My friend Jonas is a professional custom storage designer. No, I’m not talking IT – he doesn’t work doing RAID 5 or some other computer storage niche. I’m talking about the type of storage engineer that works with their hands, with actual pieces of wood, and power tools that get the job done and put it all together.
Now, I don’t mean to rain on his parade, but over the years, I’ve heard my share of lectures on how my garage is full of bunk storage and he could really help me fix this by installing a custom garage storage system. He’s a friend, so he’d even do it at cost.
But the truth is – well, it’s not necessary. Let me explain.
The Things You Own, End Up Owning You…
Isn’t it funny how the more you own, the more you need to buy to manage the things you own? At the same time, you also get to devote more mental energy towards organizing these things and deciding what to do with them. Does this make sense? Why do we do this to ourselves?
Yes, I have a garage. And yes, I have some things in there. But my goal isn’t to have one of these utopian garage storage systems. It’s to own only what I need!
Jonas would say he always tells customers first to get rid of everything that’s taking up space in their garage, but, the truth is, if we all did that, most of the companies making stuff designed as “garage storage tools” wouldn’t be needed anymore. Our trash is their treasure, in a round about way.
What’s In My Garage
My garage at the moment is fairly simple. I’ve got a bike. With it, there’s a garage storage bike rack. Makes sense, right! I’ve also got a DIY screen printing set up, and for this, there’s a desk and a cabinet for all my things. Other than that, I’ve got a couch and a bookshelf with a bunch of old punk rock zines and magazines. That’s it. Nothing mounted to my ceiling, nothing installed coming out of the wall, no cabinets with fancy locking mechanisms to hide some scary hazardous chemicals I wouldn’t want in here any way (and which would offer less protection than securing your garage doors in the first place). Also, nothing that might need protection from the elements which of course then gets us on to the topic of garage door insulation kits.
Keeping life simple is usually a lot easier than trying to simplify a mountain of consumerist toys that you only own because Mother Culture promotes the idea of ownership.
For me, I’ll keep my couch, my bike rack, my book shelf, my cabinet, and you can keep your garage storage systems, thank you!
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My friend Jonas is a professional custom storage designer. No, I’m not talking IT – he doesn’t work doing RAID 5 or some other computer storage niche. I’m talking about the type of storage engineer that works with their hands, with actual pieces of wood, and power tools that get the job done and put [...]