Garage Gallery

Our garage is not just a place to park our car (soon to be carS, once Harleigh gets her license!). It is another room in our home, a space we've personalized. I have rattan blinds and cafe curtains at the windows. The floor is in much need of another painting; this time I think I'll go with a standard garage floor gray. But I really want to salvage the area rug that I painted on the floor; a great way to put to use all those cans of leftover paint you have hanging around. It took me a couple of hours to paint, and when Harleigh was little, we had a table and four chairs on it that she and her friends could sit at and play, do crafts, make as much of a mess as they wanted. When we moved into the house I told Harleigh that she and her newfound neighborhood friends could paint one wall in the gargage with anything they wanted. You can see part of their artwork in the picture below. My favorite (not pictured) is the word "Trash" with a big arrow pointing down, over the place where we park our curbside trashcan.

Ignore all the junk in the below picture; this is just a portion of the stuff I've been collecting for the yard sale that I WILL NOT HAVE. I am over it . . . over all the work it takes to price everything, take it out of the garage and get it staged, deal with strangers driving up on my grass and then dickering over 25 cent items, then finally having to take all the stuff that didn't sell to Salvation Army. Ugh. Not worth it. I have some items that I'm going to consign, but everything else is being hauled off. Will I regret not doing the sale? Yes, but I need to let it go.

Another thing I like about creating another room out of a garage is that I can display items that I love but that don't fit with my home decor. These two wood-inlaid pictures (by Ran Su) were in my grandmother and grandfather's house for as long as I can remember. I used to think that they were odd but so exotic and fun. After my grandfather passed on and my grandmother was moved to an assisted living home, my mom gave these to me. I don't think they're worth much, and are rather worn, but I can't part with them. Take advantage of hanging and displaying things in your garage that you like but that might not fit into your home decor scheme. I think the garage is the one place where you have carte blanche to be eclectic and kitschy.