Grandpa’s Garage

What do you do when your garage accumulates three generations of stuff temporarily? You start to declutter and get your space back.

We generally have a variety of items in the garage (STUFFology 101: Get Your Mind Out of the Clutter, “A Man’s Home Garage is His Castle“). Vehicles, bicycles, tools, games, and general storage to name a few. Ideally it is organized in a reasonable fashion and each item in the garage is easily accessible. And so it was with my own garage, until I temporarily stored items there from my deceased parents’ home.

I saved a few precious keepsakes, boxes of family photos and slides, as well as select antique furniture in a small portion of the garage to be sorted out in a timely fashion, in the beginning of 2018. Now that it is late 2021, some of that timeliness has been extended. Sadly, I have yet to sort through any of the family photos and slides. But many of the keepsakes and antique furniture have been incorporated into my household. Progress of sorts.

That accounts for two generations of stuff, what about the third? Enter my oldest daughter, who was forced to move back home several months ago due to the disruption of the COVID 19 Pandemic. She has spent that time getting her life back in order and is now in the process of moving to another state. Unfortunately, some of her stuff remains in my garage. Why?

Good question. The short answer is she no longer needs it. She did hold a garage sale where some of the stuff was liquidated, but not all. The remainder is to be donated to my charity. But I have not contacted them for pickup yet. Thus, three generations of stuff is now in my garage temporarily.

Has this happened to you? I ask because life unfolds in ways we cannot always control. I have started again to declutter and am in the process of getting my garage space back. My daughter is finishing her move today. I am setting up a pickup date for my charity today. And another daughter will be sorting through the photos and slides in the weeks ahead.

Decluttering three generations of stuff stored temporarily in my garage is a process not an event. Progress.