I was able to ignore the garage even 6 months into the pandemic. But when the air quality forces us indoors, I started to crack. And then RBG died, and I got mad— mad enough to start cleaning (sorting, scrubbing, painting, organizing) the garage. At least the messier half.

We never properly cleaned out this space when we moved in; it still had some house-related debris on shelves. It had all been painted at some point, but it was old and there was not a storage shelf that did not have evidence of mice on it. And the rodents were nothing compared to the spiders!

The bleach came out as did my fancy painting duds.

Luckily, on my list to get rid of were cans of paint of colors we have long since abandoned, so I had plenty of color to put a shine on the space.

I can’t finish the project until The Great Construction Project of 2020 is completed, but I’m pretty happy with it so far. And I’d rather be angry and organized than mad and messy. How’s that for a life motto?

We have a hurkin’ kitchen table.  With it’s extra leaves it can seat 12 comfortably, but we squeeze more sometimes.  It’s so heavy that no one person can put the leaves in single-handedly.  But it could not stand up to my children.

It was beautiful, but weak.  What good is a table surface that can’t handle spills or heat?  Or Wesley?  (That’s his spot that is the most worn down to bare wood.)

We had to remove the legs, but Dwayne and I finally got it to the garage, where I stripped, sanded, stained, stained, stained, and varnished the table top.  I bought a Spar varnish that should hold up to a nuclear holocaust (or Wesley) and put on several coats. 

And why am I being so hard on Wesley?  He’s earned it.  After I learned I can’t varnish at night (the moths loved to do the Dance of the Dying over the wet surface), I varnished it and left it to dry on a Sunday afternoon.  Turns out I can’t varnish during the day, either.  Wesley, in spite of the rule of not spraying water in the garage no matter what (“Even if there’s a fire, Mama?”), thought he’d spray both the hose and his water gun in the garage, and over all 4 pieces I had just varnished. 

But it gets worse.

I saw it when I went out to the car.  We had another…chat…about the rules, and why, and how this makes more work for Mama, and he’s too old to be this thoughtless and destructive.  He appeared to be genuinely repentant and I cleaned it up the best I could. 

I ran my errand and came back in ten minutes to….freshly sprayed water on the table. 

Do the math.  It took him less than 10 minutes to do the exact same thing that was forbidden on so many levels minutes earlier. 

I went ballistic and Wesley went to his room. 

He may be there still.

Before-ish         After

For the first time in memory, Dwayne really, really didn’t want to do a “work thing”.  To get out of it, he took two vacation days and came up with a justification (for himself): he was going to rip up the downstairs carpet and lay vinyl planks.

I was all for it, naturally.  That beige carpet was old when we moved in 13 years ago, but pets and kids (the most damage coming from ours, of course….WESLEY) left it with holes and stains that could no longer be cleaned or covered. 

[This is from Wesley’s Sharpie + No Mom recent period, followed closely by the Mom + Oxyclean period.]

[This is simply a place near an induction vent that could not be shampooed clean.]

It came to a head when I was getting upset.  We had fleas, for the first time ever, and in addition to the fleas, the cats were bringing in dead animals and spilling entrails over the carpet.  I was trying to clean it again late at night, and Dwayne rescued me by taking over the shampooing while I spot cleaned.  He knew we had a problem when he dumped out gallons of dirty water and the carpet didn’t look any better.  So he had a problem at home and a work, and he came up with a brilliant 2-in-1 solution!

I was still running Book Swap at school and doing all sorts of end of year things, so he went and picked out the new flooring, ripped out the carpet and began installing it.  I was able to help on the weekend, and we had it done Sunday afternoon!

[By done, I mean the flooring was down.  It took me another week or so to do the trim and caulking, and I’m actively ignoring a transition piece that can wait until September.]

As I’ve said, we’ve been in this house for 4,700 days, and I’ve never noticed we have 7 doorways coming off that hallway. It came to our attention, though, when we had jigsaw pieces to fit around each jamb. 

But look!  It’s the color of dirt and it is waterproof.  If we didn’t have Wesley, I might even claim it’s indestructible…but no point tempting the kid. 

Our split-level house has some “flow” problems, and this time I’m not talking toilets.  The kids and I always enter through the garage into a very narrow hallway.  A few years ago, I built a shoe bench that had just a half inch clearance to close the door.  The kids don’t actually put their shoes away, but if they did, the bench is getting too small for their growing feet.  Even if coats and shoes were put away, it was still a bottle neck for getting us out of the house each time. 
It just wasn’t working.
Dwayne and I have had “build a mudroom in the garage”  and “organize the workbenches” on our house project list for years, but over this last year, it started shooting to the top.  So after Jim and I caught our breath after finishing Kyla’s room, the sledge hammers came out again. 
Oh, in case it wasn’t clear, our garage was in worse shape than the house.  This is 90% my fault, but as I don’t take care of the garage until the kids, house, estate, and cabin are in shape, you can see for yourself how often I can get to it.
The garage before:

We had two workbenches, which are just places to put 1) all the new tools we buy for projects, 2) but all the old tools on until we put them where the belong, and 3) piles of things Mama is supposed to fix.  We cleared those out and put everything in the middle of the garage.
Before:

 

Then Papa Jim attacked and our new area was framed and wired. Dwayne and Jim decided to make it bigger than I first imagined, but they were 100% correct!
   

Jim made a “wood shower curtain” to hide the water heater and furnace.  Then it needed to be dry walled. Dwayne tiled the new room and Jim put together a new workbench out of the old ones.

I always enjoy the interior design.  I painted it my favorite orange, put up brick wall paper over the hiding wall, and made a bench (for $15!) with scrap wood and some cheap planks.  I love the old wardrobe I found on craigslist—perfect for storing extra coats with small interior drawers for each kid and myself.  I used wood trim to better hide the dirt around white doors.  There’s the perfect spot for an upright freezer (as soon as it starts working…Whirlpool).  And the cats have their bed and food in here now to, a good compromise between house and garage.  I LOVE how this turned out!

  

I’ll have to post pictures of the garage later, but I have a place for everything now, thanks to some serious garage clean out and good pegboard. 
The kids still don’t put their shoes or coats away in the REALLY CONVENIENT AND OBVIOUS hooks and baskets I specially designed for them, but at least I have the perfect mudroom… if not the perfect children. 

For her 8th birthday, I wanted to give Kyla a clean slate.  There is something about her brain that doesn’t stop her from writing on walls, ceilings, furniture.  Or cutting window screens or curtains.  Or…anything that involves the mildest bit of impulse control. 

We both needed a mulligan.  Badly.

So on the afternoon of her birthday, Dwayne took the sledge hammer and knocked out her badly-designed closet.  Then Jim and I started the next day.  It took some drywall, paint, new flooring, and lots and lots of labor.  Jim did a custom-built closet for her on the other side of the room, with all the drawers, cabinets, and hanging space any person would every need.  I bought and repainted a craigslist desk and he built bookshelves above them.  I made it everything she said she wanted and what I thought she would really want, and made it as pretty and clean as possible so she would really want to take care of it.

I bought her a pretty bed with a trundle (so no room to shove stuff under her bed) to replace her bunk bed (no longer able to write on the mattress or ceiling above her).  I got her a papasan chair in a reading corner—also impossible to stand on and deface the ceiling.  I put up a baseboard with clips across one entire wall for easy display of her art.  Almost everything in there is to keep her from doing what she used to do.  So far, it’s working!

The bed was one of the final touches.  Another craigslist find, I brought it home late one night.  We transferred Kyla to her new room while she was sleeping.  As we should have known, by morning Wesley had found her and settled in for a snuggle, making himself perfectly at home!  Kyla woke up thrilled to be in her new bedroom.