The Great Garage Clean-Out

You know that little voice in your head that says you’ll do a certain thing when you have “more time”? Perhaps you should tell that voice to be careful what they wish for.

Now that Tom and I are empty nesters, there’s no denying we have more time. We’re not shuttling kids to school, signing permission slips, or racing to Walmart at 10pm for a poster board project due tomorrow. Instead, we’re sending buckets of money to three colleges and hoping our undergrads become graduates one day.

In the meantime, we’re finally going to get some things done around here. So, we made a list. (Technically, I made the list and wrote Tom’s name next to the stuff I don’t want to do.) But there was one project so big we knew it would take both of us to get it done – the garage clean-out.

We’ve cleaned the garage before, but this time would be different. This time, we’d be brutally honest about what should stay and what should go. If kids aren’t shooting hoops on the driveway, we don’t need six partially deflated basketballs. We don’t need the stubby remains of sidewalk chalk. What we need is space. Cleanliness. Organization.

So, on Saturday morning, we began.

By Sunday night, we’d disintegrated into sweat-soaked shells of our former selves – exhausted, sore, and horrified at how much crud accumulates when you’re busy raising humans. We cracked open a bottle of Advil and pulled spider webs out of each other’s hair.

Here’s what we learned from the Great Garage Rehab of 2024:

1. Sometimes it’s worse than you imagine. If you’d asked us before this project, we would’ve agreed that we’re both good about getting rid of things. But it turns out that we were deluded, dirty liars. We pulled stuff out of the dark depths of the garage that we don’t even remember owning. Is this denial? Early dementia? We don’t even know. All we know is that it took many more hours (and Advil) to conquer the chaos.
2. No one needs this many extension cords. Let the record show that Tom disagrees with this point. He said, “You can never have too many extension cords.” How do I know he’s wrong about this? Because I crammed countless cords of every possible size, type, and color into two (TWO!) storage bins. It looked like a tangled mass of electrical snakes trying to slither out of their cage. Unless Tom is secretly powering an elaborate Christmas light display on Mars, we don’t need this many extension cords. Feel free to email him and tell him I’m right about this.
3. Put a lid on it. Open bins and containers are no good in a garage because dust, dirt, and leaf fragments will blow in over time and coat everything. Spiders will construct extensive web kingdoms all over your stuff. You’ll throw things away because they’re so gross you don’t want to touch them. From now on, anything stored in the garage must be in a clear box with a lid and a label. That’s the law.
4. Don’t break down on memory lane. I’m not overly sentimental, and I prefer a clean space over cutesy keepsakes any day of the week. We donated, sold, or trashed most of the things we dragged out of the garage. But there were two things I couldn’t let go of – an old pogo stick and a pair of stilts. When I saw them again, I flashed back to fall afternoons on the driveway, watching our kids try again and again until they could finally bounce and balance – beaming with satisfaction as they yelled, “Mom, look! I’m doing it!” (I’ll save them for future grandkids, God willing.)
5. When you don’t know what you have, it’s the same as not having it. Just admit that you’re going to forget what you stored in the garage and where you put it. No matter how young you are or how many crosswords you do, that information will eventually leave your brain to make way for the ever-growing list of security passwords we need just to function in everyday life. So label everything — every box, bin, and bag — because it will save your sanity.

And because we live in the digital age, I also typed a note on my iPhone called “Garage Inventory” where I listed everything we kept and where we kept them. Then I texted the list to our college kids, too. That way, if the angry mass of extension cords escapes from the storage boxes to strangle us during the night, the kids will have a list of things to sell after we’re gone. You’re welcome, kids! Your mom may be morbid, but she’s an organizational mastermind.

Gwen Rockwood is a syndicated freelance columnist. Email her at gwenrockwood5@gmail.com. Her book is available on Amazon.