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  Garages are stuff cemeteries: Just because you have the space, doesn’t mean you have to fill it. That said, the garage is one place where—even with the car comfortably parked therein—genuine storage can take place. Garages, basements, and storerooms are legitimate storage areas, but only if you’re filling them with items that truly deserve to be stored, such as seasonal decorations and furniture, sports equipment, gardening or hobby tools, car supplies, and tools. The garage is a suitable place for these possessions even if they are things you actually use, and they are properly labeled and stored so that you can find them when you need them.

  DEAR PETER:

  I’m a stickler for details. I like everything to be clean and organized, but my husband is just the opposite. Our three-car garage is completely stuffed with the remains from his various projects—including a half-built canoe. I’m not kidding. A canoe. He’s never been canoeing in his life.

  Think It Through

  Garages and storage areas can be tough places to declutter and get organized. They are often one of the most serious problem areas in a home, in part because it’s not even pretending to be a space where you try to live. It’s a real storage space, so everything with no place in the house gets shoved in there. These are places where labels and bins really do solve problems. To get the job done, there are a few things you should keep in mind.

  Set It Up

  Refer to your Room Function Chart and have everyone sign on.

  Establish zones for the different functions of the garage and storage areas.

  Remove what doesn’t belong in the room.

  Make It Happen

  Start slow

  Let’s assume we’re working on your garage—although everything here equally applies to any storage area in your home. It’s taken months or even years for your garage to become cluttered, so it may not be realistic to try and organize everything in one day or even a weekend. If this is the case for you, commit to starting small—one section of the garage at a time. Make a commitment every day to declutter and organize another section until it’s done.

  Streamline

  Get rid of items you haven’t used in over a year. If you haven’t touched something in the last twelve months, chances are you are never going to use it. Do all those seasonal decorations actually get used? What about that sports equipment? Forget the excuses—now is the time to free up space by letting go of unused and unneeded items.

  Get stuff off the floor

  Once items start spreading across the floor, it’s almost impossible to keep them under control. Use vertical space to increase your storage space and to avoid “floor creep”! Install a good, sturdy shelving system to store the items you decide to keep. Remember, though, that you only have the space you have. The volume of stuff, the number of boxes, or the size of storage containers is determined by the shelving space you have. Don’t overload the garage just because you have the space!

  Divide your garage into zones

  Organize the items you keep in your garage into like groups—garden supplies, tools, camping supplies, sporting goods, bulk food storage, seasonal items, and so on. Use appropriate containers and labeling to identify specific items. Consider color coding different areas. An orange Peg-Board for tools, a green wall where the kids hang their bikes, blue hooks and bins for sporting gear. This will help everyone in the house see where things belong and encourage order from the chaos. Maintaining zones in your garage will also help avoid unnecessary purchases and assist in keeping things organized and tidy.

  FYI—GARAGE AND BASEMENT SAFETY

  Do not store highly flammable items like kerosene, paint thinner, or gasoline in your basement or garage unless they are in a tightly sealed container in a closed—and preferably locked—cupboard. Ensure that your basement and garage, like the rest of your home, are fitted with smoke detectors and keep a fire extinguisher handy. Keep a clear, clutter-free space of at least eighteen inches around your furnace to avoid a potential fire hazard.

  Jump in at the deep end!

  If you are a brave soul, once a year drag everything out of your garage. Get the whole family involved. Commit to getting rid of 50 percent of what is in the garage. Go through all boxes, bins, storage cupboards. Be brutal! If you aren’t using an item—get rid of it.

  Tools, paints, and chemicals

  Where did that third hammer come from? Most of us will never need three hammers, so now is the time. Empty out your tool-box or cupboard and get rid of duplicates and tools you never use. Get rid of tools and materials you acquired for specific projects that are finished or will never get done. Throw away those ten thousand loose nails and screws, the Allen wrenches that come with the “assemble-it-yourself” furniture, and the curtain rod hardware you’ve been keeping even though you’ve thrown away the curtain rod.

  Check all paint cans to see that the paint is still usable. As you open each can, label it with a number and paint a little patch on a piece of paper next to that number. Match the paints to the rooms in your home and create a paint guide that shows the number, the room, and the brand and code for the paint. Get rid of any paints that no longer match the rooms in your home. Check with your local city or town hall to find the best way to get rid of paints or other chemicals in a safe and environmentally friendly way.

  Seasonal items

  The neat thing about seasonal items (from a professional organizer’s perspective anyway) is that every time you take them out or put them back away you have an opportunity to assess whether you really need to keep them. If you didn’t use that glow-in-the-dark skeleton this Halloween, ask yourself if it’s really worth storing away for another year. More than most things stored in a garage or basement, it’s the seasonal decorations that often are a cause of tension. If you have the space and they’re stored properly, that’s great. If not—you know the drill!

  Collections and mementos

  Ask yourself if those items stored in a trash bag or old box in the garage are really that important to you. If they aren’t honored and respected, maybe they are really clutter that you do not need to hold on to. If you truly treasure items, display them proudly and properly in your home.

  Label, label, label

  Garages and basements are often used for seasonal items, sporting equipment, holiday decorations, or medium- to longer-term storage. Be sure to clearly label any box, bin, or container that goes into the garage so that items can be easily and quickly located. Consider different colored labels for boxes or containers of like things—orange for Halloween decorations, white for holiday lights, green for unread books…stop right there! That was a trick! There should be no unread books in the garage!

  Look to the stars

  Consider using the ceiling of your garage for storage. Any hardware store carries a wide variety of hooks that can be used to hang bikes, sporting gear, or even gardening tools. Items like storm windows or summer window screens can easily be stored on ceiling rafters. Remember: You are creating useful storage, not space to hide away clutter you’ve removed from the rest of your house. All it takes is a little creativity to discover new storage solutions to old problems.

  REALITY CHECK—HOLIDAYS

  The Associated Press reported that for Christmas 2005, which fell on a Sunday, several megachurches canceled services. Why? Because it interrupts the gift giving. For many people in this country, Christmas is all about presents. Target stores now sell upside-down Christmas trees so you can have more room around the base for gifts. Sounds like a gimmick? Target has three variations on the upside-down tree, ranging in price from three hundred to five hundred dollars. Hammacher Schlemmer couldn’t keep their six-hundred-dollar upside-

  down tree in stock!

  Christmas isn’t just about children; we also buy presents for extended family and colleagues and friends. It’s so hard to perfectly understand someone else’s taste. Many of the gifts we’re given become the clutter in our garages and storage spaces. Here are a few ways to pull the reins in on ho
liday giving.

  If you have a large family, at Christmas draw names out of a hat. Next year, you’re responsible for giving to the person you pick.

  If you have a large family, consider only giving gifts to the kids.

  Give disposable gifts or gifts that don’t take up room (gift certificates, food baskets, charity donations, etc.) to business associates.

  Before you even start shopping, decide on a number of gifts that you’re buying for your kids. Stop when you’re done.

  Get your child one and only one big-ticket item like a bicycle or a dollhouse.

  Immediately donate to charity gifts that are age-inappropriate or duplicates of things you or your child already owns.

  Step 4

  Maintenance

  THIS BOOK isn’t about doing a big cleanup and returning to business as usual. Oh, if only it were that easy. If you’ve ever been on a fad diet, you know that starving yourself doesn’t work. You might lose some weight, but as soon as you “finish” the diet, you gain all the weight back and more. The best diets aren’t short-term fad diets. The weight stays off if you change your eating habits forever. The same goes for clutter. We’re not talking about a clutter crash diet, we’re talking about a lifestyle change. The good news is that maintaining a home that is clutter-free and relaxing is a whole lot easier than denying yourself ice cream and french fries. If you follow these maintenance guidelines, you’ll never have to spend more than a few minutes here and there keeping your clutter under control.

  Zone Maintenance

  Maintenance begins when you’ve achieved your ideal. Your house is a place where you are relaxed and comfortable and inspired to live the life you want. You’re surrounded with things that are meaningful to you. You remember the past, look forward to the future, but live in the present. You’ve found the right balance.

  Now look around you. Everything has a home and everyone in the household knows where that home is. This may sound obvious to you, but some people aren’t in the habit of assigning everything a spot, and chances are one of these people lives in your home! If a dish is out, they put it in a cabinet—wherever there’s space. Sure, this is better than leaving it out on the counter, but it consumes space and time, space because you’re not pairing like items together, and time because you won’t know where to look when you next need that item.

  So make sure everyone in your home knows and follows the golden rules: If you get it out—put it away. If you open it—close it. If you finish it—replace it. If it’s full—empty it. If you take it off—hang it up. If it’s dirty—wash it. If it’s garbage—trash it.

  ZONE SCAVENGER HUNT

  Test your household’s zone knowledge by playing a reverse kind of hide-and-seek. Everyone runs around the house and picks out three items (e.g., Grandma’s gingham tablecloth, the sewing kit, unpaid bills, the Christmas wreath). Meet in a central spot, and write the items everyone has picked in a numbered list. Everyone writes his or her name on a piece of paper. Now, on your paper, write down the locations of the items in the numbered list. Whoever gets the most right wins. Whoever gets the least right has to put everything back in its proper place.

  Daily Purging

  You’d be amazed at how much you can accomplish in ten minutes. Every day, take five minutes to straighten up and five minutes to focus on cleaning out the clutter in a drawer or on a shelf or flat space, and your house will always be in order. Think about it—if you do this five days out of every week, you’ll have purged 260 small areas in your home at the end of a year. Those small projects really add up.

  It’s best to use the same time slot every day. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, do it when the kids nap or leave for school. If you’re a morning person who either works from home or never has trouble getting to work on time, then make it part of your morning ritual. If you’re always in a rush in the morning, pick a time when you get home—as soon as you walk in the door, or after dinner, or after the kids are in bed—whatever makes the most sense for you. One of my clients likes to straighten up in the morning so she comes home to a clean house. She saves her purge for the evening so that she can be sure to finish up. These small steps really make a difference!

  THE FIVE-MINUTE PURGE

  Here’s what the five-minute purge looks like:

  Set the kitchen timer for five minutes.

  Grab a medium-size garbage bag. You’ll use this bag to throw things away or to drop them off at your charity of choice, whichever makes more sense for the items you’re purging.

  Pick your target. Make sure to keep it small so you can be thorough. It’s one drawer in the kitchen, one shelf of video tapes, the floor of the coat closet, etc.

  Clear out anything you haven’t used for the last six months to a year. Remember? You were supposed to have done this when you first cleaned your home. But a home is a living thing and what you felt you needed to keep yesterday, you may be able to let go of today. Now be ruthless. The more you get rid of, the longer you can wait before you revisit this area.

  When the timer goes off, stop. If the bag is full, put it in the garbage (or in your car trunk so you can drop it off the next time you drive past a Goodwill or other charity). If the bag isn’t full, put it with the garbage or recycling in preparation for tomorrow, when you’ll surely fill it up in your next purge.

  The In/Out Rule

  It’s very simple. Now that your home is the way you want it, for everything that comes into your home, something must go. The thing that goes must either be the same type as the new item or take up the same amount of room. You buy a pair of shoes; you get rid of a pair of shoes. Easy enough, but it gets a little harder when we’re talking about getting rid of your old TV, which still works perfectly well. The temptation is to keep it, even though you’ve got a huge, fancy, new TV. The new one can go in the den and you can just move the old one to the kitchen! Well, that’s a major lifestyle decision. Do you want to watch TV in the kitchen, too? Is that part of your plan for the function of that room? When you plan to purchase a new, space-consuming item, part of the plan should be what you’re going to get rid of to make room for the new purchase.

  Did you know that there are millions of households in the United States who never throw anything away? You may not fall into this category, but as we all know, it’s hard to part with stuff that cost hard-earned money. So, needless to say, the easiest way to follow this rule is to buy less. You need to control the inflow. When you go shopping, how do you separate what you want from what you need? Do you plan in advance? Do you know exactly what you’re looking for when you’re on your way to the store? Do you only buy what you planned to get? If you buy something that wasn’t on your list or in the plan, ask yourself: Is this something I need or something I want? Do I have one already? What is my plan for the one I already have?

  TIPS FOR CONTROLLING IN/OUT

  For clothes/toys: Buy one, get rid of one.

  Cost versus space: We usually take more time with expensive purchases. But remember, the more space something takes up, the more it costs you. Spend more time deciding to buy bigger items.

  Time delay: Impose a time delay on every expenditure to curtail spontaneous purchases.

  Find it, love it—wait forty-eight hours to purchase it.

  Experience fund: Every time you stop yourself from making a spontaneous purchase, put the money that you would have spent in a special account called your “experience fund.”

  Pick an experience that your whole household can look forward to—a trip to Paris, the beach, Disneyland, etc. If your child asks for a toy at the store, you can do the same thing. Say, “This toy costs nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. Let’s put that in the Disneyland fund instead.” At the end of twelve months, I promise you’ll have enough money to have an experience that the whole household will remember forever.

  Communication

  Remember, different things are important to different people for different reasons. There are emotions attached to the work we’re do
ing here. Take the time to understand one another. Make communicating about your home part of how you interact with your family. Get to a place where the cleaning-out process isn’t accusatory or adversarial and you will find ways of decluttering that work for everyone.

  Resolving Cleanup Conflicts

  Resolve conflicts, particularly when kids are involved, by divvying up responsibilities.

  Have everyone keep track of the household chores they accomplish in a single week and the time they spent on each one. At the end of the week, compare charts.

  Using the above exercise, redistribute chores to even out the time each person spends cleaning up and helping out. Create a job chart.

  Your job chart can include:

  Sorting mail

  Doing laundry (kid-friendly)

  Folding laundry (kid-friendly)

  Taking out trash (kid-friendly)

  Paying bills

  Setting the table (kid-friendly)

  Doing the dishes (kid-friendly)

  Straightening your bedroom (kid-friendly)

  Walking the dog (older kid-friendly)

  Feeding pets (kid-friendly)

  Cleaning up after pets (kid-friendly)

  Keep a Charity Bag