Cleaning the shop. That never ending battle we all love.

It's the hardest work you can do in the shop. Mine looked like a natural disaster. Months of stuffing things into it to get them out of the weather. Months of working on SanFord outside and just piling the tools in the shop when I was done. Parts everywhere. What a mess. Even the Japanese Warrior has been sitting outside in the weather.

I have 4 free days to get it back in order, before a friend brings his truck over to pull the engine and reseal it.

Today was day one. The gross cleaning.

This is about 3 hours in.

Some of the trash that isn't going back in. Yes, that funny looking piece of plywood is left over from the Jet Boat from two years ago. I have hoarding tendencies.

Progress was made, but there is still a lot to do. Every flat surface is still buried in parts and tools.

Totally understand. I should post a picture of the current state of my shop...it would make you feel so much better.

Cleaning sucks.

I cleaned yesterday. I already need to go put my tools away again

Cleaning my shop turns into therapy or meditation for me. Also makes me want to start or finish projects.

RossD wrote: Cleaning my shop turns into therapy or meditation for me. Also makes me want to start or finish projects.

There is a lot of truth to this. At least the start or finish projects part.

I haven't really wanted to work on anything because of the disaster in there. Projects aren't much fun when you spend most of your time trying to find things.

I tripped over an engine trying to turn the lights on last week.

I just went through this two weeks ago. A trip to the scrap yard, 6 contractor bags of junk and $848 of eBay sales, $750 in new cabinets from Sam's Club, 3 sheets of peg board and some 2x4s later and I can almost see a day when I'd call it organized.

Mine has gone from its usual state of disorder to a complete clusterberkeley in the last two weeks as it has exploded with Camaro parts. It's like a sea of E36 M3ty plastic.

i'm deep into it today. first time i've been in the garage since the mad thrash to get the challenge car done. i have half a tub of wiring to scrap from the harness that could have gone back into my budget. also have a whole shelf dedicated to 243/799 LSx heads now. i look to keep filling it. also looks like i can stack several engines in the area that i'm cleaning out, so i gather i shall buy several 4.8/5.3/6.0 rotboxes shortly.

Just clean ed old steroio equipment off the welding table now to find the welder?

I have a small garage as it is, had too take a load too the dump just to get my wagon in for winter storage. I still had parts for my turbo sundance and my dakota buried in there.

I clean weekly, daily, sometimes hourly. Somehow, my wife thinks of the garage as her storage unit. I'm constantly trying to get her to stop saying "it can go in the garage."

One thing that has helped my clutter is to stop stockpiling wood scraps. This makes for a huge, worthless mess. If I have a project, I go buy what I need and throw out the rest.

Scooter wrote: I clean weekly, daily, sometimes hourly. Somehow, my wife thinks of the garage as her storage unit. I'm constantly trying to get her to stop saying "it can go in the garage." One thing that has helped my clutter is to stop stockpiling wood scraps. This makes for a huge, worthless mess. If I have a project, I go buy what I need and throw out the rest.

Lucky for me, we have a two car garage attached to the house. That, is the storage for household debris and yard tools.

The shop is mine, and off limits to all storage other than mine.

Wood material does seem to multiply. Hence the pile sitting by the trash to go out. It takes up too much space and there is no good way to store it. I kept a couple of pieces of walnut and cedar, the rest of it has to go. My only problem now is plywood. I have several full and half sheets. I hate to go to the store, so I have a tendency to over buy. Too valuable to pitch, but what a pain to store.

I stockpile wood scraps by throwing them on the firewood pile and heating my house with them. I used to keep every little piece of moulding or 1x material until one day i had a truckload of it and decided i'd never use those bits because i buy fullsize pieces for almost every job

I spent hours cleaning mine this week.

Then had 15 middle school kids over to build half a dozen different gadgets for a science competition and a welding demonstration. It is a total train wreck again. Sigh.

Scooter wrote: I clean weekly, daily, sometimes hourly. Somehow, my wife thinks of the garage as her storage unit. I'm constantly trying to get her to stop saying "it can go in the garage." One thing that has helped my clutter is to stop stockpiling wood scraps. This makes for a huge, worthless mess. If I have a project, I go buy what I need and throw out the rest.

My Mother-in-law's house was on a dirt crawl space and I have a decent sized basement - she was always giving us stuff to "throw in our basement" since we have such a big basement. It made me nuts.

I try to put my tools away after every work session (thanks to my junior high school shop teacher), but the refuse from projects tends to linger for months/years. Every now and then I clean the bench and organize stuff better, but there's always a mess somewhere. Today's job is to clear the pile of mostly empty cardboard boxes out of my TR6 body tub without throwing away something I need.

My garage is a mess right now. I've now hit the catch-22 phase where I need to work but don't have room for all of the mess.

In reply to JoeTR6:

I flatten cardboard boxes for easier storage. I have a walk-up attic for storage, which has its own benefits and drawbacks. It's a mess up there as well.

My entire house is like a giant version of one of those tile puzzles: To make room in area A, I need to move stuff into area B, which requires moving stuff from B to C, but C needs stuff moved to D... and so on...

Coffee is ready.

Time for day 2.

I need to spend a few nights this week getting mine into shape. But i also need to get the mazda5 rehab done. And the duster mobile to clean easier. Bt i need it clean to do both of those. So im at berkeleyed if i do, berkeleyed if I don't.

My career has me inside many households everyday. I can say with a certainty that 90% of America is genetically a pack rat. When I tell my customers that I need access to the breaker box they groan and roll their eyes. "Let me unbury it first..." I included this picture of my garage. My wife and I have always had an understanding that if there is something in our possession that doesn't get used in a year, it gets sold or tossed. The exception being things we only use yearly. It has kept her cleaning supply shelf neat, and my garage clean.

One bench and cabinet done.

I still need to fine a place to put the spare Samurai transmission and the power steering parts.

I can't recommend a lot of shelving enough. Hit craigslist. I got 5 massive boltless units for $100. It lets you organize everything so you aren't wasting time looking for things AND you can keep all/most of your stuff because you'll have room

I'm embarrassed to say that I have a 3 car garage with no car in it.

I do have a spare dining room table and a lot of other assorted furniture.

I knew it going in when I bought the place but didn't listen to myself...
"a third garage door is not a substitute for the house having no basement. "

We just moved I to a house with a good sized 2 car detached and one car attached. We put the wife's X-Terra in the detached while we moved everything from the attached garage into the house. With the understanding that the detached is mine.

About half way though moving stuff into the house I realized the garage was a little shallower than it should be. After it was all clean I found out it's 8 feet shallower than it should be because some previous owner built a full bath/laundry unit into the garage...

Now I'm down a clean garage bay, sore about it and still need to organize the garage where I actually work on things.