Spring Cleaning- Attic Style

I was given quite the spring cleaning challenge this year! Cleaning out the attic of an entire family. Luckily my own family, or that would have be an impossible challenge. That means 30+ years of marriage (my parents) and two grown children's (my brother & I) worth of boxes, and all of the sentimental kiche that comes with. My parents are always complaining that I have so much stuff in their attic, and well, I admit-I do. But I also found out they have a lot more.

I'm preparing for a garage sale in a few weeks and I wanted to dig out all of those items to sale. I'm also throwing out loads of stuff in the process that we don't need, and sending some of it to goodwill.

Tip #1- Put any old clothing in a garbage bag and get rid of it! Unless you have recent or expensive, quality clothing- it's best to bag it up for Goodwill. It's difficult to sale all of your unwanted clothes at a garage sale. If I do, I put them in a box and say anything in the box, $1 each. Try to think of anyone or any other charities that could use those bags of clothing. It may make you feel better that someone will be given these items instead of having to purchase them from Goodwill.

Before Shot

I can't show you an actual panorama shot but you get the idea. Just imagine stuff piled up with absolutely no pathway. Do you see all of my mother's Christmas stuff? It's out of control and taking up at least 50% of the attic space. Also my dad has a bad habit of putting stuff right at the door and not organizing it. Gosh, I hope my organizing doesn't come undone within months.

Tip #2- Create a path if one doesn't exist. I literally had to start sorting and throwing out as I entered. We have some hard to get to space that wasn't being used and I began clearing a path to it. I pulled out anything blocking the way and began using this space for anything we wouldn't touch for a while.



Garage Sale area



On one side in a small area I began clearing out a space for what would be my "garage sale only" side. (Somehow one of my brother's racing trophys got stuck over there for the picture.) Luckily most of it could stay put. This now provides me a space to put these items as I move along through the rest of the madness. I came across a lot of "keepsakes" which then created a whole other section called "keepsakes" (duh).

I tackled one section at a time, slowly moving along the wall... clearing out and organizing. Going through the items is the tough part. When you haven't seen something for a while, it's easy to sit and reminise. That's the great thing about the "keepsake" section. I can move it there and go through it another day.

It took several weekends but I finally got it finished this past weekend, just in time for the May garage sales I have planned with my aunt. With our attic, it's not protected from the heat/cold so working in the attic only happened when the weather was between 50 and 70 degrees. This is really the only comfortable times to be in there so that's why I couldn't work in it every weekend.


Once all was said in done, I had a large area for garage sale to the left of the door, a clear area in front of  the door, keepsakes on the back wall, and christmas stuff to the right. I have temporarily placed my belongings that will move out with me and my husband (hopefully, soon) in front of the Christmas stuff in an easy to get to location.

It may not be the cleanest attic but it is now organized!