Garage Progress: Painted and Organized Garage Entrance

Unfortunately, our weekend was far from relaxing.  I don't handle stress very well, so when an unexpected issue came up on Saturday I quickly became overwhelmed.  I've been open about my struggles with anxiety and Saturday was the first time in a long time that I actually felt sick from stress.  It doesn't happen as often anymore, but when it hits it's miserable.  I find that whenever I'm upset or stressed I tend cope by cleaning and organizing.  This weekend, I took my stress out on the garage entrance.

I know, garages aren't the most glamorous spaces and neither is this makeover.  It's just an ordinary garage entrance that got a little update with paint and stain.  It's not dramatic or pin-worthy, but it has come a long way and I wanted to share how a little paint and effort can make a big impact.  

Here's what our garage entrance (the door leads to our mudroom) looked liked before.  

You like the molding?  It was our neighbors old floor molding that we threw up on the door frame in order to pass our final inspection.  We actually had different steps to pass our final inspection too.  By code you are required to have a 3 foot landing BEFORE the first step down and a railing.  We didn't like how far the steps stuck out into the garage, so we kept them to pass our final inspection then altered them in order to free up space.

I worked on the stairs first, applying 2 coats of Minwax Jacobean stain and a coat of water based poly.  

I then painted the risers and sides of the stairs white.  We ended up having to remove the stairs when we coated our garage floor (more on that another day), but once the floor was done we reinstalled the stairs,  installed trim and painted the door Sherwin-Williams Iron Ore.   

 We also finally put together the two Gladiator shelves that we bought from Sear's more than two years ago.  They are super sturdy and perfect for maximizing vertical storage.  Our garage ceilings are 15 feet high making everything look miniature, but the shelves are actually a really good size.  I ended up buying 16 black storage totes from Walmart (I bought eight one week and eight a few weeks later to spread out the expense) and was able to fit four across each shelf perfectly.

I created labels using inexpensive adhesive label pockets and my label maker.  (I bought my label sleeves from the Target Dollar spot but here are similar ones I found)

It's so nice to finally have some of my things organized and put away.  I still have a lot of purging and organizing to do, but I finally feel like I'm making some headway.

We still have a lot to do in our garage, but this little update is bringing us one step closer to a neat and organized space.

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