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Fall is the Perfect Time to Organize Your Garage

by: ARA

(ARA) - As days grow shorter and temperatures become cooler, it means the inevitable is just around the corner: everything that came out of your garage this spring needs to go back in before winter rolls around. That means you need to find room for the gardening supplies, the patio furniture, the sandbox toys and more. Not to mention corralling all the tools that you�ve used throughout the summer to tune up the bikes, fix the swing set and put together the new picnic table.

If you�re wondering where it�s all going to go, maybe it�s time to spend part of the weekend creating some order in all that chaos. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Divide and conquer

Start by separating the clutter in your garage into piles. For example, all snow shoveling equipment (shovel, ice scraper, salt) should be together, all sports paraphernalia goes in another pile, lawn care items in yet another pile � you get the picture. This will give you an idea of what you�re dealing with in terms of organizing.

Be sure to have a �throw it out� pile and a �donate it� pile. Throw away broken toys, almost empty cans of paint, and rusty garden tools. Donate sports equipment your kids have outgrown or that extra lawn edger.

A place for everything

Now you know what you need to store. Home improvement stores are a good place to start. Look for storage systems that match your needs. If your family owns bikes, consider hooks designed to hang them from the ceiling or a vertical bike rack to get the bikes off the floor and create more space. A tall storage cabinet provides a place to put out-of-season toys and tools. Shelving units or wall-mounted cabinets supply a convenient spot for sporting equipment.

Take care of your tools

For many homeowners, the garage doubles as a work area. If your tools have become scattered over the summer, or if they�re in a pile on your workbench, now�s the time to corral them. A pegboard and a good tool chest will help keep tools safe and handy. Waterloo Industries, the world�s largest manufacturer of tool storage products for professionals and do-it-yourselfers, has a variety of high-quality options.

�Our Shop Series is perfect for use in the garage or workroom,� says Mark Ryan, senior product manager at Waterloo. The line includes tool chests, tool cabinets, and tool centers in varying sizes and drawer configurations to fit any need. �These types of products are popular with the �weekend warriors,� those individuals who love getting their hands dirty once Saturday rolls around.� There are units that offer a bulk storage area for those large items or power tools. Many chests offer split drawers for all your small hand tools as well as a roomy top tray. If you�ve found that your tools have multiplied over the summer, and you�ve outgrown the storage in your current chest and cabinet, why not consider adding an intermediate chest to expand your tool storage capacity? Intermediates are available in most categories and stack in between your chest and cabinet to help organize your tool clutter.

Start with a clean sweep

Before you start putting all your organized stuff back into the garage, take the time to sweep the floor and hose it down to get rid of accumulated dirt and dust. If your car has been leaking oil, use a product made for this problem to get it cleaned up as well.

With a little time and compartmentalizing, it will be easier than ever to find what you�re looking for, your garage will seem roomier and it will be a more pleasant place to work.

You�ll find a wide array of tool boxes and other tool storage ideas at hardware and home improvement stores such as Sears, Menard�s and other retail outlets. Web sites such as www.waterlooindustries.com are also a good source of information.

Courtesy of ARA Content

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Courtesy of ARA Content

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Home Improvements � The Fun Stuff
by: Raynor James

Planning home improvements necessarily involves addressing numerous practical matters. That doesn�t mean you should ignore the fun stuff!

The Fun Stuff

The first thing to plan for in home improvements is the practical stuff. The second thing you need to talk to family members about is the fun stuff.

Most people have colors they like and colors they don�t like. They have things that interest them and things that don�t. Get your family to talk to you about those things. Each person�s bedroom, or bedroom area, should reflect his or her taste and interests.

A boy who likes green, football, and backpacking can easily have a sage green (it �reads� as more neutral than many shades of green if re-sale of your home is a concern) room with cream woodwork, cream interior shutters, and cream ceiling. Framed football posters and wilderness scenes might be pleasant. Bedding with a rustic motif (rows of stylized pine trees?) from L.L. Bean or Plow and Hearth would work right in. Add a touch or two of a bright color like red or yellow.

Does he need a desk in his room? A chest of drawers? A bookcase? Would he enjoy having a bulletin board? Even if they�re small, most rooms need at least three lamps so that illumination is general and even. The shades are usually best in warm, neutral colors. (Light coming through green shades tends to make people look sick.) Lamp shades should be level and the seams should be toward the wall so they�re not visible. When the bottom edge of most lamp shades in a room are the same height from the floor, the room tends to look serene and cohesive.

Hanging pictures usually look best if the bottom edges of the frames are the same height from the floor and level with each other, too. There are exceptions to this and every generalization of course. A grouping of pictures can have the bottom tier follow the �rule� while all of the other pictures are higher. A picture over a fireplace often looks good higher than the other pictures in the room.

Pictures usually look best when they have a relationship to furniture or an architectural feature. Pictures centered over a chest, bed, bookcase, or fireplace are good examples. Pictures don�t tend to look good if they�re scattered willy-nilly around a room, or if they�re up near the ceiling (unless they�re part of a grouping), or if the height at which they�re hung varies wildly with no rhyme nor reason.

A girl who loves pink, the ballet, and swimming can have woodwork the same cream as her brother�s while her walls are a soft pink (a pink with a hint of yellow in it tends to go well with cream), and her art work reflects her interests. If she loves to read, make sure she has a good reading lamp near her bed, or near a comfortable chair, or both.

A cream colored dust ruffle with widely spaced pink stripes and a quilted plaid coverlet in pink, green, yellow, and blue on a cream background might look nice. Add cream fabric window shades with large pink polka dots and I�ll bet she�ll smile.

The bigger point is to simply have fun with some of your home improvements. There is no need to look exclusively at practical matters.

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