I’ve spent the last couple of days cleaning and organizing. I certainly have the time to do it, and it seems to be part of the nesting instinct when you know you’re going to be home for a few weeks. Painters are scheduled to begin in about three weeks, so organization is in order. Our next major trip is not for about five months, but long weekends are scheduled for Napa, Bend, Indianapolis, and Phoenix. Home projects are my latest priority. 

The garage has been a primary personal focus of late. A new tankless water heater was installed about 3 weeks ago, with modifications just recently completed. Removing the two tanks freed-up a lot of space, so my goal is to clear an area suitable to park a second car. My Toyota Solara has never had a spot in our garage, with the exception of a few days while we were living in Austin. To allow this to happen, I had suspended an antique bed from the ceiling, enabling me to pull-in underneath it and to utilize my side of the garage for the very first time. The next day the anchors gave way and the bed crashed down on the hoods of both of our cars. Although the damage wasn’t significant, I decided that my car simply didn’t deserve to be protected, so I filled that space with items from our storage locker.

I bought some shelves today, taking advantage of a store closing sale. Over the past week or so, I’ve also mopped the tile floor, bagged-up some items for Goodwill, and filled the trash bins. Little-by-little, I’m clearing enough space to make a second attempt at parking both cars inside the garage. I’m still not sure that it’s wide enough to allow me to get in and out of the car comfortably, but at least the garage is getting organized. The new shelves have gotten everything off the floor, and have given me back the top surface of my workbench.  In another week or so, I’ll be ready to experiment with the concept of actually fitting two cars in a two-car garage, a magic trick I’ve never been able to accomplish before.

As in the past, it may turn out to be a fruitless organizational effort. Instead of more space for the things I own, I will probably end up accumulating more stuff to fill the extra shelf space that’s been created. At least, here in Portland we don’t have a storage facility to maintain the overflow like we had in Austin. Everything we own is in one place, and I think the preference would be to have half-a-place, as the retirement plan focuses on downsizing, organizing, rearranging and disposing. Mr. Clean meet Mr. Dump!