Does this make me a bad person?

As long as it doe not smell like poo.......

 

If I didn't have to store stuff in the garage and basement things might be neater, but then it would loose all that charm. Bob

 

Feng Shui and real garages don't mix.

 

My wife says my workshop (don't have a garage, per se) looks like an episode of "Hoarders". I tell her she's wrong because I'm not collecting, I'm gathering stock. Anyone can have any piece of it for the right price.

I'm still waiting for someone to call those two pricks in the van from that "American Pickers" show and tell 'em about my stash... I'll retire!

 

There are three piles when I do a cleanout, Keepers, eBay, and a trash can. I once filled a trash can halfway full.

 

Yes, it makes you a BAD person. It takes a BAD person to build a BADASS car.

 

If your garage makes you bad my garage must make me a member of the mafia. Magnificent bucket BTW!!! If that came out of a scruffy garage never, never clean your garage.

 

I know every pile of junk in my garages. They are placed strategically. Even the car parts that I keep in the house I know which car that they go too.

 

My shop is messy for sure but I get some indication of how I am doing by watching the posts people do here on their chops.....
neat shop or messy shops, I typically get a customer's top chopped in a couple weeks or thereabouts...
I saw a couple posts here-one where the top chop had taken 4 months at one place[finally closing his shop] and a second chop took a full year and 28 days at another prominate shop and still not done.........so I guess its not really that easy to tell the results that either a messy or neat shop can accomplish in their work [relative to time].....





.......

 

Yes, a messy shop makes you a bad person. Repent siner !

 

That's me there. It would also help me if I had longer blocks of time to spend in my shop. This "hour here, hour there" doesn't cut it........damn life gets in the way.

 

I swept up yesterday and found something that had been missing for about 15 years-the floor!

 

Yeah, I was called a hoarder a couple months ago. I didn't score any points when I asked, "What if this was all 'Snowbabies'?"

When I use the stock or inventory logic it never works at the moment of discussion. Coming home with a knot of cash, a much lighter box and some much needed supply and parts always does. When I showed it to her and asked about being a hoarder I got, " "

 

I have what I like to call, "loose organization." Everything has a place, but it's in piles, not hanging on a peg board with it's outline traced around it. That way, I don't spend a lot of time organizing but I still know where to find stuff quickly.

For instance, I like to use large tupperware tubs on a shelf. They are labeled, "Electrical," "Carpentry," "Paint," "Power Tools," etc. That way I can take them off their shelf and put them near the work. Also, I don't spend a lot of time putting stuff away. If I can hit the tub or pile by throwing something from across the room, it's "away."

My car tools are in a big roll around tool box. There are seperate drawers for piles of like items, such as wrenches, sockets, screwdrivers, pliers and vicegrips, large tool drawer, tiny tool drawer, etc. But I don't have any of those wrench sorter/divider things. I just throw them all in a pile in the wrench drawer. I did paint the metric wrenches bright orange, which cut my search time in half. And, I do like to put the sockets in dividers, they are the one exception.

The rest of the garage is the same way. There's a mechanic section, a carpentry/materials section, etc. That way, I can get more stuff to fit in the limited square footage but I don't have to search the entire garage every time I want to find something. Also, I don't have to spend a lot of time reorganizing when I bring something new in. It just gets thrown in it's pile.

It looks messy and cluttered, but I know which section or pile to look for stuff. It's kind of a, "function over form" thing. I don't care what anyone else thinks about the way the garage looks. All I care about is being able to find stuff and not spending a lot of time cleaning and organizing.

I don't think your cluttered garage makes you bad. If it's too cluttered, I think it can make you slow, wasteful, forgetful and frustrated. But I think people can go to far in the other extreme too. But that doesn't make them, "bad." They just have different priorities. Just seeing the clutter makes them frustrated. For them, the surgical suite style of garage, with everything in it's exact place and evenly lined up in exact parallel to the others is beautiful and calming. Plus, you can reach for it instantly without having to dig, search or think. I get that, but I simply don't place as high a priority on it as being able to throw something in it's place or scoop up handfuls of tools when I'm done with a job and dumping them somewhere.

I think the time wasted by searching through my piles instead of just reaching for something on a peg board is less than the time it would take to maintain super-organization. Plus, it helps me clean up faster when my wife sends our daughter out to yell, "Supper time!"

 

I don't usually think about it too much, but your description seems to fit my situation. I have so many "irons in the fire" that I need two shops, which is another problem -one is organized, one is not. And constantly trying to find tools that have been "borrowed" from one shop or the other.

 

No, I would say killing kittens makes you a bad person.
Paul

 

I think as long as you can find what you need when you need it then everything is good! I am about a slow as they come when working on something so I am glad I only do it as a hobby. I also know that a lot of the mistakes I make on things is when I can't find something, start looking around, something shiny catches my eye, I start working on that and then when I get back to what I was originally doing I end up forgetting something or forget what I was doing! Again..good thing this is a hobby for me!!!

I was just playing devils advocate...at my day job we have seen the whole concept of "5S" on the manufactruing floor seep into the office environment. I often question whether the company that pays me is better off spending money for me to clean my desk off every day and put everything back in its' place for an hour or if they would be better off if I was doing what they hired me for. To take it to an extreme I have seen the concepts for the manufacturing line go into the office too...there are people who cut out foam / styrofoam for the desk drawers so every thing has it's place...stapler, tape, pens, etc. I figure if you have that much trouble keeping up with your stapler you probably aren't going to be long at that job anyway!!!

 

no id does make you an awsom person both my dad and my fatherinlaw are they same as you the get things done but often for som peculiar reason i always know where things are

 

yesterday, as i tried to clean the shop up some, all these replies came into my thoughts. i closed the door and went cruzin. screw cleaning up, its too nice to clean just right for ridin!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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Work in whatever makes you comfortable. This is supposed to be fun. If you start comparing yourself to the people you respect and look up to, you will always find yourself lacking.
Not good for your self esteem. The environment the project comes from isn't as important as the finished product itself.
My education is in commercial art, and if you want a real example of what I'm saying, check out some fine artists' studios. Sculptors, painters,etc. They don't care about anything but the "piece" itself. Have fun!

 

I had another thought. (scary) I have a friend whose shop looks like an operating room.
He doesn't do shit in it, but damn, it sure looks good..........

 

Your a good no great person and your car is bitchin!
Okay I've made up my mind I'm cleaning everything this week. But then I've said that before.

 

This is so funny. I lost my hammer yesterday because I put it where it was "supposed to go" I looked for hours until I finally said- I wonder if it is on the side of the toolbox where the hooks are.

I like to call my organization chronological- meaning the last things used are closest to the top, the things used earlier- they get lower on the pile. It is easy for me to remember where the last place I used something or what for so I know where it is unless I "cleaned up" then your guess is as good as mine.

 

Crissie and I were in and out of several hospitals over an 18 month period before she passed in November. The garage became a repository. You know, open the door and throw shit out there without even looking.
Now that I'm back in the garage, I'm at the same time, working on my different projects, and deciding what goes to the trash, or to the charities. I'll get it sorted out, but it will probably never be the sterile shop you see occasionally on the net. Just not my style.
When it gets so bad that I can't find my tools, I clean up enough to find them and the floor, and get back at it.
I have picked up one trait from my more anal mechanic friends tho, I usually take 15 minutes or so, at the end of each session, to wipe down and put up my tools.
Maybe I'll learn this organization thing a bite at a time.....

 

cant make an omelette without breaking an egg. but when your done eating, clean up your damn mess! lol

 

It's cool. Some of the cleanest garages out there don't produce shit.

 

I hate being a slob but I am. I probably have a 1.5' wide work spot on my 12' bench, and have to shimmy everywhere. It's clean and organized, then as time goes on it slowly becomes FILTH! Then I clean it again.

 

To me messy shop=progress

 

Just had another thought. When i grew up my best friend's father was a Tool and Die maker by trade. He taught me how to scrape fit bronze bearings for my Harley tranny. Probably a lost art. When you walked into his home shop it looked a total mess but when you started working in it you soon found out everything was in order the 1/4" rods were all lined right next to the 1/2" rods and so forth. When he went to look for something he knew just what workbench it was on and went right to it.

 

I must be terrible then, I try to do at least some clean up when I finish up for the night