Garage Overhaul

For the past several weeks I had been racking my brain trying to think of something special to do for Drew's Father's Day gift. I know he would be completely fine with only a card, but he deserves more than that. I wanted to do something big! Well, sort of. Something big on a budget.

Somehow I came up with the idea of redoing our garage. It desperately needed it, too. We didn't do a thing to it when we moved in 4 years ago, so it was in sad shape. The ceiling had mildew spots all over it, the walls were painted a dark, dreary brown color, and it was just an overall disorganized mess. It was so embarrassing that every time we were expecting company, we'd close the garage and make them come through the front door so they wouldn't have to tread their way through the nasty, cobwebbed, dingy, dirty garage of doom.

I called my sister and asked if she'd be willing to help me, and she graciously accepted the challenge. Then I began this overhauling by scouring over Pinterest. Of course. I found so many awesome organizational ideas, and that's when I came across the Rubbermaid Fast Tracks. It's basically a rail mounted to your wall and it comes with all different sized hooks to hang things up. I knew I had to get me some of these. So last week I went to Home Depot while Drew was at work and picked up these Fast Tracks and I also got a big metal shelving unit for storage. I hid everything in Pappy and Annie's shop so Drew wouldn't have a clue.

Then on Monday, I went to pick up the paint. I hadn't mentioned any of this to Livy for obvious reasons. I didn't want her spoiling the surprise! She heard me talking about it at the paint store, so I figured I better explain it to her.

"We're going to paint the garage and fix it up for Daddy as a surprise, so you can't tell him about it. Ok?"
"Ok."
"I mean it, you can't tell Daddy anything! It's going to be a surprise!"
"Ok, I won't."

When we got home from the paint store, I hid all the paint supplies in Charlotte's closet. I wanted to remind her about keeping quiet just in case...
"Now remember, it's a surprise, so you can't say anything about this to Daddy."
"I won't."

"Good."

"I'll just say 'Hey Daddy, Mama has something verrrrrrry special for you!'"
"No!! You can't even say that! Just don't say anything about it."

Later on that evening Drew got home and while we were all hanging out in the living room, he just casually asked Livy what she did that day...
"We went to the paint store!"
I just shook my head. I knew she was gonna blow it!

"Oh really?"

"Yep! But I can't say anything else!"

At this point, Drew and I were both trying not to crack up. He asked me,

"So do I need to keep asking her questions?"

"No! Just stop. I don't know what she'll say."

Then Livy said,

"It's a surprise. So don't look in there."

"Don't look in where?"

She cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered, "In the closet!!!"

We lost it. I'm pretty sure we both had tears in our eyes we were laughing so hard. Lesson learned. Don't tell your 3 year old something that needs to be kept a secret! Thankfully, Drew didn't do much digging to figure out what we had up our sleeves, or in the closet, rather.

Lori came down Monday afternoon, and we woke up bright and early the next morning to get started on it. Annie kept the girls most of the day so we could work. We cleared out the garage, painted the entire thing, and reorganized it all. I hung up a "Happy Father's Day!" sign so it'd be the first thing Drew saw when he opened the garage. It took nearly all day to get it done, but when he came home and saw it, it was all worth it. We had pulled off the surprise and he loved it!