Morris Minor Owners Club

I aim to do it the other way round, keep what I want in the small box and get rid of the shed load. Not easy though !

You will never have enough space no matter how big your shed is. I know the problem well.

Ditto , feel sorry for the wife if/when I pass away...

Maybe I should do something about it beforehand...

John ;-)

I have had stuff for years and never used it, all this, well it might come in handy one day, has been my general excuse. If I do find it is needed years into the future, I’ll buy another one. Something else that often happens is having two or more of everything. I must have loads of 5/16 drills. It’s going to be easier to be organised with less. I’ve seen some garages with stuff thrown around like horse ———- in a farm yard, simply because there is too much. Of course it doesn’t worry everyone but I’m on a mission ! Whoever is left will only need a small skip when I’m gone. I’m breathing easier already !

Confession - Apart from my garage, 3 sheds, and a space behind the fence at the top of the garden that my dear wife knows about, I unbeknownst to her, rent a 40ft container about half a mile away. Being of a certain age, apart from my will, I write useful stuff in one of those 'Oh sh1t, I'm dead what now?' books you can buy and it's written in that about it, so technically she can't say she didn't know!

I'm loving the secret 40 foot container!

We have a large double garage with a very high roof so about 10 years ago I added a home-made "mezzanine" level. I didn't touch the roof structure at all and I built 2 rows of shelves down each side in between the rafters, the low shelf is very wide and the higher one quite narrow. That worked brilliantly for a few years, a place for everything and everything in its place. But you all know where this tale is heading. The shelves are now bulging, there is stuff stacked in front of them and there is more stuff stacked on top of that. Downstairs is the same, with stuff "temporarily" stacked against the side of the stairs ready to be taken upstairs and, erm, stored neatly. If I owned another garage it would be the same. If I owned a barn I would own more broken vehicles and machinery.

I mostly don't mind the mess but it is quite frustrating when you know you have a particular tool or gadget but not be able to find it.

Well I think you’ve said it, you mostly don’t mind the mess and I presume there are others, then this subject is of no concern.
I like to know what I’ve got and where it is, I think tidy, organised and less of it is the way to achieve this. We all live in different ways, if one is happy with their lifestyle and it doesn’t affect others then so be it. I’m not here to preach.

Its not "crap" its "resource awaiting allocation".

It will all come in handy one day.

How many times have I thrown things away or let them go only to want them the next week? The answers - lots of times.
I could kick myself for letting a modified Ital rear axle go as I would love to fit that Ital rear axle with hubs that have the Minor PCD.

On the subject of workshops - I have just had the fluorescent strip lights in the workshop replaced with LED items of the same 5ft length . I cannot get over how much brighter the lighting is in the workshop.
I will now be able to spent more time in the workshop subject to the wife allowing me.

In my case it’s not just auto parts. It’s potential materials for grandiose dream projects. Such as several hundred feet of stainless steel tubing that could become a Locost or a birdcage Maserati frame. Or a pile of elm planks in the attic that I bought because elm is rare and it was cheap.
I desperately want to escape from new york but the thought of sorting, disposing, or moving 50 years of accumulated “stuff” is just overwhelming.
I’ve had the same experience of watching the garbage truck turn the corner at the end of the street and realise I needed something I had just thrown away.

philthehill wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2026 5:00 pm It will all come in handy one day.

How many times have I thrown things away or let them go only to want them the next week? The answers - lots of times.
I could kick myself for letting a modified Ital rear axle go as I would love to fit that Ital rear axle with hubs that have the Minor PCD.

On the subject of workshops - I have just had the fluorescent strip lights in the workshop replaced with LED items of the same 5ft length . I cannot get over how much brighter the lighting is in the workshop.
I will now be able to spent more time in the workshop subject to the wife allowing me.

I fitted LED strip lights instead of long fluorescent tubes in my garage. It is so much better and it was also easy to do.

Stephenn

last week a mate needed a piece of ally,

went in the garage and found a selection,

reckon it was there ten years

Yes that’s another thing, keep tripping over stuff for years, then end up giving it away. Well, I want to do that before many more years have past.

Love this post - I'm not alone!
Worse thing I did years ago was fully floor out our large loft, we can now put stuff anywhere! I've had a 1098 engine, 2 gear boxes and loads of 'spares' up there - was stronger then!

Alan

A few years ago I had a really big sort out. I bought a load of black plastic storage boxes and I used my labelling machine to make labels for what was in the boxes. It has made a huge difference. I become extremely annoyed and irritated when a 10 minute job becomes 2 hours because I can't find a tool or a part that I know I have. I also hate buying another tool or part when I know I have them already. It's such a waste of money. Unfortunately, my dreadful inattention and tendency to make careless mistakes means I still loose things I had just seconds before so that hasn't changed.

Stephen

My garage (double), but only accommodates the Minor, is full of spares, tools and "stuff". e.g. 4 x C40 dynamos, 2 or 3 x 25D4 distributors, could be 4, that's how disorganised I am.
Hopefully, without being too morbid, I don't envy my offspring when I eventually pop my clogs.
I could, no doubt, sell/dispose of some, but I'm really reluctant to unhoard (not a word)!

This is the question, Is it best to be tidy and organised or the opposite ? I can think of advantages of the former, can anyone think of advantages of the latter ? The point being if there are no advantages why tolerate that option. Pity we haven’t got a trick cyclist on the forum ! Then it would get interesting.

les wrote: ↑Wed Aug 12, 2026 10:43 am This is the question, Is it best to be tidy and organised or the opposite ? I can think of advantages of the former, can anyone think of advantages of the latter ? The point being if there are no advantages why tolerate that option. Pity we haven’t got a trick cyclist on the forum ! Then it would get interesting.

They may be a psychiatrist on the forum, right under your nose for years.........

An advantage of the garage being a disorganised mess is that if anybody breaks in, they will have a really hard job finding anything worth stealing! One the other hand, they may just tear the place to pieces looking. Unlikely, thieves are usually in a hurry.

Stephen

I’ve never been an organizer. Until recently I could always remember where I stuffed anything away. Just a few years ago someone on the Elva forum asked about license plate brackets and I was able to immediately dig mine out from where I stuffed it thirty years ago. Now I loose tools Ive stuffed into my back pocket.
I guess there was some time and step savings not having to put something away in the proper place. At least as long as the brain worked. Computer RAM vs ROM?
Anyway my son tells me I need to get a dumpster. My daughter says she is just going to burn the house down when I die. She doesn’t say anything about leaving me in it and saving funeral expenses.