Operation: Organization 2014 ~ Garage Organization from Dixie Delights

Welcome to Day #2 of Operation: Organization!  Today, we’re so fortunate to be hosting Amanda from Dixie Delights.  If you visited for our Holiday Home Tour, you can see more of her beautiful home {here}.  Here’s Amanda:

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Good morning, y’all!  I’m Amanda from Dixie Delights and I was just “delighted” when the lovely ladies at 11 Magnolia Lane asked little old me to participate in their Operation: Organization series.

While I’m not much of a resolution maker, I am a seasoned and prolific list maker.  I usually kick off the new year with a loose list of projects for the next twelve months.  And at this time last year, organizing this hot mess was at the top of said list:

That is the sad state of affairs that was our garage for four long years  It was a dumping ground for anything and everything that didn’t have a proper home.  So, starting in January, Honey and I began dreaming and planning.  And almost six months later, this is what we’d done!!!

Since Honey is quite handy, we pulled this off as a complete DIY endeavor.  He used unfinished cabinetry for the upper part and then built the lower lockers to fit.  There is a place for everything and, seven months later, everything is still in its place.

The wall next to the guest locker has hooks for towels and swim suits and a dirty laundry basket.  (Tell me I’m not the only one whose children are constantly dropping a trail of clothes wherever they go.)

We got a new door put on the garage with other exterior work we were doing.  Bikes, scooters and corn hole boards go in this space.

From left to right we have lockers for:  golf, camping, fishing, balls, pool/beach and then one for each boy.  The boys’ lockers hold their baseball bags, tennis rackets, bike helmets, shoes and other gear.

We already had the rest of the shelving units.  They hold things like coolers, our big tent, the jump castle (which will be dearly departed very soon), lounge chairs and the tailgate canopy.

Here’s how we tend to tackle these types of projects:

1. Take our time – we never just dive right in.  We will make our short list of projects in January (3 to 5) and generally don’t have anything done for at least six months.  We live in the space before changing a thing.

2. Put it on paper – we spend days upon days drawing out floor plans, sketching ideas, printing out inspiration pictures, pinning to dream home boards and the like.  We are both very visual people and taking the time to draw it out and get it perfect on paper before starting always saves us time, money and heartache in the end.  Honey measured this space four thousand times and we came up with six thousand different arrangements before we got to the perfect one.

3. Plan for the long term – we love this house with all our might and hope to be here forever.  So, when we take on a project here, we do it with a long term lens.  If we can’t afford to do it the way we want it, we just wait until we can.  (Which is why I still have a navy blue bathtub!)  In doing the garage project, we were diligent about considering the items we’d only have for a short time (bounce house, sand table, etc.) and also predicting new things that would come as the boys got older (more sporting equipment, larger shoes, additional golf clubs).  The final configuration of the garage took all of this into consideration and we feel sure it will grow with us for years to come.

4. Get it done – once we start a project, we knock it out.  We time it when we don’t have a lot of other things on the calendar because I hate nothing more than living in a construction zone.

Hop on over to Dixie Delights for more pictures, details and all the sources on the garage project, and look here for all of our before and afters!

Happy New Year, y’all!

Amanda

 You can follow the Operation: Organization Pinterest board {here}.

Here’s the rest of the all-star lineup for Operation: Organization: