We’ve got a single car garage with an attached porch.  The garage protects our car and, in addition, along with the porch, it’s used to store stuff.   This is the story about how the garage / porch is now emptier and more organized than it has been for the past thirty years.   Not saying it is an actual miracle, however, it is damn close. 

So the decking on our ground level deck needed to be replaced.  Linda’s nephew, who makes a living as a carpenter, replaced the decking on our deck on Friday August 16th and Saturday 17th.   Side hustle for him.  Thanks Dan.  The light grey color of the composite decking looks great.  That was all good.

A couple days before Dan arrived to do the decking Linda advised me that I was running out of time to remove the stuff from and around the deck.  The composite decking boards were to be delivered the next morning. Procrastination is one of my enduring traits. 

Moving the deck furniture into the garage was the least bad option. It did not take long to put the six deck chairs, the deck table, the deck umbrella, the deck umbrella stand, the three small deck tables and a couple boxes of art / lawn stuff that normally lives right around the deck into the stall where our car would normally go. 

Now understand other than in the stall where the car is parked, the rest of the garage / porch was very full of stuff.  For example, there was shelving, lawn mower, two snow blowers, weed wacker, garbage bin, recycling bin, lawn games, sprinklers, lawn tools, hoses, extension cords, blower, yard vac, spare wood, flower pots, some of my dad’s old tools, mulch, stakes, rope, twine, wire, staplers, a vacuum, an air compressor, gardening stuff, a scissors, a couple crowbars, a sledge hammer, an axe, Christmas lights, ladders, buckets, golf clubs, garden hooks, garden edging, battery charger, jack stands, tarps, saws, pesticides, oil, a rolling work bench, stools and the list is a lot longer than that.  

So our story picks up two days after the decking was completed, Monday 18, 2025. We were busy on Sunday so  on Monday I went out to the garage to start cleaning up the mess.  I picked up some of the scrap decking and swept up some of the saw dust.  

How to say this diplomatically,  Let’s just say Linda came out, looked around and said something to the effect that I was not effectively addressing the situation.  Obviously she over estimated my talents. A small discussion was held on the meaning of cleaning up.  

Our story picks up two days later when emotions were cool enough to make the discussion about how to proceed.  My many shortcomings as a cleaner had been established,   Linda took over as a project manager.     

Linda indicated the scope of the cleaning out the garage had changed.  We were doing a deep clean out.  At that point, to my credit, without objection, I realized my role was to say,  “yes dear, of course you are right”,  and then do what I was told to do.  

It took several days.  Piles were made: Donate, Toss/properly dispose of, Keep and undecided.   We started on the porch.  The first pass was to just grab anything that was obviously going to be tossed or brought to be properly disposed of.  

We actually talked  about every item, deciding which pile it should go in.  At first the undecided pile was big, however as we talked about other items, the stuff in the undecided pile tended to get sorted to the other piles. 

No, we don’t need over twenty pots however we do need a few pots.  Those lawn toys haven’t been played with for years and besides if you really looked at them they had missing/broken parts or were for young kids and our youngest grandchild is in high school. 

Everything came off every shelf. The shelves were taken out to the yard and washed down. The areas under and around the shelves were swept and then vacuumed.   Everything was sorted into one of the four piles.  

As we progressed, several trips were made getting rid of stuff.  One trip to the hazardous waste disposal site where we got rid of all the old cans of lubricants, bug sprays etc.  Three or four trips to Good Will. A couple things were put on the curb with a “Free” sign on them. One trip to the metal collection.  Several large plastic bags were filled with the stuff we had saved for years and now declared to be trash. 

There were lots of items that evoked a memory.  The old cement bucket with a couple of my dad’s stone mason tools in it was kept.  Those lawn games were really fun.  I can’t imagine why I kept the old broken weed wackers.  Nope we don’t need eight pliers, let’s donate some of them.  

It took a couple weeks.  The car was just fine parked in the driveway.  We took a day off a couple times. Each time when we came back it was easier to decide to keep or give it to someplace.  In the end the undecided pile was only a couple items.  We literally flipped a coin and then the undecided pile was no more. 

There is no moral in this story.  When I park the car in the garage it is easier because there is more room  to park the car.  Getting tools and stuff to do everyday tasks is easier.  It actually makes some of the everyday tasks seem less daunting. 

The closer you look the more you see.