garage reveal

We have been working almost 2 weeks on cleaning out our garage. In particular, the toy situation was a little out of control. And I was tired of the cobwebbed corners and stuff laying around that I knew we would never use. So we threw some stuff away, donated some items, and sold a few items as well. My goodness, does that feel good. This first picture is a few hours after I decided to start pulling stuff out of the garage and planning my epic storage area for the bikes and sports equipment. I then realized I needed a 'before' picture! See the clutter and despair? We clearly needed a dedicated area for balls (with a little room to spare, so we weren't always busting at the seams when everything was in its place). And those basketballs and soccer balls and random other balls needed to be accessed easily, without throwing every other ball out of the bin in search of the correct one. You know what I am talking about, right? Also, I SEVERELY needed a place for all those lacrosse sticks! Oh, and the tennis racquets and baseball gloves and scooters and bikes, etc, etc!!! 

 We sketched and searched online and changed our minds a bunch of times and improvised a bit, and then, behold....our organized garage!

 David ordered and hung the metal pegboard, I built the lacrosse stick holder, and we made an IKEA trip earlier this week to snag the shelf that David IKEA hacked into a ball holder. 

Oh, order. It gives me goosebumps.

 He used bungy cords on the ball bin so the kids can reach through and grab whatever ball they want, and the rest stay put! And mounting it on the wall left us floor space for scooter bottoms and the Easy-Roller. Ever notice how leaving visual floor space makes a room feel cleaner and larger? And it highly reduces the chance of reaching into a black widow web. Been there, done that.

 After the above pictures were taken I remembered that I wanted the helmets incorporated into that side of the garage where the bikes and scooters where. It helps if the helmets are within kids' reach as I am constantly asking them, "Where is your helmet???" So we hung them on the ends of the ball bin.

I have decided that I never want to park our cars in there again. It is too clean, and fun to ride the scooters around in the shade! When the cars are not covered in yellow pollen, then they will be allowed back inside, I guess. And the boys still make colossal messes and spread everything around the garage and driveway while they are playing, maybe even more so now that they can easily access all their toys. But the awesome part is how easily (and quickly!) everything can be put away, since everything has a spot. Ahhhh, organization.