Spring Cleaning 101: 11 Things to Clean Out of Your Garage NOW
When spring weather brings on thoughts of camping, barbecues and gardening, that dreaded trip to the garage or basement to find equipment for those outdoor weekend activities reveals what you’re more likely to be doing this weekend: digging to find *everything*. If there are paths between boxes and the dust has reached hazardous levels, it might be time to to clear out the clutter in your garage for a season of organizational bliss. Did someone say yard sale? Before you run screaming back into the house, take a moment to read these tips from organizational guru Jeffrey Phillip. So far, Jeffrey has helped us purge every room in the house, from our closet to the bathroom. For the grand finale, we’re tackling that black hole of clutter: the garage. Check out all of the must-toss items below, and get ready to tackle your deepest, darkest storage spaces this coming week.
1. The Tennis Racket or Field Hockey Stick That Hasn’t Been Used Since High School: Are you planning on taking up tennis again? If you have no intention of getting back on that tennis or hockey field, you’re probably safe purging those pieces from your garage.
2. The Small Broken Bits of Sidewalk Chalk: No one likes scraping their fingers on concrete when they’re drawing, so get rid of any pieces of sidewalk chalk that are too small to use.
3. Unused Plastic Pottery Containers Half Filled With Dirt and Cobwebs: One word: spiders. Ew.
4. Old Paint From When You Decided to Try Painting Your Room Burnt Sienna or Cornflower Blue: Once a bad paint color, always a bad paint color. It’s not going to magically turn into your new favorite color while sitting in your garage, so free up some storage space and ditch those giant paint buckets.
5. Rollerblades, Roller-Skates, Ice-Skates or Any Other Device That Attaches to Your Foot and Is No Longer Used: With every passing year, the pull of gravity grows stronger and falling gets more painful. It’s a fact. Unless you love one of those sports, get rid of any sports equipment you don’t use anymore.
6. The Trash Can Without a Lid: No one knows where the lids go. It’s just a mystery of life. Along with the mystery of why we keep the can around so long.
7. Damaged, Broken or Moldy Lawn Furniture: This is practically an accident waiting to happen. Don’t wait until the weather warms up to find out you can’t sit in that wicker chair anymore. Toss it now and go shopping.
8. The Bird Feeder You No Longer Fill or Use: Maybe bird watching just isn’t your thing.
9. The Old Shoes That Pile Up for Your “Dirty” Projects: Obviously you need a few pairs for the garden and concrete projects and anything else that’s messy. But edit them down and clean up your shoe rack a bit.
10. Anything Broken That You Stashed Here Because You Thought You Might Fix It: First, props to your DIY ambitions. We applaud you. But now it’s time to accept that you’re never going to fix that basket, and just say farewell.
11. Any Old, Rusty Hardware or Tools: Jeffrey put it very well when he said, “If you need a tetanus booster to even touch a tool, you definitely shouldn’t have it in your garage.” In other words, be safe, peeps!
For more weekly organization inspo, make sure you’re following Jeffrey’s Instagram, and participate in his #TossItTuesdays challenge!
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