for next morning and swiffering my way out of the room. I do spend 5 mins every morning emptying the dishwasher so it will be ready to go that night. Since I found this trick I really don’t get overwhelmed with cleaning. I also sort my mail the second I bring it in. I stand by the trashcan and anything to throw away goes right in, anything to be shredded goes in a bag in my laundry room until I have a full bag and anything to be paid goes in a zipper pouch that I keep inside my cabinet – no junk stuff laying around.
Cindy, I love those ideas. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed with tasks that breaking it up into bite sized chunks is absolutely perfect. Thanks so much for passing that on!
I just found this blog today… and I’m going to be the most efficient cleaning machine!!! I’m a zig zaggerly cleaner which drives me insane. Another thing that drives me insane is when I see my husband leave something where it doesn’t belong and I say something and THEN I see allll the things laying around that he had nothing to do with. I try not to touch things. My house stays so much neater that way.
Amy, welcome to Smithellaneous!
Hopefully you can put your zig zaggerly tendencies to rest and be the most “efficient cleaning machine” of your dreams! 🙂
The only “tip” I have is get my daughter to come over whenever she may be frustrated, worried or just tired of the clutter because she goes into a cleaning frenzy like no other – I come home to a completely “put away” house – sometimes it is difficult to locate objects after one of her “frenzies” but the reward of a house, garage, yard and/or basement that looks like a model home is worth the search!
Mary, well aren’t you a blessed woman? How nice to have a house-cleaning daughter in your life–you can send her my direction any time you’d like.
Mary, I’d like to give your daughter my address………………
When it gets really bad, I make lists of every single thing (area/pile/disaster) that has to get decluttered/cleaned. Then I number them in order of priority. Then I go through them in numbered order, scratching them off the list as they’re completed.
I don’t allow myself to skip steps or relegate any tasks (or portions of tasks) to the convenient realm of “I’ll do that later.” Which is one of my favorite places.
And, take frequent breaks to eat chocolate 😉
Kristina, lists are good because it’s hard to argue with a list. And also not letting yourself put off any of your list tasks is a great idea–especially because a lot of times the actually doing of most things doesn’t turn out to be all that bad. And breaking for chocolate? Pure brilliance.
I prefer to put everything in storage bins. I had stuff for a year in some friends’ storage unit. Never again will I store my personal things in cardboard boxes ever. It is only Rubbermaid and Sterlite from now on. 🙂 I have tons of bins both full and empty. 🙂
Kristi, I agree, storage bins are wonderful inventions. I always feel so organized when I have some filled bins all lined up and labeled. Ahhh . . .