Organizing your garage is one of those jobs that you know needs to be done, but you never seem to get around to it. Or you peek inside, see the endless clutter and start picturing the hours that will be spent cleaning the garage and then you put off the project for yet another weekend. Typically, the garage is an area of the home that is a dumping ground for many items, but if you can take the time to organize the garage area, you will find it is time well spent. Once it is cleaned out, try to stay organized by always returning all items to their proper areas in the garage (totes, containers, shelves) to keep your garage organized at all times.
- Organize the rest of the house first as the garage is usually a a dumping ground. Then decide what types of items you would like to assign a permanent home in your garage. Can some items be moved to an indoor closet or attic, like luggage for example? How about chemicals? Would they better suited to a life in a garden shed?
Once you decide what will live where, use a lot of boxes to pull things out of the garage and group them into their separate categories. Make sure you have boxes of all sizes on hand. (The local liquor store is a great place to get free, very sturdy ones and egg cartons from the supermarket are very durable as well.)- Don’t forget to label boxes with their contents as you are grouping them. Otherwise, you are giving yourself extra unnecessary work.
- Don’t tackle the garage alone. Make it a family affair and set a date aside on the calendar. Involve your children and make up a game with prizes for the one who can find the oldest, dirtiest throwaway, etc. This is essential to success as everyone in the home has some level of attachment to the items that are living there (rent-free, I might add).
- Set aside enough time for this project by picking back-to-back days like a weekend so that sorted items do not have to sit in piles for too long. Although there is no way to predict the weather too far in advance, a dry weekend is best.
- Be prepared with needed supplies. You will need plastic storage bins, wire baskets, permanent markers for labeling and many, many large garbage bags. Place one in the middle of your working space so that everyone can reach it.
- Start with a general purging of everything in your path. Consider yourself a nasty dictator having a bad hair day, determined to eliminate all his enemies (everyone he knows). Decide what you want to keep and specify an area in the yard for those items. Create a separate area for things that still work but you no longer need (those can be sold). Put those things that cannot be sold into a big trash bin.
- Once you have consolidated items by like type, get rid of any broken or unnecessary things. If you come across a random item that doesn’t quite fit into anywhere specific, store it in the most similar category available.
Organize a garage sale and pay to advertise for it in a local paper. This way, you will carry though. Plan ahead enough so that you can go through all the things that have lived there peacefully until now.- Now that everything is sorted, go through that “for sale” pile and place stickers on them. (Put a sticker on anyone that tries to get in your way as well.) Whatever does not sell during the sale should then be donated to local charities in need.
- Sort all items that you plan to keep by their use. Create piles of like things (garden tools, etc.) as this will help you determine their importance and ultimate home in the garage.
- Now is the time for all organized men and women to go out and buy the tools they need. Often, this is done beforehand which leads to a waste of effort, products and time. Buy lots of hooks for the walls of the garage and use them to hang things like bikes, garden tools, sporting equipment, and even crazy Uncle Harry when he is not behaving as he should.
- On one wall, install some shelving. You can use actual bookcases or recycle old kitchen cabinets. You do want to have some type of storage unit with doors so that certain items can be kept out of reach. (Uncle Harry again.) Remember to use the lower shelves for those heavier items and put anything dangerous to children as high and far away from their curious reach as possible.
- Consider investing in a small shed for those larger and more valuable garage items like lawn mowers, snow blowers, yard equipment, power tools and the like. A shed is not only a secure structure, moving those bulky items into one will free up a lot more room for your car! (Not more clutter: your car!)
- Thoroughly sweep and clean the floor before putting things back inside the garage. Get rid of grease stains with some heavy-duty cleaners and a lot of elbow grease. Consider finishing the concrete with either an epoxy coating or flooring like tile or rubber matting.
Organize items in order of their use and fill up that new shelving and/or cabinetry. Place toys within easy reach of children and adults still having trouble letting go. Keep your hand tools on a pegboard above a work surface.- Sort seasonal items so that they are handy when needed; for example, skis within reach in winter and the rake in fall. Your goal is to set things up so that you are not constantly moving things around.
- Remember to store all flammable items, like painting supplies, in a flameproof cabinet. When storing paint, make sure you develop a labeling system. If you need to dry out paint in a can, fill it with kitty litter, which will absorb the extra paint and make it safe for disposal.
- Maintain what you have done by scheduling at least one weekend a year to keep up your hard work.