Garage Space
There is a war waging in our homes. Battles are won and lost on a daily basis but the war continues. The war is for garage space and the enemy is life.
Let me get this out of the way first. Not everyone has a garage. Those who don’t will likely respond to this topic with thoughts along the lines of ‘it must be nice to have those problems.’ Yes. Yes it is. It is a problem I don’t mind having with the alternative being not having a garage but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
The garage of a young bachelor. Those were the days. I never should have sold that Z1000 but I needed the money.
There was a time when I had a 3-car garage and lived alone in a house that was mostly empty. I picked it up cheap as a short sale after the 2008 housing collapse. I didn’t even have curtains, using the bachelor special of bed sheets in the windows. Looking back, that really spoiled me. Even with a mostly empty garage and the 3rd car converted to workshop space, I still disassembled a KLR650 in my dining room because it was warmer in the Winter.
If they didn’t make the house to work on a bike, why are there french doors that let me bring the bike in? At least I put cardboard down.
Fast forward 10 years and a few houses later. So much has changed. Mrs. Bald Rider and I share a 2-car garage. Fitting a car in there is impossible. Motorcycles are on the street because the season of decorating is upon us. Between Halloween, Autumn and Christmas, there are a ton of decorations that need to be pulled out and put back. No room for vehicles that the garage is meant for. We used to have a storage unit for the decorations but ExtraSpace Storage decided to double our monthly rent and it had to go. $300+/month for a unit is outrageous.
It isn’t just decorations, though. Every time the garage is reorganized and room is made to put the bikes in, it fills up with random life stuff again. Backup generators for the numerous power outages we get every year, snow blower for stupid white stuff and various other seasonal things take up space. Camping gear seems to multiply on its own. Sometimes I feel like I need to let Marie Kondo loose in there.
Perhaps if I didn’t have more spare tires than is probably reasonable, cabinets full of motorcycle consumables and parts (oil, filters, cables, brake pads, OEM parts, etc), cleaning supplies and helmets there would be more room. Can’t say for sure. That’s what a garage is supposed to have in it, though.
Space only seems to become available for motorcycles when snow is in the forecast. Street parking is prohibited in mountain areas during snowstorms where I live.
The only way to win this war is to acquire a warehouse or aircraft hanger and stick to storing vehicle-related items only. I don’t have the property to put one up nor the money to buy one. That only leaves winning the lottery, going in with others to co-purchase/rent space or starting an OnlyFans as options. Maybe I could buy a storage facility and make others pay exorbitant fees for monthly rent.
I suppose I could try to get monetized on YouTube. That would require me to actually post videos more often than once every 3 months, though.