I have been struggling to come up with a topic for this week’s email. We just celebrated Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, and the weather in Central New York has finally shifted as well. With sunshine and warm temperatures in the forecast this week, this is a good time to think about cleaning out the garage. I addressed this topic in a Facebook Live conversation last week with Nicole Christina, and here are some of the points we discussed:
1. One quarter of Americans don’t have room in their garage to park a car. If this is the case for you, you are not alone! I encourage you to think about the value of your car vs. the value of the stuff that is stored in your garage, and ask yourself if it would be worth paring down those things your are storing in order to better protect the sizable investment you have made in an automobile. Nicole and I also discussed the benefits of not having to scrape off the car in the winter, which is not an small consideration in our climate!
2. The garage is a place where many of our “just in case” items end up. If you struggle to part with something you think you might need in the future, ask yourself how long it has been since you used it and what the real likelihood is that you will need it again. The truth is none of us can be fully prepared for every future event, and thinking we need to have every material thing on hand “just in case” is kind of crazy. If you are debating about an item that would be easy and inexpensive to replace, or if you could borrow it from someone you know, just get rid of it. Remember, the purpose if your home is for living space, not storage space!
3. Empty space has value. Our tendency is to fill whatever space we have, but giving our stuff a little breathing room allows us to easily find what we need, access it, and put it away. One reason why disorder occurs in our homes is because our storage spaces are so chock-full it’s easier to leave things out rather than put them away. The positive feeling of having some empty space is difficult to describe, but if you start in just one small area of your garage you will see the benefits, and that might be just the push you need to continue.
Here’s our entire conversation with more tips on cleaning out the garage, and if you’d like to see my favorite products for organizing the garage, click here.
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Make it fab!
Carrie