* This is a paid collaborative post
If you’re anything like me your shed is a place to cram things into over the winter, which come spring is something to be sorted out. It always starts out as being a Really Good Idea, but rapidly goes downhill part-way through, and of course that’s usually when some bright spark - yes that’s usually me - has suggested we empty the whole shed, and our garden ends up looking something like this:
In my defence, MOH is a rummager. And it drives me potty. However as the shed is supposed to be his domain I try not to let it bother me too much. Then there’ll be a point where he admits he has no idea where he put the thing he’s after, unless it’s bike stuff of course, he uses that more regularly so has a better of idea of where that is. But when he says the shed needs a sort out, then I know we’re in for an “everything out” kind of tidy up.
It’s no bad thing either. We often find all sorts of things we didn’t realise we still had. There’ll be many diversions of wondering if this fits that, or if it could be used for something else and it’s then that I remember why I keep these chairs. Every time we discuss their fate, and they live on the edge, but survive the cull. It’s when I remember their usefulness during shed sort outs, when one of those diversions take place, that I’m always grateful we kept them. I’m learning from experience though, now I even set one up ready for use, I’m not even kidding…
Once everything is out, I can often be found marvelling at how much stuff came out of a relatively small space. Quickly followed by wondering how on earth even a reduced amount is going to fit back in. At times I wonder if we should buy another shed, something like the concrete sheds from Lidget, so that we have space for everything, although I think like many people we would fill whatever space we have - but that’s normal right?
On the whole the contents does go back in, and looks neater than when we first started so that’s always good. We know now to choose a day that’s at least going to be dry as this is a process that takes place over an elapsed time period, for many of the reasons given above, but also because when it comes to Operation Refill there’s as much discussion about what should go where and how much it’s used.
My logic says if it’s not used so much then it can go at the back and can have things stored in front of it, as there’s not space for everything to be right at the door, and never will be. But then again, if it’s not used much, do we need it at all. Like pruning plants, pruning stuff can be addictive!
In our latest tidy-up I’ve tried a radical approach to storage. Instead of having our shelving racks around the edge of the shed, we’ve filled a quarter of the space with racks which are stacked three deep. So now it’s really important to know what’s used, and what needs to be gettable, and have this on the front, open rack or placed on the ends which are just about accessible.
MOH took some convincing, but went with it, and I’ll admit it’s not usual. But it leaves us with plenty of space for the lawn mower and other garden tools, and bikes, including mine, and all the paraphernalia that comes with them, the sun loungers and parasols, and even a ladder. That’s not bad going either really, when you consider we also needed to find homes for our latest paint tins additions following all that work on the conservatory too.
But we got it all in, and I think I pretty much know where things are, down to at least to which rack and often which shelf. It’s the sort of brain I have and a ‘skill’ that MOH thinks is peculiar, but then again as I said before he’s a rummager, which is probably about as far apart on whatever kind of scale this is, that you can get.
So tell me, have you got a shed tidy planned, and is your approach similar or quite different?
* While this is a collaborative post, all views and opinions remain my own.