The Garage From Hell

We've never done well with garages ... boxes and stuff tend to be shoved and piled in every which way, and the 3 other members of the family (all with ADHD / Aspergers) just don't do organised, sorted, or tidy. So it's down to me ... "Dealing with the garage" was my main goal for 2010!

This was how our double garage looked 2 years ago, and it's only got worse since then ...

And yesterday ... this is after I've spent about 15 hours in the past few months sorting through every box, repacking, decluttering, finding new homes for furniture through Freecycle, taking a whole load of rubbish to the tip, several loads of stuff to the recycling centre, and a car full of donations for St Vinnies.

And after 8 hours of work yesterday. I've set up the sofa and table near Son's workbench, so he's got a nice place to sit and think. The pigeon holes on the back wall used to be the mail boxes for the staff at Mt Stromlo Observatory, decades ago.

Before :

After! The ratty cage has a hammock in it (not a bat hanging upside down).

And Son's glass workbench, complete with expensive computer-controlled kiln and all the best gear, torches, glass rods, books and so on ...

My cleaning up manic obsessiveness is fading as my prednisolone dose drops (I'm on 40 mg instead of 60 now). I still want things to be tidy, but don't have the increased energy levels, so this was pretty hard and exhausting work. Back to my normal fatigue levels, unfortunately.

So it's not entirely done, but it's damn close, and quite bearable now. Not so excruciatingly embarrassing to take people in there. There are even metres of swept clean floor to walk on! Hubby really needs to sort through the masses of tools and nails mixed with screws and wood offcuts and other mess, and boxes of his wires and electronic detritus. One day ... maybe. Don't hold your breath.