At Last, A Finished House Project!

Balancing the renovation of our house with the preparations and opening of the nursery has been really hard. I find my energy (both physical and mental) directed more toward my to-do list for the nursery, while the house projects remain unfinished. We’ve been able to keep up with things so we’re not back-sliding … but real progress on anything house-related has been rare.

Fourth of July weekend, we made a point to put garden tasks and mowing aside and we started a project that will make a difference around here. Our garage, like many other garages, had become the place to dump stuff … out of sight, out of mind, don’t ya know. I was mortified every time I had to open the garage door in the presence of anyone other than immediate family or our closest friends.

While I was gone that Friday with friends, my dear husband surprised me by clearing out most of the storage-related clutter. He made trip after trip, taking all the items to the attic of our detached garage. For most of the things he moved, this just delayed the inevitable decision (should it stay, or should it go?). Like Scarlett O’Hara, we’ll deal with this ‘tomorrow’ … the task at hand was to make sense of our garage and begin to put an end to some of the chaos.

We have a huge pile of slat-wall, and lots of hangers, shelves, and accessories, that we salvaged two years ago from a store in the mall that was remodeling. One Sunday after closing, 4 of us descended on the place with screw guns, hammers, and pry bars, and we took away 5 pick-up truck-loads of stuff. Half the pile is blue or grey laminate, to be used in the detached garage, and half is oak veneer, to be used in the house garage and nursery office cottage.

I don’t like the idea of relying on the masonry walls of our house to hold anything heavy. The old bricks and mortar of the original portion of the house are fairly soft, and I can’t trust a masonry anchor will hold well. To deal with this, we installed pressure-treated framing, attached to the floor and to the ceiling joists, so we have a nice secure structure on which to screw the slat-board.

This wall of the garage now holds our garden tools … rakes, shovels, etc., and has hanging baskets for trowels and gloves, and what-not. I’m really excited by the idea of being able to walk down to the garage and gather up all the tools and supplies for whatever job I’m going to do. There is room at the bottom of the wall for baskets to hold balls and other toys, instead of having this stuff all over the floor.

After a bit more organizing and decluttering, I may even be able to put the Jeep in here … next year, after I move the nursery operation to the cottage by the barn. Until then, the driveway is blocked by benches full of potted roses for sale, so I can’t get anything through there anyway.