Vent: So I was organizing my garage and now I have a random pile of 'maybe useful' stuff that's taking over. What do you do with all the weird leftover bits from projects?

6 comments

6 Comments

My friend Tom in Austin had a whole shelf of leftover plumbing fittings. He finally sorted them into labeled bags and gave them to a community workshop. It cleared space and his odd bits actually helped a neighbor fix a leak!

ray9144d ago

Is organizing leftover fittings that big a deal? @mila_mitchell's bin idea works without making it a whole project. I'd maybe just keep a few useful bits and recycle the rest.

mila_mitchell4d ago

What kind of stuff are we talking about here? My method is get a couple plastic bins, label them like 'electrical', 'fasteners', 'plumbing', and just dump the categories in. For tiny bits like screws, old pill bottles are perfect. If a bin fills up, I force myself to give away or recycle the oldest things in it.

lee_west224d ago

Your labeled bin idea is spot on. I used old coffee cans for my hardware, and once I sorted it, I found I had duplicates of everything.

aarons364d ago

Just bin it. Seriously, I feel this. My garage is a disaster zone too. @palmer.betty's friend had the right idea donating to a workshop. I keep a couple bins for common bits, but if they pile up, I trash or give away. It's tough to let go, but space is worth more than maybe useful junk.

betty_scott184d ago

My neighbor kept a bucket of weird brackets for years. He finally used three to fix a sagging gate last month. I guess he took it as a sign to keep the bucket.