The Password is...Fabulous. Fabulous. Ready?

Now that my garage is clean (pictures coming soon) I thought you might like to see some of the stuff contributing to its former cluttered state. This is the good clutter, not the bad clutter. No one wants to see that.

One of the things I pulled from the garage abyss was the last box full of the greatest gift (other than my daughter) that my husband ever gave me. Gifts are not my love language and they're not Jayson's either so we rarely ever exchange gifts for any reason. My love language is acts of service and I can't even think about that without thinking of Rosie O'Donnell's really bad character in the really bad movie Exit to Eden. The only thing I can remember about the movie, other than the image of Rosie O'Donnell dressed as a dominatrix which is burned into my retinas, is when her sex slave asks how he can fulfill her fantasies. She replies, "Go paint my house."  Yeah baby, THAT'S my kinda love!

Is it bad that I connect my love language from Gary Chapman's book to a really bad S & M movie based on a book written by Anne Rice? I didn't think so either.

Anyway, this is one gift that has kept on giving. Several years ago, I can't remember exactly how many but it's been a lot, Jayson came home from work with several large boxes full of these little clear plastic boxes. They were used in the warehouse at work to store small parts and they were changing to a different storage method so my sweet husband saved these from the dumpster and brought them home for me. I really do love it when he brings me trash.

They're in rough shape because they're really dirty from being stacked in a warehouse and their cheesy labels are just about flaking off. But, of course, the label adhesive remains firmly attached to the box which means I not only have to wash the boxes but also Goo Gone the label gunk. I don't know how many hundreds of these boxes I have, and use, but this final stash had about 180 little boxes in it.

I finally finished the tedious process of peeling off the labels, de-gunking the label glue and anything else that was greasy, then washing all the boxes and lids. I will use these in my art room for beads and little doodads. Once we get moved into the new house, maybe I can find some kind of super awesome shelves at IKEA that these boxes will fit in perfectly so they can not only store but display their contents.

I even kept some of the yucky labels that I peeled off because they're so worn and weathered that they look old even though they're not. Well, they're like 20 years old but I'm at the age now where that's practically newborn. I saved them to use in some kind of future collagie project.

This next thing used to be a tall chester drawers (that makes me laugh) that belonged to my Great Grandmother. It went through a house fire about 10 years ago and the top section of drawers didn't survive. The bottom one did as well as the dresser top and some pieces from either the sides or back, I can't remember which. I'm planning (still) to make a blanket chest out of it by attaching the top to the remaining drawer and using the other two pieces to make a new back for it. It will be fabulous. Eventually.

The dresser has a matching bed that I'm using as my guest bed and also this matching vanity table. I just love these and I see them all over Craigslist for really cheap. I don't know why they're not more popular. This one has 2 small broken pieces that just need to be reattached then it's ready to rock and roll.

I kept the knobs off the dresser drawers that didn't survive but I don't know what I'll do with them. Again, I'm sure it will be fabulous.

I also have the mirror that attaches to the vanity. It's a large oval shape and is beautifully tarnished and worn. Most of the damage caused by a house fire is not from the fire but from the smoke and all the water the fire department uses to put it out. After my Grandmother's house burned, my sister and I were able to find lots of different products and tricks that helped us to save some of the things that might otherwise have been considered too damaged. We became best friends with products like Odo Ban, Thunder Blast, Greased Lightening, and sandpaper. You *can* get the smoke smell out of linens and wood and you *can* get water damaged wood back into usable condition with some effort. When it comes to heirlooms like this, they're worth the effort.

 This is just Jayson's old rusty axe. It's in such bad shape that it's probably unusable for its intended purpose but I think it's just beautiful! I love, love, love rusty metal!

This is what's left of the card catalogs I bought at a city auction about a hundred years ago. Or maybe 15. I bought this section along with 2 other full size (like taller than me) sections for 50 bucks. This was before everyone else discovered how cool card catalogs are. But I knew. The downside is that they're big, solid wood and extremely heavy. When a year or two passed and I hadn't done anything with them Jayson said the big ones had to go because they were taking up too much space. I really can't remember what we did with them, it was probably so traumatic that I've blocked it from my mind. Knowing us we gave them away. That's okay, I have my little section which will be much easier for me to refinish on my own.

So that's some of my good junk. It may look like trash to you but I do have plans for all of it. Sometimes my plans take years to come to fruition but eventually they do get done. And once they get done they're...what? That's right. Fabulous.