I want my garage back!

[Miltons Bells]

My garage is too full of stuff to use it for its intended purpose. I must clean it at least once a month to eliminate the stuff but keeps coming back.

I have descided that "My garage is a loading dock for my house." If I were to build a new house I would take this into consideration and create a new room withing my garage. Since I want to be able to park my cars and store some of the smaller tools in the garage I would include an adjacent room between the garage and entry into the house and call it a loading dock.

It would be a staging point for new purchases as well as a staging spot for camping gear brought down from the attic and waiting to be put back up. Christmas decorations could be brought down from the attic and the boxes left on the dock until Christmas was over. Then the boxes could be packed up and carried back up to the attic.

Of course the floors of the loading dock would be much higher than the floor of the garage so that I could unload my pick-up straight across to the dock using a furniture dolly.

It would be a new room for a residence sort of like a media room is new. Perhaps it will be an option on the next house that I purchase. Nah.....I doubt it.

 

[Danglerb]

Guy I know remodeled his house with a two sided pantry, one side opens to the kitchen, other side opens to the garage.

We have laundry in the garage area as well, and a trilevel house. Idea my wife had was a laundry chute if we could make sure it wasn't a bug freeway into the house.

I like the loading dock idea, and have worked a few times to designate a set of shelves or a spot for collecting up items we want to move in bulk, to hazmat, goodwill, or a storage unit (bad habit, hard to break once you have a storage unit, OTOH wife hasn't scattered my bones in the desert). So far it tends to get filled up with misc not sure what to do with it stuff.

 

[mhoffm911]

I'm a firm believer that if it has not been used in 6 months, get rid of it.

Whether I take it to an auction or donate it, it has to go. I just cleaned out my garage to do epoxyshield on my floor - it is going to kill me to load it back up with all the junk I had to move to my storage unit. In my case, I have to have a storage unit in case I take in items for an auction and need a place to store them.

I hate clutter. I dream of some of the show garages that are on here. I can't figure out how many of my neighbors have next to nothing in their garages. I have had mine so stuffed before that I could barely walk in it. Of course in my case it's a revolving door (since it's all going to an auction most of the time) and it's only for a short period of time.

 

[Yotaforce]

Sell "It" on Ebay. That is a great way to get rid of your junk!

 

[autoist]

Between my garage & my house is an 8'x20' room that my wife can use as that staging area. In it she has a small chest freezer & one wall covered with shelves which she uses as her bulk storage pantry. She also does her ironing in there, keeps her cleaning supplies, etc in there - it stops migrating items from ever reaching my garage.

 

[bigdav160]

I'm a firm believer that if it has not been used in 6 months, get rid of it.

Bro, that's totally insane.

 

[mhoffm911]

bigdav,

As I have previously stated, I am not a mechanic...therefore I don't have an attachment to any of that kind of stuff.

As an auctioneer, I have an endless supply of "stuff" (if I really wanted to clutter up my house). I try to only trade-up on stuff I want to keep. I buy out a lot of estates, resell it all (if possible) to buy the 1 or 2 better items that are worth keeping. Some day by son will appreciate all of my "treasures" (when he gets to auction off my estate).

Sounds like the room everyone is talking about is what we call a "breezeway" here.

 

[Magneto349]

I hear ya, thats why I have a shop and a garage. The garage works great for putting lawn mowers and other storage **** like christmas decorations and all the other stuff plus my wife thinks garages are only for storing stuff and parking in. With the shop I can do whatever I want and not have to worry about my wife not being able to pull the car in the garage when the weather is nasty especially with kids. Try explaining to your wife why you pulled an engine and cant get it back in for a couple weeks so she cant use the garage...

 

[michael Mccoy]

This is the reason I installed another attic ladder in the garage even though I had one at the other end of the house. For one it keeps me from dragging stuff through the house and then walk across the ceiling to store it above the garage. Now I just pull down a sturdy metal one in the garage and get it out of sight. Love it

 

[Kevin54]

I'm not a 6 month person but I am a year person. After a year, if it has not been used, then sell it, donate it, or give it to someone that can use it. Excluding mowers, snowblowers and items like that. I've seen my dad save stuff for years because "Can't toss that...might need it someday". He would keep a piece of pipe a foot long because it might come in handy someday. I bet that piece of pipe is still tucked in the attic of the garage. And I'm 51. Myself, I hate clutter. No garden tools on the garage wall. Garden tools go in the shed. No mowers stored in the garage. Mowers go in the shed. I am the type that in the summer evenings I like the doors of the garage open. Winter brings the doors shut for about 6 months anyhow so summer doors come open. And if someone drives by, I don't want it to look like a junk collector lives there. We have two garages. One is attached to the house, and I have my garage. Although not a showplace like some garages on here, I am not embarassed to have the doors open at any time. A few people around me, their garage has a path through it with barely enough room to walk. WHY? No one should have so much junk that it is buried under boxes and has not seen the light of day in years. I told my wife when I built my garage that I would build a closet at one end to store Christmas items so the house closets are not jam packed full. I don't like climbing drop down stairs to store stuff in an attic so the closet was made. Everything has worked out well. She has even gotten to the point in the last few years that she likes to get rid of stuff.

Kevin

 

[Cebby]

This is a good topic.

I have a detached two car (2 story) that has become my wife's staging area for everything she doesn't want to lug to the house.

I've been in this house for nearly 13 years and can remember a car parked in the garage 3 times. Since it is only 20 x 20 with narrow doors, day to day parking in it is out of the question.

Being a wood worker and a metal fabricator, I've acquired quite a few machines that sit draped in furniture blankets - on top of these blankets are all sorts of misc boxes and junk.

Unfortunately, the second floor is no better and is loaded with junk (which I finally started cleaning out). My idea is to move some woodworking machines up there (band saw, lathe, jointer, sanding center) so I have room for my metal working stuff downstairs.

I still have lawn care stuff and kids sporting equipment and bikes to contend with.

Ideally, I want to add an attached garage to the house to handle my wife and the kids stuff. A loading dock space (and mentality) would certainly ease some of my heartache over my diminishing space.

Where's that room-stretcher when I need it??

 

[nickleone]

Between my garage & my house is an 8'x20' room that my wife can use as that staging area. In it she has a small chest freezer & one wall covered with shelves which she uses as her bulk storage pantry. She also does her ironing in there, keeps her cleaning supplies, etc in there - it stops migrating items from ever reaching my garage.

So, you store YOUR food and do your own ironing somewhere else.
Where do you keep YOUR cleaning supplies for the house?

Nick Leone
I live in OUR house.

 

[autoist]

Quote:
Originally Posted by autoist
Between my garage & my house is an 8'x20' room that my wife can use as that staging area. In it she has a small chest freezer & one wall covered with shelves which she uses as her bulk storage pantry. She also does her ironing in there, keeps her cleaning supplies, etc in there - it stops migrating items from ever reaching my garage.

So, you store YOUR food and do your own ironing somewhere else.
Where do you keep YOUR cleaning supplies for the house?

hehehehe....good one, Nick

When we got married back in 1969, we made a deal - inside the house is her domain, outside is mine....so, I cut the grass, clean the cars, wash the proches/decks, etc., etc. But, I'm not allowed in the kitchen except to bring her groceries from the car to either the pantry or kitchen) - the only thing she really wants me to do inside is put my dirty clothes in the hamper & pick up my 'stuff' behind me....other than that, she chases me out of the house when there's work to be done (with a "my car needs the oil changed").

It worked great - we've been married since 1969!

 

[Vicegrip]

Sheds. Keep adding them as needed.

 

[Franz©]

Once upon a time (no particular reason other than wanting to use the line) I had a car & pickup sitting ut in the snow. I didn't like scraping windshields, so I built a garage/house for vehicles/ another donation to welfare people via taxes. I put in 8x8 doors for pickups, and shelves along the walls with moveable brackets on rails. Even installed drywall and insulation, just in case I ever needed to work in there. Came by some door openers and put them up too. Ran power from the shop underground, and an air line as well. It was nice. OK the damn door openers were slow, so I just pulled the handle and left them disconnected, the doors worked fine by hand.
THEN
I got the Lawn Nazi. My 68 Plymouth Fury III sat comfortably on stands on it's side of the garage, and my Blazer sat on the other side. I felt badly for LN's Geo, so I bought her a car cover at a garage sale. I know, but I like to spoil her with my generoscity. I didn't even mention her failing to use the car cover was fading her red paint. Never tell a woman things like that or anything else.

Fall came, and was almost turning to winter. Leaves blew into the garage. I blew them back out. Got to play with the hand blower I bought LN. Frost came, and LN's poor Geo sat out there still without the car cover.
THEN
It happened. I hopped out of the Blazer to open the garage door. As I did, I noticed RED. I moved the Blazer off to the side. I went in the house and politely asked if the Geo had a problem. Of course it didn't, after all I was too stupid to work on the GEO. GEOs can only be fixed at the dealer under the extended warranty/screwjob. I was informed the GEO no longer had a problem. The GEO had a problem that morning, frost on the windows, but it was fine now. It would be fine the next mmorning too. After all, LN leaves for work earlier than I do, and she really didn't have time to scrape.
Being STUPID I pointed out I didn't like scraping windows either. LN informed me since the Fury III never went anyplace it could sit outside, and I could put the Blazer in the garage next to the GEO. I could even put a car cover or a tarp on the Fury III.

That was 12 years ago. I still don't have a garage. The Fury III is still in the other side. It's covered with 3 layers of drop cloths, moving blankets and curtains. On top of those are layers of cardboard boxes. It was even suggested I could build a mezanine over the Fury III.

SOON
I'll have my very own NotA building just 60 feet farther from the house. LN will NEVER get anything into my NotA building. The taxman will never collect on my NotA building.
NotA building, brought to you by Better Crates & Cartons the favorite magazine of America's homeless since the Clintons took over the Whitehouse and hauled the furnishings off to Arkansas.