Organizing the Garage

I had originally planned on having the day off from the house today, but I had a day of free time and figured I might as well put it to good use.  I loaded up my wrought-iron patio table and chairs and headed to the new house to do a little garage cleaning.

I purchased a couple of storage racks from Lowe’s yesterday, taking advantage of a Labor Day sale knocking the price down 24%.  I debated on just one, but after today, I am glad I went with two!  After putting one together last night, I put the second one together today.  Takes about 20 minutes.  The method was simple:  pick something up off the floor and put it on a shelf.  No, but seriously, that’s really all it entailed!

Don’t walk by something.  Pick it up, put it on a shelf.  Little by little, I started seeing a garage floor again!  So it was pretty easy work.  It was a bit warm in the garage, but it was one of those projects where you see instant results.

I also tackled a VERY important project upstairs.  When I had originally inspected the house, we had tried out an upstairs window.  Well, when opening it, the window basically split apart.  The glass window actually came out of the wooden casing.  I have known about it for well over a month now, but it just stayed off my radar for being fixed.

Well, I walked inside today to the sound of the air-conditioning running, so I figured I would take a look at the window.  Sure enough, air was pouring in all across the top of the glass where you could slide something straight outside.  There was probably a ¼” gap.  I went downstairs and picked up the rubber mallet that I had been using to install my shelves.

I knew the risk of what I was about to do, but I just slowly started tapping on the window.  It didn’t budge.  I tried again.  Maybe it budged?  I tried again.  Slowly at first, I started to see the glass move back into position.  Once the glass fit back into the groove in the wood, it moved more freely.  A tap here, a tap there.  And finally I could feel the glass rest fully into its position.  And no broken glass!

The window now works great, slides up and down freely (and stays together), AND locks.  A rather important success.

I finished cleaning up the garage and unloaded the patio table.

Before...the garage is a mess!

And After...you can now move around!

I also re-installed the finicky patio door latch from last night.  It still doesn’t lock properly, but, hey, it’s on and functioning.  Maybe some day I will figure out why.

It was a short day (1-2 hours) and an easy day.  But it was nice to mark off a couple simple projects.
One not-so-simple project that awaits my return is the large and growing spore that I have in my downstairs bathroom.  This was not there a couple of weeks ago, so it is alive and active, but it sure lets you know it’s there.  It’s literally a vertically-growing and horizontally-expanding mess of mold spores.  Tower and flowering!  It’s gross.

The Towering Flowering Mold Spore.

But if I was honest, that whole bathroom is gross.  Behind the toilet shows grave signs of water damage.  Even the vanity shows signs.  This wasn’t originally on my Projects to Do checklist, but it’s a no-brainer.  I will have to completely re-do the bathroom.  Trim, toilet, vanity, floor, and most likely subfloor.

Ahh, the joys of foreclosure ownership!  Surprises are always right around the corner (of the toilet).

And in fairly exciting fashion, I picked up my second piece of furniture for the home!  I was on Facebook last night when I saw a new For Sale post for a large dining room table and chairs.  In typical irony, I instantly recognized the first picture as a table and chairs that I had wanted a month ago from the same site!  But I never heard back from the seller, so I thought I was out of luck.

Well, the seller responded back to me last night, and I was first in line.  The mammoth table stretches 70” long and 44” wide.  It came with four large-butt chairs, and it appeared to be in good shape.

The table and chairs as advertised...

So after a lovely Labor Day cook-out with family, I made the drive out into the country with Mom and ended up plucking this behemoth table and chairs out of a trailer for $135.  If it’s all in good condition (some scuffs and wear marks, for sure), it appears to be a GREAT table.  It’s HEAVY!

After unloading the table and chairs into the garage, it looks like a good buy.  Now it’s time to paint the ceiling and walls in the dining room, add a wooden floor, and get it out of my garage!  Ahhh, there is always so much to do

But that’s another checkmark off the Interior Checklist.  Purchase Dining Room Table and Chairs.  Check.