Projects And so it begins…cleaning the garage

better to have stuff you don't need, than to not have stuff you do need.

 

I’ve never looked at it like that before….. I’ll have to remember that one the next time my wife comments on the parts that keep coming in

 

My dad grew up in the depression. He said you kept everything because you MAY need it and wouldn't have the money to buy another. His adage was also "you probably wouldn't need it until you threw it away". Today they call it hoarding.

 

That's bit me in the *** more than once.

 

My uncle is a retired electronics engineer who is always building/fixing something for himself or someone he knows. We like to tell him that the town will name the dump after him because he brings home more than he leaves. In his defense, he does p*** along a lot of those items after he fixes them. Recently he unloaded 1200 lbs of aluminum that he's had for 60+ years; being 86 years old, he said he probably doesn't have enough time to use it all. Sometimes he will try to clean out some of his stuff, but it's hard to do because it won't let go of his hand.

 

My dad used to say that all the time, that and the cl***ic “It doesn’t cost anything to sit there”

I’m living it right now!!

 

That’s only true if you can find it when you need it. I’m not doing well in that department.

 

Yeah this was me last year trying to find my 6v electric fuel pump. I tore the garage a new one trying to find it and had to order another one. A week after I got it I found the one I was looking for

 

Same with my late grandmother. Paper bags all folded up neatly and piled up a****st all kinds of benign things. I can’t help myself from saving any form of plastic or gl*** container. Pickle, relish, yogurt, mustard, etc. Finally said enough is enough, and threw a bunch out, only to have a bunch more take their place. I need help…

 

I'm to the point if I haven't used it or needed it in the last 3 years it's time for it to go.

Have a good friend that hoarded everything auto wise and it got to the point that the money he spent on storage sheds and then building more garages to hoard it all away costs him more than just buying the stuff as he needed it. He told me it was pretty stupid because even if he sold all the stuff it probably wouldn't pay for the money he had in out buildings.

Now if I could get everyone else's stuff out of my shop I'd pick up almost half of my floor space back.

...

 

My ex-wife bought a lot of stuff (with me trying to keep up with the credit card bills before I shut it all off) and stashed a lot of stuff. After she left me, I started clearing her **** out. I recycled a couple garbage bags worth of plastic containers that were stashed in every kitchen cupboard. I also boxed up multiples of pots, pans, gravy boats (eight of them!) and shelves of clutter (she was the trinket queen). Thirty boxes of clothes, many that still had price tags on them. It took three U-Haul truckloads to get all of her **** out of the house, including some big/bulky furniture that she wanted to keep (and saved me from using for bonfire fuel). After that experience, I became a minimalist and eventually downsized to an almost-tiny house. I still have stuff, but it's useful to me, and I am careful about what I ac***ulate.

 

This, exactly.

I went from a 2 1/2 car garage, to a 32x54, then added a 48x75, and I still don’t have enough room.

I’ve spent the past two weeks trying to organize the 48x75, and do some cleaning and painting, but I sometimes feel that I’m just shuttling **** back and forth.

Yesterday my wife painted the walls where the main workbench lives, and today I mop the floor in that corner, paint the bench so it doesn’t look quite so home made, hang the brake line “dispenser”, rehang the light above the workbench, make a shelf for the Starlink router, and take a nap.

Maybe I’ll start with the nap.

I spent a good week cleaning up the existing enclosed 16x50’ lean too, but now I’m cluttering it up with things I’m “temporarily” moving out of the shop so I can paint and organize that area. Built some shelves to get things off the floor, so that helped, but I have to seriously start s****ping things. Did get rid of some barn tin, a table saw that I was going to make a welding table out of, an old compressor that I’ll never use, a home made wood stove, and used a bunch of lumber s****s for the shelving I built.

I’ve considered getting a sea container, but they look tacky, in my opinion. My shop is in a tidy little neighborhood of mostly 1920 ‘s era houses (six or eight), and large oak trees. Sort of “quaint”. I’m seeking bids on a 16x30 lean to for the back of the shop, preferably enclosed, for the tractor, skid steer, and implements.

That makes room for another car, and gets the implements out of the weather.

I don’t need another car, though. I’ll never finish what I already have.

 

Ripped out the drywall in the corner of my garage to run some electrical wires for a new ceiling mounted light on my porch roof beside it. Turned out, I didn’t need to do that. So, decided to re-patch, and paint. That of course lead to fixing up the mess left by the original contractors. That lead to sanding and painting the stairs from the garage to the kitchen. What I was originally supposed to do first was fix the crumbling sections of knee wall foundation in my garage. Finally got to fixing one section last week. Still have cans of two-part epoxy for thx floor sitting in a box for at least 6 yrs. Damn!

 

I started buying clear plastic bins for smaller “collectibles”, and writing on larger bins with suitable contrasting markers.

Very few cardboard boxes left.

Pretty much have my carpentry, electrical and plumbing segregated from my shop hardware, ie ratchets, wrenches, test equipment, welders, steel, nuts, bolts, etc

 

Especially if you live twelve miles from a small town and 100 miles from alittle bigger town, and 250 miles from a city of any size.

 

I agree but if I got one I’d put siding, trim it out and make it look like I built it from scratch. But I think I’ll stick to building an addition to it for the meantime.

I do have the room to knock the back wall out of the main garage and build back behind it 30’ further hang a hard left and go up to 60’ before I hit the hill. It’s tempting I’ll say that

 

Slip and fall in there, your face will be on a milk carton.

 

In two days, I'll be 82, and for me, what @finn said is my motivating factor for getting rid of stuff I don't need, won't use and can't seem to give away. My immediate plan is to get the '46 coupe reliable to the point of making the trip to Lloydfest and then make the two-lane trip to West Texas and back. Then I need to get serious about the '29RPU and make it roadworthy before I croak and it becomes a problem for the new trustee.

 

You can stop by here after Lloydfest and I can load you up with stuff to take home with you to get rid of, just in case you don’t have enough stuff to get rid of.

 

Don't worry with current prices and inflation trends over the past 20 years it's on the way.

 

For a bit of consolation, we should keep in mind that a lot of the stuff we ac***ulate is old and would otherwise be s****ped or dumped, we aren't filling our places up with new **** from Walmart or other new stuff.
There are people who will buy numerous couches and chairs and particle board furniture on sale, and store it in sheds or garages. Eventually rodents or time or water leaks turn it all to garbage, no s**** value even.​

 

The inlaws managed a storage place for awhile. I was amazed to see the junk people were putting into storage. They could have replaced it all with less than a couple months storage fees.

 

I may have mentioned it before, but when we left California in '72, my wife, who was a single mother of five before I met her, was insistent on bringing furniture that she had acquired before she met me. It could have all been replaced by a thrift store visit where we ended up in Indiana, but she was not leaving without "her" furniture. The half dozen Y-blocks, three 390s and a large pile of Harley Davidson that I had ac***ulated got left behind in the garage. The things that we own and consider valuable are valuable only to us, and not to others unless they express an interest in owning them.

 

this is a great thread.
I think most of us just feel good about having "stuff" around that we mite need, rather than throwing it out.

 

In my local village (pop 2000), a new storage place is being built, and another is being expanded just outside it. There’s a locally owned storage company in Ottawa (Dymon) and they currently have 11 m***ive storage facilities and keep expanding. My sis rented one for years when she lived in Toronto, and as you mentioned finally realized the fees were way more than the value of the **** in storage. Haha! She threw it all out.

 

You guys are not alone. Driveshaft story time;
Over the years, I acquired a few 60's/70's Driveshafts in various conditions, in case I ever needed to have one. So after moving them twice, and 30 some odd years go by, I finally start building a little hot rod (Off topic) which needed a driveshaft, So with the intent of having 3 turned into 1good 1, I load 3 of my old relics into the truck and head to the local driveshaft shop. (We have one, the guy is good). I tell him what I want. He looks at my prized artifacts, and one by one, deflates their perceived value down to about ZERO......"This yoke is so pitted now it will leak for sure, this weld yoke is a diameter that requires a ******* joint that costs double, this "good' tube has a small dent on each end, and if I pay my helper to salvage your 1 decent weld yoke, you'll spend more than buying new." So all my stored shafts were worthless. I had him build me an all new shaft, and my prizes went to the s**** bin!

 

George Carlin nailed it with his monologue on "Stuff".

 

A very funny, and insightful routine by George Carlin.
It's not in the above skit, but I often think of his remark about spouses saying, or at least thinking, "We've got to get rid of some of your ****, to make room for my stuff".

 

I tried to settle that argument. I drew up a 36x60 2 story place. 3 bedroom house over garage w/12' walls (gotta have s lift). We'd each have the same amount of room for stuff. It was a nogo even when I offered an elevator. We've lived in a 2 story house for the last 50+ years and she wants 1 story for the retirement place.

 

I live in a relatively small town, one Starbucks and a thousand storage outfits. People have too much stuff, I am no exception! My wife and I will likely sell our home (5000 sq ft and another 2500 in the garages) in the next couple of years, and we need to drastically thin down the inventory because are going to be buying much smaller this time. I'm hoping the buyers take most of the furniture and my 9' pool table.

I did my garage cleaning earlier this year, every shelf, every drawer. I have big plastic bins, one for each car with all of their extra bits in them. More bins for polishing supplies, one for paint prep, one for abrasives and metal polishing, one with car wiring (heavy), even a couple filled with those plastic containers that shrink wrap, wire crimps, and the like come in, all clearly labeled with sharpie...kinda **** but it's clean, I know where everything is now and when we sell, the movers can just grab and stack the totes in the truck.