An Organized Garage

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Comparing first world countries to third world countries is a regular occurrence in the media. We read these articles and think we are lucky to live in a first world country. And, while there are many things to be thankful for due to the fact that we were lucky enough to be born in a first world country, we still complain. When it comes right down to it though, it seems like the majority of complaining we read or hear about falls into the category Scott and I refer to as first-world complaints. Those complaints include things like the price of gasoline, the power being out for an hour, how long one waits on the phone to reach a real person, the slow speed of the Internet. You get the idea.

The fact that we have never had a garage is certainly included in the category of first-world complaints. But, now that we are here in Torrey, we have a garage. My most recent first-world complaint has been that the garage is piled so high with our possessions (another first-world circumstance), there is no room for our car and truck (yet another first-world situation).

Having admitted to fully participating in first-world excesses, we still needed to organize our space in order to make it possible to store, and later find, all of our things and, at the same time, have room to park our vehicles.

Once we found a place for everything in the house, we moved on to the task of organizing the garage. This involved filling the control joints in the concrete floor with caulk and sealing the floor in order to keep fluids commonly found in garages from staining the floor. (First-world complaint)

We began by taking everything out of the garage. This was mostly tools used in house construction. Then we cleaned the floor, caulked the joints and sealed the floor with linseed oil. Next we grouped our things into categories of use – project space, bicycling, llamas, hiking, canoeing, etc. Finally, we put everything in its place.

Ten days later, the process was complete. Scott said we would know where everything was for about two hours and then it would be lost to our memory. Here we are, two weeks later, and we still can find what we’re looking for.

Two vehicles in the garage

With plenty of space all around

Skiing, canoeing and camping gear

Bicycles

Plaster equipment

Miscellaneous

Construction supplies

Garden tools

Scott organizing his shop table

Apologies for complaining...