Closing Up Shop (for Winter)

At some point at the beginning of the winter season here in the Upper Midwest (Rust Belt, Snow Belt, whatever you want to call it), it's necessary to put away all the warm-weather toys and hunker down by the fire and -- unless one is a child eager to build snowmen -- read a good book.

In prior years, the problem has been an overabundance of automobiles in the driveway for which there was no room in the garage. We like to keep the cars in the garage if possible to avoid long-term exposure to weather (snow, salt, rain, extreme cold), but over the past few years, too many of the non-functioning cars were taking up all the spare room in the garage.

Now that all the Subarus are gone, there is room for the Sonata, the Corolla, and (barely) the Grand Am.

If I am very careful.

It took me an entire day to reorganize things in the garage so that the Grand Am would actually fit, mainly due to the size of the larger tools (table saw, drill press, etc) taking up all the room at the far end. Then, of course, there's the rolling carts along the side. I was able to consolidate a lot of stuff in order to reduce the number of rolling carts needed, but the main issue is that there is only an inch of clearance on either side of the car (side mirror to rolling cart) so getting the car into the garage is a painstakingly slow affair. And there has to be enough room to open the car door and walk around one end of it or there's no point in even trying.

(Notice all my spare 2x4s underneath the car. That's my makeshift wood storage area!)

It's a tight fit, but it'll work for the winter.

And now the driveway is all clear!  Yay!

(Of course, this means I'll be doing a bit more snow shoveling this season....)