Starting Your Garage Make Over

Once you have you have decided on your design it’s time for work to begin. Often this can be where the process comes to screeching halt. When confronted by a garage that is in a state of disarray, it is sometimes hard to know how to get started. A methodical process can get you started and carry you through the entire project. Let’s start with the clean-up.

The Work Begins

Get rid of the junk. Many people are successful by starting with a garage sale. This can be a great way to get people to remove your junk for you. The key to success is organization. First identify everything you can get rid of. Be brutal. That box of books from college may seem like it holds some value but the fact that you haven’t opened it in five years says otherwise. If you haven’t touched something in a couple of years, you don’t need it. Get rid of it. Assemble your pile of goods to sell in one area and put prices on them. Price them cheap. The idea is to get rid of the stuff. Pricing items to high willl leave you with items that will not sell and that will end up in the dumpster. Don’t look at pricing like your trying to open a retail store, price like you need the money. This will make it more attractive to people as they scan the items at the sale. Here’s a great idea for making your yard sale a success. Donate all of the proceeds to your favorite charity. It will help you distance yourself from the whole process of hocking your prized possessions and it will help shoppers ease up a little on the haggling. Pick you favorite charity and put up prominent signs that all proceeds will go to support that charity. Some charities will even help you with promotional materials to let everyone know about the sale in advance. Also make sure you pick a weekend with a favorable weather forecast and promote your sale in the local paper and with signs at major intersections in your neighborhood. On the day of the sale be ready early. Start your sale at 6:00 or 7;00 in the morning. Yard sale professionals like to scan the sales before the items are picked over so be ready early. Also have some coffee and donuts out. It will encourage people to linger a little longer. Also make sure you have a decent amount of cash on hand to make change. Yard sale transactions are cash only so you need to be able to make change.
Once you start to see traffic, get ready to deal. Haggling is part of the yard sale experience. It will also help you move that junk. Don’t stick to your price. Remember the yard sale is a means to an end, getting rid of clutter. Any money you make no matter how insignificant is just icing on the cake.
Traffic usually falls off after lunch time, so typically you can call it a day around 1:00. Look at what’s left. If you have a Good Will center nearby or other charity that will accept donations, sort the remains for transfer to a donation site. Everything else, EVERYTHING ELSE , is going to the landfill. Don’t take anything back into your workspace. If you need to you can rent a roll-off dumpster and load it up. It sounds brutal but many people say it was one of the most liberating steps towards organization that they took. Whether you haul it yourself or use a dumpster make sure you remove as much as possible.
The items that you intend to keep will need to find a temporary home while you work on your garage. If you have an outdoor shed this makes a great temporary storage area. If you don’t have an area to store these items there are great alternatives. There are many companies now offering temporary on site storage structures. These companies will deliver a large structure that looks like a shipping container. The storage unit is leased by the month and is weather proof to allow you to store the items from the garage that you intend to keep. This is a great alternative and allows you to store your items without having to move them a great distance. Make sure you check with your Home Owners Association (HOA) and local governments to see if there are any restrictions on using this type of storage unit. Typically they are allowed but may have a very firm time limit on how long the storage unit may be in place.