Wow, yesterday actually went according to plan! This is a huge thing on a weekend day; we keep intending to do stuff around the house and then not getting it done because we sleep in or the weather doesn't comply or we find other things to do.
Yesterday, we dealt with most of the garage.
It's a 2-car garage, and it was chock full, stem to stern, top to bottom with boxes, furniture, and crap. Because I couldn't be here all day with the movers back in November, they had no idea what was supposed to go where, so everything just got shoved wherever. It was all backwards. And then in February, we were pretty much away for three days while I was painting at Wicked Faire for a weekend, and we came home to 2" of water in the basement from a busted hot water heater. Although the landlord fixed it almost immediately, some precious artwork was pretty much ruined, as were nearly all of Eric's books, and everything needed to be removed from the half-finished basement.
This, except for the lost art and books, turned out to be a blessing in disguise... everything moved to the garage, giving us an empty basement to work with and eventually forcing us to deal with it all.
On another occasion, a friend of mine came over and helped Eric moved furniture we wanted from the garage downstairs. So now the finished side has my old twin bed, one of my dressers, a love seat, a coffee table, a TV and TV stand, and some decoration. It's going to be like an extra TV room/guest suite. All that's left to go down officially is my other dresser and the mirror that goes over it. Eric's brother may come today to move that, since now most of the stuff is gone from in front of it and we can get to it.
Yesterday, Eric and I spent NINE HOURS out there - we were so glad the weather was nice and it was fairly cool - moving stuff around and organizing. We were able to stand up my two file cabinets, which the movers left on their sides, and put them against the wall, so I was able to put all of my old files and office supplies away, getting rid of a TON of boxes. We were able to carry a bookshelf of mine downstairs to the basement, allowing me to get rid of more boxes from the books that were just lying about. We were able to uncover my bicycle, flat tires and all. And we arranged my old ice cream table and chairs with my poker table top out there, for when Eric builds a bar in the garage. We even hung for the first time the dartboard I've owned for years now, previously without a place to put it. I found clothes that had never made it into the house, and brought them in. We examined everything to make a list for the renter's insurance to claim money from the February flood. We boxed and organaized stuff for our impending garage sale.
It was amazing. One side of the garage looks GREAT. There are just a few boxes, left, with books that we're moving downstairs to the shelf. The other side is nearly there. I honestly can't believe how much we got done. It feels really good. Really, really good.