This shop is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group® and Rubbermaid, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #FastTrack. See more.

This week marks our one year anniversary as homeowners! Before we moved in we walked the entire house, inside and out, making a mega to-do list. The first round of that list had anything and everything we wanted, needed and hoped to one day do to improve the house. I believe that first document has 72 line-items.

Originally we thought we’d do one major project per month so that we could get through our entire list in the first year. The day we signed the closing papers, the guys started demoing the master bath. Nothing like breaking out a sledge hammer to officially feel like a home owner, ehh?

For those of you who own homes, you probably laughed at our plan to do one project per month. That mega list, is still sitting in it’s virtual form. Aside from an amazing master bath remodel, we haven’t tackled any of the other tasks. Something about life, work and necessary repairs took precedence over our wishlist. For a few weeks we’ve been planning to start on the garage.

We have some grand plans for the entire garage and attic area. But as you can imagine, grand plans require grand budgets. So, we decided to start small. If we can get some of the basics covered as part of phase 1, then we’ll have a better idea of what phase 2 looks like.

To prepare for this project we went to our local Target and picked up Rubbermaid FastTrack 5 Piece Kit, a Rubbermaid tub, some dry erase markers, and a garage dedicated dust pan. I tried to convince Rory that there were probably garage organizing “things” in the dollar bin, but he knows that I can get lost in that little area so easily and vetoed the idea. But but… why does Target have ALL of the cuteness!

We started with basics, sweeping, and straightening up surfaces. It’s amazing how the garage becomes a catch-all for randomess. I have a habit of getting out of my car with my hands full and decided to sit something down with intentions of coming back to get it later. Fast forward to garage organizing day 1 and I find myself wondering “how’d this get here” at least 3 times.

We have an extra fridge/freezer in our garage. For the most part it holds extra meat and beer. We also go through phases where we’ll batch cook and freeze extras for later. One of my biggest problems with the garage fridge is the fact that I can never remember what is in it. It’s right by my car, so I try to remember to peek in the freezer before we go to the grocery store but that doesn’t always happen. I knew I wanted a way to keep a list of the contents, but I wanted it to be something easy to maintain. We thought about painting the exterior with chalkboard paint. See Pinterest peer pressure here, here, and here. But ultimately we decided that was too much of an undertaking. While we were looking at the chalkboard paint at Target, I saw a container of “Dry Erase Paint.” As I brought it over to Rory to ask what he thought of the idea of painting the fridge he said, “you do realize most refrigerators are already slick enough that you can use dry erase markers directly on there, right?”. Eeerrmm, obviously I did not. Please tell me I’m not the only one who hadn’t thought of this!

So, while Rory was measuring and installing the Rubbermaid Fast Track I inventoried the freezer and fridge. There were several items that were past their best by dates so I did a bit of cleaning during the process.

And voila, now I know what’s in the fridge!

After the Fast Track was installed (which happened quicker that my list making project BTW!) we inventoried the random things we had sitting around that would make a good home in the new area. We had this extra wire basket that had been sitting on the shelf for a year, so that ended up going just above the Fast Track. I like that the Fast Track parts are moveable so we were able to rearrange it a few times until it was to our liking.

In addition to the Fast Track we also bought one opening front Rubbermaid tub to sit in the same area. We use the plastic tubs in other areas of the garage, but again we have the problem of remember what is in them. Since this one would be sitting down low it’s also night to able to get stuff in and out of it easily without taking everything out.

In case you were wondering how much this project cost, the grand total was less than $50!

We also added a few bonus organization items that were all items we already had:

These were originally candy containers.

And here’s a Balls jar of random screws, bolts and such.

Target is currently running a promotion on these Rubbermaid FastTrack 5 piece Kit for only $28.89 (reg. $33.99) from May 18, 2014 – May 24, 2014 (in-store only).

Overall I’m happy with how it turned out, especially at such a great price!

Phase 2 will probably not happen for a while, but here’s what’s on the wishlist (budget permitting of course):

• Paint: repaint the exterior of the garage door. It’s currently a faded brown and I’d like it to be lighter.
• Flooring: Rory would really love to epoxy the floors. We haven’t priced it out yet but I know it’s pricey.
• Door entry: We have an exterior walk-through door that could stand to be replaced.
• Full customized wall-unit: you know, something Pinterest worthy. Because all garages belong on Pinterest right?