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15 October 2009

what's in your garage? [More:]
we have 37 bicycles in ours. that's right, I said THIRTY-SEVEN!

and about six hundred dead moths and several clumps of cat hair and various tools, camping gear, a few cans of paint and some skis but no car.

thank god VeloSwap is coming up is all I can say.
Two Hummers, a pile of blood diamonds and two over-the-top bridezilla weddings running on a 24/7 loop.
posted by mullacc 16 October | 01:05
Stuff.
posted by deborah 16 October | 01:22
Everything except a car. Because the driveway and garage were built to accommodate a Model T and my 1999 Corolla is two centimetres too big to squeeze down the side of the house. Our neighbour solved this by cutting off the side of his house so he could fit his pickup down the driveway and demolished and redid the garage. Personally, I'd rather buy a Mini.
posted by ninazer0 16 October | 01:24
I don't have one. I tried to see if the first floor owner would be willing to sell theirs, but they said no. (The garages are a bit strange here since they're transferred separately from whatever unit they're a part of. You also wind up with 2 separate property tax bills and you are fucked if you try to pay them with the same check/envelope.)

One of my garage pet peeves is someone who has a garage, but it's so full of stuff and so messy that they can't actually park in it. I'm a big believer in using garages for car storage AND hobbies/projects. Another GNAR that applies to here is when people don't park in their garage and take up spaces that are not the ones in front of their garage, since that leaves one less space for the garage-less in the complex. (Only the owner of a garage can park in the space in front of it. Unless you know the unit is vacant and then all bets are off.)
posted by sperose 16 October | 01:45
Hardly anything. My garage is just about big enough to get my car in. Unlike many of my neighbours, I don't use it as a storage space. I have enough junk as it is without filling the garage up with it as well. There's an old rake and a small ladder in there, a little metal shelving unit and about a million leaves that somehow manage to find their way in from the forest. That's why the rake is there.

Out of the 16 flats in our close, only three of us use our garages for our cars/motorcycles. The other neighbours bitch and moan about how hard it is for them to find a space to park their cars in the close, when it wasn't designed to have 16+ parking spaces. Well, duuuh!
posted by essexjan 16 October | 02:32
Not bodies, that's for sure. Why, who told you?
posted by Eideteker 16 October | 03:44
Ugh -- lots of junk. All the flotsam and jetsom from house painting, which is halfway done, and a beat up old sofa and recliner waiting for a trip to the dump, and an old bike, and a microwave I'm storing for a friend, and garden tools and planting stuff, and old license plates on the walls. Plus a garage door opener that doesn't work and is disconnected.
posted by JanetLand 16 October | 05:34
I don't have a garage. Why do you have so many bikes?
posted by Specklet 16 October | 06:14
Mostly Unbelievable Junk.
My comic book collection from the 60's and 70's.
My darkroom equipment from the 80's.
My Nordic Track from the 90's.
Lots of Miscellaneous stuff yet unpacked from our move here 6 years ago. Other boxes still unpacked from previous moves.
A push mower, a gas mower, a lawn tractor, a chain saw.
Detritus.
posted by DarkForest 16 October | 06:16
We have a one car garage and a parking slab, so we park are car on the slab, and the garage is my little workshop. So, it's filled with my tool carts, workbench, tools, and then all the extra stuff that doesn't make sense to store in the house (like bikes, strollers and the lawnmower).

Hopefully it never becomes just a storage space.
posted by drezdn 16 October | 06:22
Garage? We don't need no stinking garage.
posted by msali 16 October | 08:18
We have no garage, but in my parent's garage I have a horsehair chair (awaiting repairs) and 2 boxes of twelve-inches and 3 boxes of books and 1 box of vintage hats.
posted by crush-onastick 16 October | 08:23
I don't have a garage. Why do you have so many bikes?
posted by Specklet 16 October | 06:14

well it's a 1-car garage setup with a longish driveway and 3 bike racers in residence. The household has 2 cars that both live in the driveway (and only one car that actually runs worth a damn such that we drive it for the rare trips we use a car).

of the bikes, I own 6, mr lfr has 7 and our crazy courier roommate has a fluctuating number that's generally north of two dozen. They're various projects, like building cruisers and campus runabouts for friends and so on, plus he's been working part time at our sponsor shop so he does bike builds on weekends, then the shop guys swing by with their truck to pick up new builds on monday

If you've never lived with bike racers, it's pretty hard to explain why any individual would actually need more than one bike so I won't get into that.
posted by lonefrontranger 16 October | 08:39
Falcon Heene.
posted by AwkwardPause 16 October | 09:00
Two cars, a workbench, a bunch of shelving and about a half dozen bikes (to go with the three in my living room ;-)
posted by Doohickie 16 October | 09:24
All this talk of garages makes me sad. I lost my garage in the divorce I'm afraid, and I REALLY liked my garage. Mainly, as a place to keep my car, mind you, but I with these harsh Canadian winters, I sure did like NOT having to scrape, and shovel off a car. BOO to ex-wives who don't EVER CARE.
posted by richat 16 October | 09:33
3 bikes
1 unicycle
camping gear
ice chest
kindling including 2 cut-up christmas trees
lumber and other various building materials such as roofing tar and paint
power tools
hand tools
kayak and associated items
telescope
sawdust
all appearing as if someone activated the "mix randomly" button
posted by danf 16 October | 09:51
Mostly clutter, sorry sperose. Although the Civic we got my mom is actually more fittable than any other vehicle recently owned, so that should change, especially as we try to pare down stuff so eventually she can move out of this crappy neighborhood.

There's the wall of garden tools, the bench that should have been outside all summer, the gas grill, the recycling bins, the shelves full of camping gear and other assorted outside/yard/auto miscellany, the cabinet with all my mom's untouched-in-years gardening materiel. Hopefully for not much longer: the seats to the minivan that died (but they may have to be replaced by the snowblower that is now inside the minivan), and the dishwasher that goes into the kitchen when there's time. Probably not moving out soon: my nephew's 90% empty toolbox that he prizes as a rare gift from his legal dad (my brother), and about 15 boxes of books and papers from my mom's old job that she has to go through. Oh, and my three bikes, only one of them truly operational, my nephew's three bikes, and a scooter or two.
posted by dhartung 16 October | 10:00
I want to see a picture of danf on his unicycle.
posted by essexjan 16 October | 10:11
I don't really have a garage. I have a couple of ridiculously small "carports*," so narrow that even the larger of the two won't fit more than the nose of my newest addition: a 1986 Toyota Corolla CS-X hatchback.

Her name is Queen Latifah, a name given her by the previous owner. (Who, I might mention, is in her late 50s or perhaps early 60s)

Alas, I have a sinking feeling that this car is going to give me no end of troubles, in a very sitcom-y way. I feel I should probably start a blog about it, but can't think of a suitably witty name for it. (The purpose of this blog, let's be honest, would be simply to record this experience so that one day, when I'm done being furious about my broken car, I can laugh at it.)

I mean, the car dies if I turn the lights on. And when you drive in a straight line, the steering wheel sits at a 15-degree angle to the right. The owner's manual specifies that it needs leaded gasoline, which isn't even sold here anymore. I really think this will not wendell.

* Translated: a sheet of corrugated plastic placed on top of four metal poles, with another bit of plastic in the middle to separate it into two spaces.
posted by po 16 October | 10:42
and our crazy courier roommate has a fluctuating number that's generally north of two dozen. They're various projects, like building cruisers and campus runabouts for friends and so on...

Wait... Is his name Jon Grinder?

If you've never lived with bike racers, it's pretty hard to explain why any individual would actually need more than one bike so I won't get into that.

I'm not even a racer and I've got 4 regular riders (from four different decades, by the way; the newest is 15 years old). I have a fairly modern hybrid for commuting, an 80s bike boom racer, a 70s era Schwinn and a 1960s Raleigh 3-speed.
posted by Doohickie 16 October | 10:55
I want to see a picture of danf on his unicycle.


Actually there are 2 unicycles in the garage, and both belong to daughter, who used to juggle while riding. It would not be pretty if I got on one of them.
posted by danf 16 October | 11:20
Two bikes
Tobacco kiln
Tobacco hanging and curing
Two shovels, a rake, a Japanese saw
Some other tools
And probably more tools
posted by birdie 16 October | 11:57
Myself.

Okay, I don't quite live in a garage, but any of you who've seen my place will understand what I'm getting at.

Properly speaking, I don't have a garage. In fact, I've never lived in a place with a garage.
posted by tangerine 16 October | 12:14
My wife made me get rid of several bikes so we only have 4. These are in the hallway, which is in some respects like a garage for bicycles.
posted by Obscure Reference 16 October | 15:04
Ours was converted to a bedroom, which is good because we've got some of the cheapest rent in town, but bad in that it leaves my poor bikes unsheltered.

On the quantity of bikes: As a non-racing bicyclist, I have:
*the recumbent (for touring)
*the green bike I tore apart, scrubbed the rust off, and painted green (for around town)
*the yellow schwinn varsity is a guest bike. (How is anyone supposed to believe biking is practical if they show up and can't get from A to B (where A and B are far enough apart)?)
*Tijuana Brass (probably a Bianchi): bike-sitting for a friend who is in Mexico for a few months
*a few bike frames because somebody promised to help me build a bike trailer
*a functioning bike trailer (How is anyone supposed to believe bicycling is practical as a lifestyle if they can't schlep their stuff from A to B (where A and B are far enough apart)?)

back to the garage thing. We have a shed-sized space that was left unconverted. In it, there are garden tools, power tools, washer & dryer (but we have a clothesline!), the recumbent, camping stuff, and whatever my roommates keep in their shelving space.
posted by aniola 16 October | 18:33
A whole lot of duck hunting gear. Also, a whole lot of beer brewing and wine making gear. And golf clubs. Pretty much all of the accoutrements of my SOs many hobbies laid down in sedimentary layers because he simply refuses to get rid of anything. Sometimes I hope someone will come in the middle of the night and steal it all.

Oy. I may be a little bitter about having to park in the driveway.
posted by jamaro 16 October | 19:34
OMG... Bunny? || Photo Friday : Fall

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