naked in the driveway

Last week we took advantage of some warmer weather and tackled another big item on our to-do list. My brother Paul kindly (or possibly insanely) offered to give us a hand on his day off. I don't think the poor guy had any idea what he was signing up for.

It was time to finally deal with the dreaded garage clean-up. We had let our garage turn into the dumping ground for everything imaginable, including boxes and cans from missed recycling days, furniture waiting to be re-finished, and leftovers from our fall yard sale. 

I've been told most people have similar "dirty little secret" rooms...you know, the room that always has the door shut when company's coming.  For me, the garage had become completely embarrassing because it didn't reflect how I wanted our home to be. 

Less than an hour into the project I found myself standing in front of my garage, feeling completely exposed to the neighbourhood. I was naked in the driveway. Ok, metaphorically, but it sure felt real. Cleaning out your messy garage isn't easily done behind closed doors, like a messy guest room would be. We were providing a show for anyone walking their dog or driving on by. The local Goodwill store actually asked us to stop bringing loads of donations that day because there was so much stuff. Seriously.

And that's when I decided I was either going to laugh about it, or cry about it. It was that simple. I grabbed the camera and decided to embrace the chaos. Chris was pretty puzzled by this, since I had been complaining about my embarrassment since the garage door went up. He just shook and head and laughed at me for taking photos and blogging about the mess I had been wanting to hide from the world.

You can tackle these procrastinated, embarrassing, messy, and chaotic projects, and come out the other side better off.  The time comes when you need to just do it and to hell with what the neighbours think. Because the truth is, somewhere in their lives they probably have their own room with the door always shut too.

Here are a few before & after shots of the garage clean-out. Next up will be a few hours of organizing what is left, a project we're saving for the next spring-like day. Stay tuned for the finished look in the next few weeks!

The chaos before! The enormous recycling pile is to the left and all the Goodwill stuff is in boxes and bins.

Empty floor space after! Imagine that. Still unorganized but a million times less cluttered with junk.

What's left after many, many trips to Goodwill.