August 11^th 2018 was National Garage Sale Day.  All of us can benefit from a garage sale from time to time.  And, it’s a great way to spend time with your growing family and the lifestyle changes that occur as children grow out of old toys or as new sports or other hobbies enter our lives.

It’s not just the garage sale but the process which can be a great learning experience for everyone in the house.  The day of the garage sale is a good way to connect with neighbours and friends from the neighbourhood.  In fact, they often say that getting together with a few other families to plan a garage sale is a great way to be more successful.  And, while the National Garage Sale Day occurs in August each year, any of the warm days from about April to October can be a good day.  

A garage sale allows us to let go of things and manage our garage storage whether we’re looking to have a garage renovation done shortly or we’re looking to make the most of our existing garage storage options.

The Benefits of Decluttering

Decluttering and organizing has great psychological benefits for us and our family members.  It’s a great learning experience for younger members in many ways. 

There is a lot of decision making involved with decluttering because we are working with limited garage storage space while we may have a growing selection of things we believe we want to store.  So, we need to make decisions as to which things to get rid of and which things might need to be stored elsewhere. 

This task allows our children as well as ourselves to gain a sense of competence or confidence that we are able to do things well.  Also, it gets everyone moving and active while accomplishing tasks so there is a lot of satisfaction about completing things.

Also, we know that we feel relief as well as reduced anxiety from being organized.  Order and symmetry has been known to do this for us psychologically or as witnessed from people with OCD who feel temporary relief immediately after organizing something.

Step-by-Step Decluttering Rules

If you don’t yet have a garage storage system, the first step is to empty the garage.  This first step alone lifts our spirits. It is the first step to getting us motivated and inspired about the space.  When the garage is just full of stuff, we just don’t want to look at it so some of us just keep ignoring the problem because it’s unpleasant to keep looking at our own clutter.

Creating piles is now the next step to your final garage organization masterpiece.  Start by creating 2 piles.  One pile will be the stuff that you want to store in the garage.  The other pile will be the discard pile or the pile for the garage sale.

If your garage is already organized into a garage storage system, you may only need to create the pile of items to be discarded.  These might be toys and sports equipment which the kids have outgrown.  It may also be duplicate items such as an additional weed trimmer tool.

If you don’t already have a garage organization system, it’s time to organize the pile which has been designated to be stored in the garage.  You can do this by grouping these items into smaller piles.  Group things together into these types of piles on the floor of the garage:

• gardening items
• automotive accessories
• household tools
• patio furniture & accessories
• sports equipment
• bicycles
• camping gear

And, add any other categories of items which might be a part of your lifestyle.  Organize these groupings of storage items onto the floor of your garage.

Now, it’s time to call in a garage renovation specialist to help you design and implement a made-to-measure garage organization and storage system.  Or, if you’re looking for a DIY solution, it’s time to visit the big box stores for supplies to build and mount your systems inside the garage.

Meanwhile, it’s time to run a garage sale to find new owners for all the items in the discard pile.  It will be quite a relief when all the things you want to get rid of are finally out of your home.

Promoting the Garage Sale

There are some keys to getting the garage sale to become a success and an event which is full of people visiting your sale.  If you follow a few steps, you’ll be able to elevate the success of this event and have a little more fun running the event with your family and neighbours.

We’ll continue next month with a blog on how to put on a successful garage sale.  In the meantime, if you’re looking to hire a garage renovation specialist, please contact us for a complimentary in-home consultation.