Cleanin out outside

Finally, a hint of spring is here in Portland and we bounced on the good weather....by.... cleaning out the garage.  Man was it in need. Look at how it looked yesterday morning...

I know, despicable, right?  and that was after we had pulled some of the crap our treasures out

  And how it looks now:

We plan to hang the large ladder horizontally from the rafters with large brackets but we were just outta oomph yesterday (and I couldn't find the brackets but did this morning)

finally hung the cabinet (free Craigslist find) that has been laying on it's side on our garage for 5 years now and it is so handy-maybe one day soon I will muster the energy to paint it (I got to priming it 5 years ago) a fun summer-y color and surprise Steve.  Other big cabinet on it's side in the back of the shot?  Super old and bought for the kitchen but now I am thinking laundry room?  For now it will live in the garage.

used all the random buckets and bins we had to organize all our garden tools & shop-vac attachments

hopefully we can keep all of Ben's outdoor toys down to what fits in the red bucket

what we have stashed in the cabinet we finally hung- car & bike supplies; also found a use for all those old BPA ladden tupperware that I just couldn't part with but no longer planned to use in our kitchen

Whew!  while it took us the better part of the day (Ben was a champ chillin' with us, playing while we cleaned and taking a couple long naps as well), we are so glad it is done cuz nothing says summer is comin' like a clean garage (I think this has been one of our spring projects each year for the last few years).  We still have stuff to get rid of-like the 3 recycle bins full of cedar shingles; Steve hopes to finish that project this summer).  We have been jonesin' for a bike trailer to carry Ben in as well and now we finally have room for it.

Also,  a pix of what the fence looked like as of last Monday night, right before my parents left.

And how it looks now:

....look the same, yep, that's right, crappy weather last week and cleaning out the garage has put a little snag in the project but Steve dug out a bit more concrete last night to allow a place for another 4x4 next to the chimney and after book babies today, Ben and I hit up the cedar store for more supplies so we hope we hope to be back in business and see it finished some more progress soon.

Plus, having a clean garage makes accessing tools and the overall fence building endeavor much more pleasant.  Being the nice wife that I am, I even plan to hook up our radio/ipod player (stolen from Ben's room-I purchased a cheapy for him when setting up the nursery but haven't used it much yet; it should go to much better use in the basement/garage/outdoors-it is weather-proof after all) in the garage to surprise Steve with some musica when he gets back to workin' on the fence tonight!