How To Organize Your Garage So You Can Actually Park Inside!
How To Organize Your Garage So You Can Actually Park Inside!
As we are nearing the end of our 10 Week Spring Cleaning Challenge this week, we will be focusing our attention on the 8th area of our homes, organizing our garage!
Dun dun dun! :0
If your garage is as hideous as mine, you’ve got your work cut out for you too!
Our garage has become our dumping ground for all the things we have collected during the year even though we know that we may not even need it.
So let’s roll our sleeves up and get to work and claim back our garages so we can actually have somewhere, other than the street, to park our cars inside, shall we?
Step 1- Park Outside & Remove Everything:
Take everything out of your garage so that you will be able to see everything that was crammed inside & take inventory of all of the things you currently own.
Step 2- Purge & DeClutter:
Now that you’ve removed everything, you are going to decide whether to sell, toss, or donate any unwanted items you have stored inside of your garage.
Step 3- Sort and Label By Type:
Once you‘ve pared everything down to the bare bones, corral them and keep all of the like items together to make them easier for you and your family to be able to locate those specific items later on. For instance, you want to sort your things by; Lawn & Garden, Sports Equipment, Outdoor Toys, Paint, Tools, bikes, etc.
Step 4- Determine Your Garage Layout:
Grab a pad of graph paper and a pencil and sketch it out so that you have a visual template that allows you to make use of all of the potential “hidden spaces” in your garage that can be smartly used for storing things. Start thinking like those smart people from Ikea who love to maximize the hidden spaces in your home.
Ask yourself these questions:
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Do you have high ceilings?
Consider adding storage overhead to store seasonal items like that Christmas tree, & save floor space for things that you use often.
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Can I hang that on my wall to save floor space?
Make the most of those 4 walls by using shelving units and wall organizing storage systems like a pegboard, hooks, & wall shelves to store your tools, rakes, shovels, etc.
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What about all of those bikes?
Bikes can take up a lot of space. Thankfully they are not too heavy, so you can easily mount them each on a heavy duty hook and hang them on an equally heavy duty pole that’s screwed into your garage wall stud for durability.
Step 5- A Place For Everything & Everything In Its Place:
Separate your garage into different zones based on the things you’ll be keeping and find a spot for everything you are going to kee. Store it into its own designated area with its own labeled storage containers. If you want to store things out of sight, try using tall skinny cabinets for things like loppers & weed whackers. Otherwise, consider using shorter cabinets for smaller tools like wrenches, hammers, bungee cords, etc.
Step 6- KISS (keep it super simple):
Make it easy to see & sort so that even your kids (or your husband) can tell without a shadow of a doubt what to do with their water toy after they are done playing with it without being told by you to clean up every single time! Set them and yourself up for success and your garage will be put back in order the way you’ve always wanted.
Step 7- Less is more:
The less you have, the easier it will be to maintain and keep track of your inventory. Reuse the items you already own to store things inside your garage.
Got a popcorn tin for Christmas? Toss that stale old popcorn, wash out the tin, dry it, and reuse it to store those outdoor toys for your kids instead.
If you think the Xmas print is just too tacky, just spray paint it in your favorite color and label it for a new purpose. Oai la! Instant organization for free!
Also, congrats to you for saving the planet and your sanity in the process! 😉
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