Tips and tricks for Garage Organization

The garage seems to be the one place in our homes that we tend to allow to get a little chaotic. It becomes somewhat of a storage unit for all of our wants, needs, and sentimental items that we just can’t let go of. It can become an intimidating thought to even consider taking a day to clean it out. With everything that’s out there, it’s got to take more than a day right? Possibly not! With these few tips and tricks to cleaning out and organizing your garage, it can hopefully be done in just a day and you’ll be able to reclaim the area for the car that you’ve been wanting to park in there for some time now!

First of all, you’re going to want to pull everything out from the garage to be able to determine what you have and where it will all go. This also gives you a clean slate to help you decide how you will set up your garage to suit your needs. Next, go through everything that you’ve just pulled out and ask yourself what you want to keep, sell, donate, or just throw away. When making these decisions you can ask yourself questions like the following:

-        - Do I need this?

-        - Am I going to be using this anytime in the near future?

-        - Is it outdated and is it time to upgrade?

-        - Does this still work?

-        - Would this be more beneficial to someone else?

Once you’ve answered all your questions and have the piles of keep and toss, rent a dumpster! Calling the day before you clean out your garage to schedule your dumpster is best. This way, you have the dumpster at your ready and can toss as you go. It also helps to get everything you no longer want or need gone faster. You don’t have to haul it away yourself or have it sitting on your curb waiting to get picked up by the city.

Now that you have all you want separated ready to go back in the garage, give the garage a nice spruce. Sweep the floors, get all the dust out, maybe a little spray down with the hose to really give it a shine, and fix anything that might need a repair.

Lastly, it’s time to organize! Going vertical is best when storing items in a garage to get the most use out of the space you have, especially if it’s a smaller one car unit. For smaller tools such as, drill bits, screwdrivers, wrenches, you could put up magnetic strips to house them on the walls freeing up any drawer space you might have for other items. Also consider saving little jars. You can screw them to the bottom of a shelf and use them as holders for nails and screws. For boxes of trash bags, you could re-purpose a paper towel holder to take the roll out of the box and hang it on the wall. Easy access and you don’t have to worry about having yet another box in the garage. Dedicating a small space next to the door or entry to the house can also help keep clutter from occurring. Hang a coat, backpack, umbrella rack next to the door and have a little shoe rack to prevent shoes from tracking in mud or dirt and becoming misplaced. Wire baskets are great for getting the little items off the floor and they are stackable on the wall to really utilize all usable space.

Using these simple tips and tricks can really turn a garage from a disaster zone to an accessible little storage unit!