Digging Deeper

After getting all my fabrics sorted and stored in a much better way, I was inspired to look for more stuff to clean out. I found some boxes in the attic, put away in 2008 when we upended our house to have family move in with us. I figured it was time to bring these remaining boxes into the light of day. I found plenty of goodies to toss or pass on:

Old greeting cards

Old sewing patterns, but not "good" old

Beanie Babies

Several dolls

A cordless battery charger

A stack of printer ink cartridges for a printer that died before we used all the ink

Dried-up craft ink

A semi-broken calculator

Outdated P.O. forms 

A foot massager

Plastic(!) needlepoint canvas

Nursery decor

I even decided to let go of the fabric scraps from my wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses. Really now, it doesn't change my world to not own them anymore, and I haven't used them in a project in the past 33 years. Time to say goodbye.

After finishing the attic boxes, I hit the storage shelving in the garage. Wow. I really got into it and purged and organized for three days straight.

 Before, right side of garage. Not bad, but I want this wall to be empty.

 Before, left side of garage. Nicely shelved, but all these boxes need serious review

Out went:
Baskets
Christmas decorations we don't use anymore
A camp chair 
Crafts projects that went awry
Dated Christmas ornaments
Dead food
Drafting equipment
Dried-up paint cans
Duplicate tools
Empty boxes and cartons
File cabinets
Grass seed
Hardware for things we no longer own
Ice cream maker can for a machine we never owned
Metal shelving
Particle board drawers that are falling apart
A single weight
4 sofa legs
Stinky shoes
Stuffed animals
And much more!

 

Left side, after moving all the shelves and power washing the floor. Freezer is moved into more convenient place.

Basically, I divided the garage in half. On the left side, I boxed and shelved all the things I believe we should continue to own. On the right side, I stacked cardboard cartons, filled with the rejects, on old shelving we no longer need. The two sides ended up being about equal in quantity.

 Re-org in process but not yet finished

 This stuff is going...

I hoped to be able to post a picture of the finished product, but we have so, so much to get rid of. I decided we will have another garage sale later this month, and then I can post a picture of our clean garage. Our goal is to get both cars parked inside.