Garage declutter options

[imjustawarrior]

I put all kinds of stuff on the curb on a Saturday morning with a free sign. It is gone within 30 minutes. This is the easiest path.

If it doesn't work, then try one of the methods mentioned above.

 

[Music Lover]

My rule is that anything worth less than $20 goes by the road. So far I have a 100% success rate with someone picking it up.

I've had to declutter my garage 3 times in the last 4 years. 1st time when my wife moved in and we had to combine 2 houses. 2nd time when we sold her mother's house. 3rd time when her father downsized. All 3 times we had to store excess in the garage until we got rid of it.

Now it's finally clean and nothing will be added.

 

[Lorenzo]

Nice, but some of us have no basement.

And some of us have no basement AND no garage (just a carport). I built a backyard shed to clutter and, someday, declutter.

 

[braumeister]

At our last house, I got a huge kick out of a neighbor who put a washing machine out by the road with a FREE sign on it. It sat there for several weeks, until he finally changed the sign to "FOR SALE $50" and it was gone by the next morning.

 

[Retired Expat]

I’ve been spending some time cleaning out my garage and I’m wondering what to do with some of the stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. I’m finding that there’s a lot of stuff that is still fully useful, just not to me. I’m wondering if there are any ideas on how to get rid of these things short of just tossing them. Examples of things that I’ve accumulated:

- Wire nuts, outlet face plates, old porcelain light bulb fixtures, and various electrical items.
- Clamps and connectors for a sprinkler system. Some connectors are still in the packaging.
- All kinds of screws and screw and drywall anchors galore. Similarly, many nuts and bolts.
- Various auto parts like fuses, bulbs, radiator flush kit.

When I’m done, I’ll just throw all this out unless I can think of a better idea. It’s just that it totally goes against my grain to throw out perfectly good items. Unfortunately, I know I’ll never use any of it. Any ideas?

Sold the bulk of my tools to the contractor I hired to renovate the house. We use a handyman and he gladly takes most leftover stuff like you have. But this is Uruguay and materials are more valuable than back at home

 

[marko]

DW and I declutter our garage every day. Our cars are the only two things in there. When we go out, the garage is empty.

 

[sengsational]

I guess the day will come when I won't need a nut, a bolt, a nail, a screw, etc, but that will be a sad day for me. I started tinkering in the garage at about 4 years old, and I've done it everyday since Seriously, there isn't a week that goes by where I don't "have to" cobble some contraption or fix something. The stash of crap, er, um, "hardware" usually means mission accomplished without a run to the hardware store.

My "solution" is to remove from the collection anything that doesn't fit in an organized way. After all, if you can't lay your hands on it within a half a minute, you might as well not have it. So it's got to be organized and accessible. The idea of a huge bin is a solid "no go"... might as well not have it. I don't mind organizing the stuff, but I do have a catch-all drawer that needs more maintenance than most drawers, and I kinda cringe when it gets outta hand.

There are categories of stuff that just need to be thrown out. Real old computer stuff is useless, and that's gone. I need to toss all my antenna head-end stuff, no need to split coax signals now that I have tuners in the attic. That'll make room for more wire nuts and auto fuses The problem with those things are you need 5, but for 50% more you can get 500, so that's where I end up.

 

[Music Lover]

^^

I agree. It's relatively easy to get rid of big items, but I also have far too many screws, nuts, bolts, and various other tiny items.

 

[nafddur1]

^^

I agree. It's relatively easy to get rid of big items, but I also have far too many screws, nuts, bolts, and various other tiny items.

That's exactly why I organized all of my nuts, bolts, screws, batteries, small tools, etc. like this in my basement workshop. So I know where everything is and I can get to things easily.