Our bike garage

Some people have a foyer. Some people have a mudroom. We have mudroom in the foyer, or more precisely, we have a bike garage.

The bike garage on a less crammed day.

Our bike garage is brimming. We are going out of town, and bikes have to be more securely stored. The bike garage (actually an enclosed front porch) has become a staging area. Good opportunity to finally really confront the number of bikes we have. We are a family of four.
There is my bike, which I have proudly owned since 1989, your basic mountain bike, now highly personalized city commuter (that's 1).
Peter has a bike, which, at age 10, he is in the process of outgrowing (that's 2, but may soon become 3, as we have not made arrangements to pass down the outgrown bike).
Nadia has a bike, which she firmly believes she is ourgrowing, and will certainly outgrow it immediately when Peter gets the new bike (that's 3, possibly 4, or maybe even 5 depending on how rapidly the outgrowing progresses).
There is the bike that both Peter and Nadia have now outgrown (that's 4)
Then there are Chris' bikes: the new recumbent, the old recumbent, the Slingshot mountain bike, the folding bike, and the bike for errands (that's 9, I think).
And finally, the bikes that count as more or less than one: the family tandem and the trailabike (that's 1.5 plus 0.5, added to the existing 9 for a total of 11)
Eleven real, and as many as 13 hypothetical bikes crammed into a space the size of a small bathroom.
For those of you who don't know me personally, this might be a good time to point out that our family owns an urban bicycle store. But it is exactly because our professional life is ruled by the bicycle, I keep hoping that my home life doesn't have to be.  Specifically, I would like to enter my house via the front door, and have a convenient place to park my grocery bags, footwear, coat, umbrella, mail, whatever,  instead of worrying about getting those bags snagged by protruding handlebars, and possibly causing a bicycle avalanche.
In response to my bourgeois whims, my husband has started renovating the bike garage. When he is done, we hope to have and easy to clean tile floor, shoe storage, a wardrobe for outerwear and bike helmets, and perhaps a thing to hold the mail until we can get to it. But because my husband is not a full-time home remodeller, this process has been rather lengthy. In the meantime, we had planned to train ourselves and our children to store bicycles, scooters, bike panniers, helmets and related paraphernalia in the real garage, located several feet behind the house.
This yielded mixed results. As of this writing, there is only one bike in the bike garage. However, there are two scooters and a bike in the walkway on the side of the house, a recumbent bike on the deck, a jogging stroller (haven't used it, must've been in someone's way) under the willow tree, three helmets on the kitchen counter, a pair of cycling shoes on (I kid you not) the coffee table, and a bike pump blocking access to the front door.
And the question I have is: will I be thrilled to have my foyer, or will I miss the bike garage?!

Comments

[kim]

You need the equivalent of the Bike Whisperer to come to your house and revise things!

[kim]

You need the equivalent of the Bike Whisperer to come to your house and revise things!

[Justyna]

Hey, your comment has a shadow! Yes, well, Chris just looked over my shoulder and requested that I post an "after" picture when he is done.

[cycling clothing sale]

When he is done, we hope to have and easy to clean tile floor, shoe storage, a wardrobe for outerwear and bike helmets, and perhaps a thing to hold the mail until we can get to it.