Messy Garage 2008 Results
Click here to see before and afterphotos! (JavaScript must be enabled.)
Messy Garage II: The Big Dig
By Erinn Fleming
The Olympian
Domenico and Susan Spatola-Knoll of Olympia were fully aware they had a messy garage. It didn't happen overnight. It didn't simply spring from mid-air then land haphazardly strewn in an ugly, amorphous jumble on the garage floor. And it certainly didn't come as a surprise.
But Domenico and Susan didn't pull their hair out over the mess. They didn't hang their heads in shame or make excuses. It wasn't a secret burden they carried with them — wishing, hoping that it would just go away.
"There is a point when the garage becomes such a mess," Domenico said, "it doesn't really make a difference."
Instead, the accumulated mess was more pesky guest who overstayed his welcome — harmless and affable, but bothersome nonetheless.
They had attempted to manage the muddle several times through the years but, as Susan described, the efforts would only skim the top layer of debris.
"It was like an archeological dig," she said, "you just had to keep digging down through the layers."
By the time The Olympian announced its second annual Messy Garage Contest in late spring 2008, the layers in the Spatola-Knoll garage had reached new heights, and Domenico and Susan had finally reached wits end.
"This is how bad it got," Domenico said. "I had to mow the front yard but I couldn't get to the lawn mower. It was just easier to hire the boy down the street."
Susan maintained that it was Domenico's responsibility to clean out the garage; so facing the mounting chaos within, and the thought that he may never get to see his lawn mower again, he began a worldwide campaign to win the contest.
They both have friends and family living all over the country and all over the world, in addition to their friends and neighbors here in Thurston County, and when Domenico put out the S.O.S, they kindly responded — en force.
The Spatola-Knoll garage won by a landslide and would get the make over it most definitely needed.
When Elain Carroll, the makeover guru, a professional organizer and owner of Habitat For Your Sanity, arrived early Saturday, August 2, she brought her team of volunteers for the day — Jeff Rice, Andrea Lloyd, Amber Layes, business partner Cameron Dalmas and contractor Jim Asher — and a plan for serious change.
"I told them [the Spatola-Knolls] we were going to be moving fast, to make quick decisions and to be prepared to get rid of a lot of stuff," she said. "Often people need permission to throw things away, our entire objective is to make that as comfortable as possible."
It would take just an hour and-a-half to free the garage from clutter's clutches, from its 14-year occupation. The empty (boxes, boxes, boxes), the unnecessary (child cars seats, long since abandoned by a teenaged son and daughter), the unfurled (extension chords) and forgotten (23 boxes containing the instruments and implements of Domenico's days as a schoolteacher) that was thrown, stacked, tossed aside and tossed asunder in the garage had either been removed completely or scaled down to an orderly and manageable size. Josh Beard, operations manager for the local 1-800-Got-Junk? franchise, and coworker Nick Mehr were on hand with a 15-yard dump truck to haul away all of those discarded and needless bits and pieces that had been accumulating, taking up space and sitting idle in the Spatola-Knoll's garage.
The clearing out and cleaning up was more overwhelming for Domenico (as much of the stuff being thrown out was his) than it was for Susan. She was ready "to lighten up," but it took him some time to get into the spirit ("It was really good stuff," he explained).
"After awhile I got into a flow. Getting rid of all the stuff taking up space in your life is liberating, it's one less thing to have to deal with," he said.
For people like the Spatola-Knolls who need a little help getting rid of 'the stuff,' Carroll is more than a voice a reason; she is a beacon of hope.
"We hold onto the past, think about the future and give up on the now," she said. "Holding onto things is warding off the fear of not being prepared, the 'I might need it someday feeling.' We have to get past that idea about not being prepared because we're living in the past and the future, not in the here and now, and we're really missing out on all of the things we can do today."
Today, nearly two weeks after the full-scale excavation/garage makeover, Domenico and Susan are seeing the potential and possibility of a mess free space — and so are the kids. Though their ideas about how to use the new space may be a bit more untraditional than their parents', (for a garage band, a string quartet, as a party room complete with glittering disco ball borrowed from the basement), it's clear that the whole family is happy about the change and ready to enjoy and embrace what had been there all along.
"I had no idea that people would organize, too, I just thought they would take away the trash — this was so much bigger than we first thought," Susan said. "Everyone did way beyond what we ever expected. It [the makeover] was fun, and now we have this great garage!"
In addition to Carroll's mentoring, the Habitat For Your Sanity makeover and the services of 1-800-Got Junk?, the Spatola-Knolls received one thousand dollars from Fred Meyer for everything needed to keep a garage in order, a one thousand dollar gas card and two fire extinguishers donated by the Olympia Auto Mall and one thousand dollars in building materials donated by ProBuild, which was put to good use by Asher for the built-in, enclosed shelves that now contain the odds and ends that once were scattered.
For more information about event sponsors: Habitat For Your Sanity, visit www.habitatforyoursanity.com or call (360) 866-0928; 1-800-Got-Junk?, call 1-800-Got-Junk (800-468-5865) or visit www.1800gotjunk.com; the Olympia Auto Mall, visit www.olympiaautomall.net; and ProBuild, visit www.probuild.com. Local Fred Meyer stores are located at 700 Sleater-Kinney Road SE in Lacey and at 555 Trosper Road SW in Tumwater.