6 Smart Strategies to Organize a Garage and Workshop

Our garage and workshop was an unorganized mess!  I put the organize the garage project off for long time because I was overwhelmed by the clutter. Where do I start? Ack!

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By accident or design (I’m going to go with by design because it sounds like I had a plan all along instead of a make it up as I go along series of happy accidents) I broke my big garage organization project into several smaller, less overwhelming projects.

Guess what? Three days later (I had a lot of stuff to deal with) I had an organized workshop I can use without tripping over anything. I discovered some things I thought were working weren’t and why. I made changes according my needs and organization style. My garage is now neat and stays that way.

Yay!

This method worked so well on helping my clear my garage clutter madness that I’m using it to organize other parts of my house. You can too!

Organize Your Garage in Three Easy Questions

I make most DIY projects harder or take 10 times longer because I have to hunt for stuff in the jumble of crap the tool shelves eventually become in my garage. It needs to change.

Welcome to my nightmare.

It’s time to face the fact that while tool storage shelves work for some people, they aren’t working for me. I have tons of garage organization ideas on my Pinterest boards (follow Condo Blues on Pinterest, pretty please?)

I have even more people telling me I should create/build/buy garage organizers like the kind they like.  I appreciate the helpful suggestions. But  I have some of those suggested organizers and they aren’t working for me right now.

I need to learn how to determine how to organize my workshop and garage according to my habits and organizing style first before I go crazy installing the slat wall of my dreams or whatever.
 

How to Make a Garage and Workshop Organization Plan with Three Simple Questions

17 Resources that will Motivate You to Declutter and Organize

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Winter is a great time to get organized. Since most of us are stuck inside because of the snow and the cold and a little restless, why not use that energy to clean and organize the post Christmas carnage in my craft room, right?

Small Space Industrial Open Pantry Yay or Nay?

A worn valve on our water heater flooded the utility, laundry, and kitchen after Husband started the dishwasher on Christmas Eve Eve morning.

Husband shut the water heater off while I called plumbers. Apparently plumbers are crazy busy with smart people who have plumbers do pre-emptive work on their pipes before overloading their plumbing with guests, cooking, and cold weather. It was a Festivus miracle I found a plumber during regular business hours that day!

That didn’t make my cranky feeling go way as I mopped the rest of the water, hoped we didn’t need to buy a replacement water heater (fortunately we just needed to replace a valve – whew!), and pulled a mountain of chaos out of the utility room so the plumber could find the water heater had room to work.

9 Things to Do When Your Bathroom Floods

This was supposed to be a post about how I fixed the leaking faucet I found during my grout the bathroom tile project.

Instead it turned into a how to dry out a flooded bathroom and kitchen post.

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No Sew Halloween Apron

My sister and I are foodies. We often send each other email with the subject line MAKE THIS and a recipe. During one of our conversations the subject turned to food, as it usually does, and how cooking messes can ruin clothes.

There is a solution for that. It’s called an apron.

Halloween is my sister’s favorite holiday. We share the same warped sense of humor. I made her a no sew apron I know she’ll wear for Halloween and quite possibly during the rest of the year to serve as a funny warning to others.

Don’t Make Me Poison Your Dinner Apron

How to Make and Decorate a Decoden USB Flash Drive

Do you decoden?

Decoden is a Japanese craft that uses a thick silicon clay/glue that looks like cake frosting to bling out objects. It is addicting!

Not to mention decoden is a great way to use up the little bits of crafty this and that I found when I built my wrap around fence board shelves, reorganized my craft supply storage, and cleaned out my desk and closet in the computer room.

Decoden started with decorating phone cases. Now it is moving toward using decoden to decorate any object that doesn’t move. I have a USB Flash drive that is sitting still and wears a logo that I want to cover and a few beads left from my grandmother’s craft stash. Let’s do this.

Seashell and Pearl Decoden Decorated USB Flash Drive 

How to Purge and Recycle Old Electronics

I swear our house is shrinking. Once upon a time, had storage space to burn. (Don’t. It wastes a perfectly good space and might catch the rest of your house on fire.)

It didn’t take any great detective work to determine why our house is shrinking. The answer is easy.

We have stuff we don’t think/aren’t sure if there is a place to recycle or responsibly dispose of it. The last time I checked this wasn't the case, or if there was such an animal, it was only accepted those things on that one day during a full moon when cows do backward sneezes kind of thing. Hello hazardous household waste collection, I’m talking to you.

7 Simple Steps to Tune Up Your Bike for Summer

I didn’t think we needed to do anything to our bikes since they are not fancy racing bikes. I was afraid to take my Toys R Us special to the Serious Cyclist Store for maintenance because I thought they’d make fun of me for riding a kid’s bike (yes, That. Short.) or hard sell me into a fancy bike when I’m not ready to upgrade yet.

Well, a flat tire I didn’t know how to change proved me wrong on all accounts at the Serious Cyclist Store. Like most bike shops, their philosophy is every one needs to start a sport somewhere and they were really nice. They didn't make fun of my kid's bike either. In fact,  some of our bike shops hold workshops about basic DIY bike maintenance that they do for coin.

I learned I should take better care of my current bike with some simple yearly bike maintenance that will make it easier to ride and last a little longer.

7 Easy Bike Maintenance and Cleaning Tips for Causal Riders

Vintage Train Toy Box Nightstand

My grandfather made me this train toy box when I was a little girl. As you can see, he made it with a lot of love.

And skill. My grandfather had mad carpentry skills he learned from his father the carpenter.

My train toy box has tremendous sentimental value. It was also the most difficult item to keep and make work in the new guest room/craft room. This is the only place we have room for my toy box. Husband suggested I repaint it to go with the color scheme I first wanted for the room.

I quickly vetoed that idea.

Every ding bump and scratch on my toy box came from two little girls having a good time pushing each other around their playroom in this train.

This vintage toy box on wheels probably horrifies some kid safety expert because the wheels and vehicle aren’t incased in bubble wrap and the children riding in it didn’t wear safety suits and helmets made from organic feather pillows. Thank goodness we survived!

Minion Cell Phone Holder

I’m famous for asking people to call my phone because I can’t remember where I put it after I take it out of my purse. It’s kind of important to keep track of it since my cell phone is also my home phone.

Stuart (my favorite Despicable Me minion!) offered to help me out and allow me to make him into a Happy Meal toy cell phone stand. Stuart came into my life last summer when Christina from A Mommy Story and I did a Thelma and Louise road trip to Blogher last summer.




Well, we were just like them if Thelma and Louise drove an SUV and the wildest thing they did was stop at McDonalds for lunch and Stuarts and not share them with children. Then yeah, that’s us.

How to Make an Action Figure Cell Phone, Ereader, or Tablet Stand

How to Make Duck Tape® Desk Drawer Organizers

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Duck Brand. All opinions are 100% mine.

I am Spring Cleaning my craft room. I need to reorganize the drawers in my sewing desk.  Fortunately, another Spring Cleaning project gave me a bunch of empty boxes and jars - the perfect raw material to celebrate Earth Day with an upcycled organizer project.

I cut the boxes and a drink holder to fit inside the drawer.  My custom organizers work well but they are not so cute. I gave them a fun makeover with Duck Brand® Tape ( find Duck Tape here) that not only looks prettier but makes the boxes sturdier than they would have been on their own. Bonus!

Craft Supply Wall Storage and Room Tour

My craft room is starting to look like a real studio!

I painted the craft room/guest room last summer. Then I lost steam on this room and let DIY fear take over when it came to making  over the current furniture. That fear stalled the project until I got a little help from a friend.

 Pin these craft room storage ideas on your Pinterest boards for later!

How to Make a Petal Skirt Craft Apron

Spilling food, paint, and random beverages on myself is my superpower. It has been all of my life. Lucky Me!

I ruined more clothes than I should because only until recently did I clue in that aprons protect clothing from spillage and splotches. Smart > me.

 I made this craft apron longer in the front and sides because that's where most of the paint splotches end up on my clothes.

Homemade Non-Toxic Floor Cleaner

The four seasons in Central Ohio are: Winter, Still Winter, Mud, and Blazing Hot.

We are now in the season of Mud, although you might call it Spring where you live.

Lacey loves this season. The weather is warmer and allows us to give our girl the long and frequent walks she so desperately needs to drain her nervous energy. It also allows her to create intricate muddy paw print art installations on the kitchen floor when we come home.

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 As much as I like to support the arts. I like to support clean kitchen floors more.

14 DIY Fabreze Recipes Made with Natural Ingredients

Sometimes life stinks.

Oh, not in the rotten things are happening to me kind of stink. I mean the literal something is making my sofa/car/room smell rotten kind of stink.

In the past, a few squirts of Fabreze in the right direction took care of the mystery funk. Although more often than not, I replaced the mystery funk with overly sweet fake flower chemical concoction funk because that is exactly what I was using. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience)

A fabric refresher made from a synthetic chemical concoction that may or may not be harmful to my family. The companies that make that stuff don’t have to list their ingredients or say one way or the other so they don’t.

  Pin this list of all natural fabric refresher recipes for later!

Washi Tape Phone Charger

Sometimes Husband and I are so alike it is scary. I can't tell you how many times we have gone out to eat and accidentally ordered the same meal. We have similar tastes in technology too.

It didn't surprise me when Husband upgraded his phone for work with a Samsung Galaxy S4 like mine. It's a sweet phone! (That's not an ad or anything. I just like Android phones.)

                     People comment on my TARDIS phone cover all the time.  I'm glad I engraved my name on it or it might have disappeared by now. 

I promptly gave Husband a Don't Panic phone cover so we can tell whose phone is whose. He has the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and I have the TARDIS. We are set when it comes to interstellar travel!

Unfortunately, we're back to the is this one yours or mine? game when it comes to our phone chargers.  I was tempted to end the game by buying a cute printed phone charger but I've heard some non Samsung chargers aren't powerful enough for Galaxy phones. In fact, I ran into that situation when I tried to use a free off brand car charger to charge my phone. It wasn't powerful enough to work. Once I switched to a Samsung charger, my phone charged without a problem. Lesson learned. Use the branded charger that coordinates with your phone.

What do to? I made a cute Andriod phone charger instead of risking it on an off brand.

2013 DIY Goals Wrap Up

I almost always put too many things on my yearly DIY Goal list to finsih by year’s end. I'm the Queen of Overscheduling. *royal wave*

I did something different when I made my DIY Goals List for 2013. I focused on more general/umbrella type goals and limited my list to seven items. It is 2014. Let’s see how I kept my 2013 DIY Resolutions.

1. Concentrate on projects using the items I already have. I really needed to knock the growing list of projects off my Someday list. Not to mention, the offhanded comments Husband uttered from time to time about my reclaimed material stashes. Yes, stashes. I completed 12 projects this year using things I already had on hand. I made Husband happy and cleared a corner of “treasures” from the garage. Bonus.

Big Ten team barn wood Welcome signs. I made these for Christmas gifts.

 

10 more ways to use orange peels because it is a shame to toss a useful Christmas orange rind.

My Top 10 Posts of 2013

 2013 was an exciting time for our family because we welcomed the pitter patter of little feet (which is really more of a romp! romp! romp!) with Lacey's adoption.

Working with Lacey on her behavioral issues took precedence over most DIY projects, including finishing  my garage workshop – again. It was worth it though. Lacey has come a long way in learning dog manners, obedience and a few cute tricks, and is puppy stepping her way through socialization. Lacey still has a way to go with her behavioral rehab and we are looking for a good confidence building sport or activity she will like to do. 

It is a good time to reflect on my 2013 top posts and projects on Condo Blues with the new year and a fresh start right around the corner.
Besides, that’s pretty much all I can do right now because I’m spending my holidays like this.

Nurse Lacey is on the job. She hasn’t moved from my side since I had to stay off my feet.

You may have already seen this picture if you follow the Condo Blues Facebook page.

No Sew Drop Cloth Placemats

I use tablecloths to hide the fact I need to refinish our dining room table and haven’t gotten around to it. Lacey likes my tablecloths because she figured out how to use them to pull things off the table and into her eager mouth. 

I guess I better get some placemats, huh?

I got my inspiration for this project from some of the little bits of supplies I wanted to use up while I was clearing a path through the crap meticulously cleaning and reorganizing my craft room. 

How to Make Drop Cloth Placemats