Garage organization tips: closing the door on clutter

Try these ideas to regain control of your garage.

Is there so much clutter in your garage that you don’t even know what it holds? Are your cars almost afraid to spend the night inside, assuming they can still fit find room to get in? If so, it may be time for a little garage organization. Devoting one day to garage organization can transform your garage from a dumping ground into a useful extension of your home.

Gut it
Garage organization is not an inside job. You must enlist your driveway for assistance. Start by emptying your garage out and putting everything onto the driveway. As you are doing this, create a couple of piles. Go ahead and bag anything that you know is trash. Pile number two should be for anything that needs to be donated. Do you have sporting equipment that you haven’t touched in five years? Donate it. Same for those duplicate hedge trimmers that you have collected. Once you have separated what needs to be thrown away and what needs to be donated, you can look at what is left and decide how to best organize it.

Divide your space
Take what you’re keeping and organize it so that related things are together. Then you’re ready for the next step in your garage organization project: Divide your garage into specific areas. Create a section for yard tools, another for kids’ toys and another for power tools. Buy what you need to store it properly and improve your garage organization. Buy a nice toolbox that can store all of your tools. Purchase shelving that can hold the garden tools.

While dividing the space during your garage organization project, don’t forget to look up. The walls of your garage can provide lots of storage space. They can be a great place to hang bikes, shovels, rakes, etc. It is amazing how much space this can add to your garage.

Maintain
Now that your garage organization is done, your next step is to keep it that way. Figure out how you let it get so bad to begin with, and then think of ways to prevent that from happening again. Create a habit of picking up after yourself in the garage. One tip that might help is to make sure that your cars are parked in your garage every night. If there is room for your cars, chances are that the garage is picked up and organized. Once your cars move back to the driveway, you have given in to the clutter once again.

Garage organization is an obtainable goal and you can make it a reality in just one day. After that, the key is to not let your guard down, but to maintain your hard work.