In February of this year when we moved into our new home in Virginia we had just finished up a two day trek from Columbus, Mississippi. Stephen drove a big U-Haul with all of our things and I drove our car with our newborn, two toddlers, two dogs, and one of my best friends, McKenna, who joined us for the “fun”. In all seriousness though, we could not have survived that trip without her help. She’s a true angel! When we arrived, we (meaning Stephen, McKenna, and one of our other best friends, Philip) quickly started unloading the truck into the garage. Months later not only had we not gotten to organizing all of our things in there but we were also housing baby chicks that soon grew into teenage chickens until we could get them into their coop. It was a mess, there was quite literally poop on the garage floor, and it stunk.

Since the garage doubles as our workout space and we of course walk through it multiple times a day, Stephen kept mentioning how he wanted to clean it up so we came up with a plan (you can read about it HERE), set the date on the calendar, and got to work. Bright and early a few Saturdays ago, we removed every single thing from the garage and scrubbed it down from top to bottom. But when you give a mouse a cookie… 

Everything was already out of the garage so I said to Stephen, “Let’s just paint it!” I knew it would look so much better but also, ha… Jokes on you, Jordan. Two weeks later and a lot of hard work and I can confirm it looks SO MUCH BETTER! I’m so excited about it and makes us so happy whenever we’re in there! Is hard work ever wasted? That’s a question I pondered over a lot these past few weeks.

We moved everything back into the center of the garage, went out for burgers, and went to Home Depot to pick up some paint. I wanted the color Iron Ore from Sherwin Williams (which I know would be a winner because we used it here and here!) color matched for Behr paint (which I love!) but the woman behind the counter couldn’t figure it out in the computer so I figured, “It isn’t a big deal. It’s just a garage!” and I picked one of the Behr colors, Berry Brown. We brought it home and once the kids were asleep, I started painting. Within about half an hour I started to regret my decision. It looked way too brown and it felt like it would age the space which it definitely didn’t need. I decided to let it dry in hope that I’d love the color in the morning. Spoiler alert: that didn’t happen.

I swallowed my pride, went and got a paint swatch of Iron Ore at Lowe’s and went back to Home Depot to get a can of Iron Ore. I liked it on the walls at first stroke! I spent the next couple of weeks painting every inch of the garage – the ceiling, trim, doors, and walls.

My mom even joined in on the fun. I’m so grateful for her help and eye! The great part about painting over white with a dark color is that you can see every missed spot. The worst part is that you can see every missed spot. Ha! I debated on painting the area behind the furnace just because it was going to be such a pain in the butt. My mom agreed it needed to be done and crawled her way back there. She’s a boss. I’m grateful for her! We both agreed it looks so much better.

As soon as my mom saw the garage door she commented, “You’re going to paint the hardware right?” I laughed. I wasn’t planning on it but that night at midnight what were my mom and I doing? Painting the hardware flat black (we used this paint), of course.

I gave the utility sink a good scrub with some Bar Keepers Friend and lastly, I removed the old stair runner, sewed a new window curtain, and painted the stairs, which I think makes it all look SO much better!

We organized all of our things, bought a used treadmill off of marketplace, and attached our mats to the ground using this tape (a common way CrossFit gyms do this!). We still have a few more things we plan to add but man it makes us SO HAPPY to be in here! I recently heard of this “method” recently from Dr. Gary Brecka in which you consume 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up followed by 30 minutes of steady state cardio below 135 bpm. Along with that, Brooke from @nestingwithgrace, has shared how she’s been doing 30 minutes of incline walk every morning. Now that my sleep schedule is getting a tad better, hearing both of those just make me want to join in on the fun. It’s hard enough that it gives me a good burn but it also lets me ease into doing a high volume workout early in the morning. I got these new womens running shoes (boosts have been my favorites for the past decade!) and THEY ARE CLOUDS. I’ve had probably 7+ various pairs of boosts and have run probably about 10+ marathons in them but these by far are my absolute favorite. Admittedly I got these in white to be my “nice sneakers” but I predict they will inevitably become my new favorite “incline walk” shoes. They’re hard to resist, they’re so comfy. I’ll keep you updated on this whole walking “thing”. I will say it kicked my butt the other day, in a great way!

Some may say that all of this work for a garage was silly but I don’t regret it one bit. Also, I want to add this last thing… I could’ve taken all of the “non-aesthetic” stuff out of here and it would’ve looked even better but guess what? THAT ISN’T REAL LIFE. Don’t be fooled by what you see on the internet, you hear? I do think though that some hanging string lights could make this even better though…