clean out the garage

I have recently inherited my father’s woodworking machinery and the idea of ever parking both cars in the garage is gone. I now need to revise my success metrics.

1) Can V park her car in the garage (with both cars in the driveway I can not get my motorcycle out)
2) Have I built a shed for the lawn equipment
3) Can I get the motorcycle out easily for commuting
4) Have I replaced the back door with one without a window
5) Can V and I easily get to the bicycles
6) Can I easily/quickly get to my woodworking tools

My son has a lot of his stuff in the garage too so until he moves out I can only take this goal so far.

I had put some chairs out on the curb with a piece of cardboard “FREE.” Well someone certainly stopped to pick up the chairs but left the cardboard on my grass.

but it should only be temporary. hopefully the furniture will find new homes soon. I need to build a shed to store my lawn equipment and sell my 2nd motorcycle to make room for the new tools this summer.

I had the garage looking good recently (not good enough to mark this complete) and then new stuff just seems to creep back in!

My original criateria:
Can you use the back door? – NOPE. I actually do not want to remove the stuff from in front of this door until I replace it with a door without a window.

Is the bicycle hung? – Yes, but since then another bike has been added that also needs to be hung.

Are the extra tools labeled for donation? – I gave away several but there were others that I just could not seem to part with but know that I would not pay to move again. Need to do something with those.

Can you reach the workbench? – Depends on the day.

Are the parts organizers hung? – this is done and I even built the nice “closet” for my bench tools.

With the introduction of 2 new shop tools space has once again gotten tight. My workbench is also overflowing already. I need a better way to keep the stuff I use for the lathe.

I had a bunch of tools that I kept having to move every time I wanted to get to my bench. I made this “closet” for several of the tools. I already had most of the wood so I only had to spend $10 to make this. I even used leftover countertop from my bathroom remodel for one of the shelves!

I had 2 motorycle seats from customers I had when I lived in NC. This weekend I was helping AnnieDee with her “remodel my kitchen” goal and decided to take these seats back to their rightful owners. I was sooooo embarassed that I had these for over 2 years (talk about procrastination) but stepped up and returned them both.

Well, a few more shelving units, an afternoon building storage cubbies for my tools, a “30 minute” bike hanger project that took an entire afternoon and a trip into the attic and I am close.

I still have some boxes to throw out and a new back door to buy but I think I will have accomplished all my original criteria soon.

here is a quick pix of the mess I am working with in the garage. hopefully there will be an “after” pix soon.

Here are some of the cabinets I am building in my garage. I finished these yesterday and also hung the brooms/dustpans next to this cabinet. It is actually just empty at the moment.