From January through most of February, I spent time cleaning out anything that could be tossed out and putting into the POD (storage unit in our driveway) things from the rooms we were planning to remodel. It’s about as much fun as moving (i.e. not much fun at all), but I’d had a dry run (which I didn’t realize was one at the time) in using a POD to empty out the garages so we could have the new storage racks installed last autumn.

I thought working on the garage was hard, but it was a ton of work wading through things we hadn’t touched since we moved here 15 years ago (and the fact that I’m a pack rat is only partly to blame for this!). It’s probably a good idea to periodically clean out the metaphorical cobwebs, but it’s such an icky job that without a really good reason, who’d do it?

As it turned out, having the garage organized before embarking on the remodel was a blessing – funny how things turn out sometimes.

Although the POD rental is monthly, the cost of an extra month or so pales in comparison to the other costs, so I scheduled it to arrive in early January so I could move things out there a bit each day and not feel too rushed. Managing stress levels is as important as managing the emptying of rooms!

You can see the results of the rearranging of rooms in the house in this album of pictures. We have temporarily had use of the kitchen while some of the work started, but at the end of April we will have to shift to the mud room as kitchen – with toaster oven, hot plate, bread maker, electric kettle and microwave I think we should do very well eating at home, nearly as usual. I am fairly sure that most of our Blue Apron meals can be made in this temporary kitchen.

Some of the furniture moving was tricky – Brandon and Kerri helped me get the large blue sofa into Kerri’s room, and Brandon and I got the brown leather sofa, large TV and other bonus room furniture into our bedroom (the new temporary living room for TV watching!). Tight turns in narrow hallways are spawn of the devil – what was the builder of our house thinking? Brandon has a real feel for moving 3D objects in space in his head (I’m good, but he’s much better; Jeffrey’s good at software :)), so he was very helpful figuring out the lift-twist-lower maneuvers.

A few more furniture items (breakfast table) will get shoe-horned into the POD as we empty the kitchen and family room for the next big “demo day” – late April or early May

I’m trying not to think about the process of putting everything back, unpacking the boxes of glassware, china, pots, pans….

But here’s how nicely the garage cleaned up!