Tips to Organizing your Garage

When cleaning our homes and just putting items into storage, the first thought is to put the stuff in the garage. My family is 100% guilty of doing this, it is the easiest option, and it gets the stuff out of the way quickly. This garage is full of too much of everything and has become a dumping ground for my household items. Now getting to the items I need quickly has become anarchy, there is no order to anything. Now why make your life so difficult when you can simply make your items easily accessible, not only for you, but the rest of your family. Here are some tips to get your garage organized!

Now at first glance looking into your garage it may look like a mad house, it’s okay, by the time you are done you will not even recognize your garage. Let’s start the decluttering process by doing the decision-making phase.  Make four different piles: toss, keep, donate, trash. If you find yourself struggling to part ways with an item, just ask yourself a couple of questions like, is it broken, and when was the last time I used it and am I realistically going to use it.

Once you have figured all that out, you can now start figuring out where to place everything. Now, with so many different items being stored in the garage, it is best to organize it by zones. Doing this will also be helpful in the long run when looking for items or when storing new items in the future. Organizing belongings into zones like car supplies (windshield wiper fluid, anti-freeze, etc.), sports equipment, tools, gardening, beach gear, recycle center, or any other category that would apply to your household. Start with four zones and work from there.

After you have all your zones are figured out, now it’s time to assess your storage space and begin storing items in their proper place. Creating more storage space in your garage is really utilizing the space you have. One tip is vertical space, stack bins vertically to save floor space.  Now, when you have bins stacked up on top of each other, the bottom bins are difficult to reach for some in your home. Easy to build storage towers creates a simple process of just sliding bins in and out.

When organizing your zones use color coded bins to differentiate what is in each bin. For example, if you have a sports zone, use different colored bins for each sport. Or you can use labels for the same purpose, writing what is in each bin. This is also helpful for when searching for an item, instead of going through each box, all you will have to do is read the label. This saves time whenever searching for an item, easy storage so that anyone can look for what they need, and when storing the items again, you will know exactly where to store it.

You want to utilize as much space in your garage as possible, the walls are open areas that can be the perfect storage area. Using open shelving vs closed cabinets can be a bit cheaper, but also open shelves have ventilated slots to help prevent mold or mildew buildup.

Utilizing your wall space is another thing to help maximize your space. For example, using a pegboard is an easy organization option.  They are great for hanging tools over a workbench! Now if the pegboard isn’t what you are looking for, there is another option for tools, using a magnetic strip and hanging it up. This keeps your tools nearby and visible, avoiding having to dig through drawers. Another option is using a coat rack to hang up your items, perfect for hanging up your garden tools for grab and go.

Our garages become our dumping ground for things we do not want in our home, it can get cluttered very quickly, but with these tips, they will help get your garage organized to avoid the unnecessary clutter.

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