Hello again everybody (use your best Harry Caray voice for that) and welcome back to another blog penned (typed) by my esteemed colleague and friend, Elon Werner.

This one is a quite different, but I bet it’s a subject almost everyone can relate to. I know I can, and I continue to relate to it just about every day. It’s clutter.

Since we were married, Barbara and I have upsized from our house on the ravine in Austin, Tex. to our McMansion on the pond in Woodbury. Both were phenomenal homes, but we were clearly proud that we had been successful enough to afford and enjoy that first Woodbury house in Marsh Creek. It was a wonderful home, and great for hosting family and friends during the holidays. But, it was WAY too much house for just the two of us and our cats. When the move to Spokane happened, we almost downsized so much I wouldn’t have had office space in the city condo we were considering, so I was out with a real estate agent looking at downtown Spokane offices. That was scary and exciting all at the same time. In the end, though, the tenant in the condo had a longterm lease and wouldn’t leave. We rescinded the contract.

We then found our home out on the golf course in Liberty Lake, which we rented from a terrific military family, and that was a move from 4,800 square feet to 3,600. Before the movers showed up in Woodbury, we had to do a full-on purge. We filled a 10-yard dumpster with stuff that had seemed important to keep but wasn’t. I haven’t missed any of it.

Four years later, when it was time to move back to Woodbury, we did it again. We had Barbara’s niece and her boyfriend fly out from Denver and let them “go shopping” in our house. They had just bought a new house, and they gleefully filled a U-Haul rental truck with furniture and fixtures and drove it back home. We were downsizing again.

Now, we live comfortably in a 2,800 square foot house with two levels. Plenty of room for us, places for guests to stay, and territory to roam for Boofus and Buster. It’s perfect, although I do miss the marsh out front, the pond in back, and Pond Cam.

But…  Our garage has always been a place we never addressed much. Stuff everywhere. Living in Minnesota, we do actually need to get both cars in there but it’s always been a tight squeeze. We haven’t done anything like the scope of what Elon describes below, but we’ve been pecking away at it since last summer. We’re getting there. Clutter is a demon. Give it a little space, and it will take over.

And Elon also writes about writing more, learning more about the art, and developing as a writer. To me, that’s clearly obvious. He has developed enormously since the first time he stepped in to write this blog just to help out his Minnesota buddy. He also writes about the day he’ll get his “pink slip” from me, but that’s strictly a matter of when I get the book done. Some weeks I’m prolific, other weeks not so much. We’re in the middle of a renovation of our master bath right now, so that’s been a perfect excuse for not writing much. So much noise! Plumbers, carpenters, the tile guy, and the contractor! It’s mayhem, I tell ya. So, no termination notice for Mr. Werner in the short-term, but once the book is done (I don’t know how many more chapters I have to write, because it will just be done when it’s over) I look forward to kicking Elon unceremoniously to the curb and taking this back over again.

Elon also writes about Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore location, and we’ve used the closest one to us a few times in the last couple months. For us, though, the closest location is about a 2-hour roundtrip up to St. Croix Falls in northern Wisconsin. The route, however, is mostly along the very scenic St. Croix River, which delineates the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin up there and all the way down to just south of us here in Woodbury, where the St. Croix flows into the Mississippi and Old Man River takes over border duty. Anyway, it’s a great concept and we’ve been happy to make the drive with various items we’ve “outgrown” here.

Until next time, enjoy a subject I know we all relate to. Organizing and getting rid of clutter. I hope I never need another 10-yard dumpster dropped off in my driveway.

Thanks for sticking with us, everyone. Here’s Elon!

Bob

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I know we are well into 2021 so many people may already be giving up on their New Year’s resolutions, but I am taking a different approach. I waited until mid-January to think about what I wanted to change. First, I am not a fan of resolutions. I am, however, a fan of goals. Goals can be more flexible than resolutions in my opinion. Luckily, Bob has given me the opportunity to tackle one of my goals even before 2021 started.

My first goal for the New Year is to write more. These blogs have been a big help and I hope you have enjoyed them. As Bob and all aspiring writers know the key to good writing is to write and to be almost religious about getting words onto paper (or your computer screen). This is the first blog that I am starting without a firm grasp of where I am going.

For Christmas I asked for a book about writing and even received a magazine subscription about writing. One of my favorite books about the subject is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. It is an amazing look at how one of the most brilliant and prolific writers of my generation cranked out best-seller after best-seller. The key is to keep writing.  Once Bob gives me my Bob’s Blog pink slip I will look for another venue for my words and will always be appreciative of this chance to get a writing streak going.

Another big goal is to continue to downsize at the Werner homestead. For many years our garage has been a wreck and this Christmas season it reached a tipping point. The real reason for the garage make-over had to do with the Christmas break when we were invited to neighbor Kevin’s driveway/garage for an outdoor happy hour. Once we saw Kevin’s garage we were horrified at our current situation. His garage was spotless and completely organized. Every item was in its own spot. You could tell there was no half-ass “let’s just set this box here” system going on. “Everything was in its place and there was a place for everything,” is the saying, I believe. We have been in our current house for almost ten years and I don’t think we really ever gave too much attention to garage organization. We just put a bunch of shelves and hutches around the walls and started stacking stuff everywhere. Kevin has put a lot of thought into his garage and we took that as a challenge, so last weekend my wife Jenn and I decided enough was enough. 

The process actually started before last weekend as Jenn researched a variety of shelving options before finding the perfect five-shelf steel racks. Amazon to the rescue and last Thursday three huge boxes arrived for me to assemble. That was the first step in the Werner garage makeover. On Friday we began moving a variety of items to the curb that we hoped our neighbors would find interesting and come take away. Through the NextDoor app were able to post photos of the items and emphasize that they were free for the taking. Within hours the vast majority of items ranging from old shelves, to unwanted patio umbrellas, to folding chairs, were all gone and had found new homes. 

One item that was grabbed up by a neighbor, who is a high school senior, was an old four-shelf wood unit. She described the design as cool and I am sure through her repurposing skills we won’t recognize that piece the next time we see it. The shelves had been in my Jenn’s family for over 40 years and had made the move to Texas from Virginia. Jenn used the piece as a TV stand in her first apartment and we have used it in a number of rooms before relegating it to the garage. 

As the clean-out process proceeded we realized we had a lot of stuff we didn’t need. I made multiple trips to a local church’s mission store as well as to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. If you aren’t familiar with HfH ReStore you should check it out. We find treasures there all the time for little projects around the house. It is basically a building supply store of hand-me-downs. Everything there is donated and then priced to move. They have cabinets, rugs, building materials, tile, light fixtures, etc. If you are in a house that is older and need to find something to match, ReStore is the place to check out. They are particular about what they take and I love dropping stuff off because I know some good will come out of my donation. 

After multiple trips to get things out of our garage for good we began the process of repositioning what made the cut. Jenn made a diagram of where she thought everything should go and we began repositioning and moving items to their new locations. It was quick work but as we moved along we realized we had some opportunities to upgrade some of our storage options. Previously we had rakes, shovels, either hanging on various walls by nails or just leaning in a corner. We took inventory of what we had and on a trip to Lowe’s found a cool hanging rack system that kept everything together. It was a game changer. I also found a wall-mounted bike rack to get our two bikes off the ground and free up even more space. We were getting excited about the progress even though we were very much in the early stages.

One major issue was the overhead lighting in the garage. We had two crummy fluorescent lights that never worked very well and also didn’t light up the garage worth a darn when they did work. I am not an expert electrician but I have enough skill to hang a ceiling fan so I thought I could replace the fluorescent lights with some cool LED units. Jenn found a three panel LED light on Amazon that screwed into a light socket. We had just installed one in our attic so we knew it could be a big hit. It lit up the whole attic space so I thought we could get a couple more of those and solve our garage lighting issue. The first step was removing the long fluorescent lights. They were a bit of a pain since you had to work over your head and also some of the screws were stripped. I was able to get the first one down with minimal issues but the second one had to be pulled from the ceiling. I was able to hide the hole I made with the new light kit. The new LED lights make a huge difference and I was quite proud of my wiring skills.

One area we have never given any thought to was our tool collection. We have all sorts of hammers, tape measures, screw drivers, etc. but we never seem to know where anything is. We have a tool bag but stuff just gets dumped into it and sometimes it winds up in a drawer or on a counter somewhere for weeks on end. It seems like we spend as much time looking for a tool as we spend on the actual project we needed the tool for. We took inspiration again from Kevin’s garage and added a four by four piece of pegboard for tool organization. Again this became a Werner garage game changer. Jenn and I had the best time figuring out where and how to display our tools, saws, drills, screw drivers, etc. I don’t think we are going to draw outlines around each item so it goes back into exactly the same spot but the thrill of organizing and hanging those items was intoxicating. Once were we were done we took a few steps back and just admired our handy work. I think I now know how Michelangelo felt when he climbed off the scaffold and looked up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The view was breath-taking. This may be too much hyperbole but from where we came to where we are now is so cool.

Neighbors stopped by over the two days on Saturday and Sunday to admire our progress and also offer tips. One of them gave me a great suggestion for my extension ladder and after another quick trip to Lowe’s we were all set. Jenn thought I was hanging the ladder too high for her but I asked her when the last time she ever pulled the ladder down was. I like to think of high ladder placement as sort of job security. She can’t get rid of me because how would she ever get the ladder down.

By the end of the day on Sunday we were 90 percent done and the devil was now in the details. We had little bins and tubs of screws and nails and washers that now needed to be sorted. It seems like we never felt like we had screws or nails when we needed them so we would just go buy them when we had a project. Once we pulled everything out and corralled it we realized we had more screws and nails than we knew what to do with. Jenn has spent the last couple of nights creating an organizational system that I think will put Lowe’s to shame. I love it since now we know where everything is. 

Our next project will be our craft closet. I made the mistake of sticking my head inside a few weeks ago and I asked Jenn if a shelf had collapsed because there seemed to be a lot of stuff on the ground. I was quickly and sternly informed that no, a shelf had not collapsed there was just a bunch of stuff on the ground. We can fix that up in no time with a few more trips to Lowe’s.

As far as additional goals for 2021 beyond writing and organizing our house I am going to continue to try and be helpful and positive as I go about my daily life. I am not going to sweat the small stuff and I am going to assume if someone else is rude or appears to be inconsiderate, rather than lean into that negativity I am going to take a step back and not get caught up in the nonsense. I am also going to try and give more people the benefit of the doubt. Hope everyone’s New Year is off to a great start and thanks for reading.