The Quick and Dirty Guide You Need to Finally Organize Your Garage
A garage is a wonderful thing: it protects your car from the elements and can absorb a shocking amount of random clutter. But if you’re not careful, all this random clutter will turn even the largest garage into a pit of despair. If yours has gotten a dark turn, here’s how to move it away from the edge.
Get rid of things that don’t belong
Believe it or not, keeping certain items in your garage can be dangerous. Since they are usually not climate controlled or as safe as the main house, garages are a poor place for a surprisingly long list of things. According to the blog post on BobVila.com, here are some of the more common ones:
- Items sensitive to temperature and / or humidity: paint, some solvents, canned food or flasks, wooden furniture, musical instruments, records and electronics.
- Producers of hazardous fumes such as propane and gasoline
- Pest bait such as books, papers, cardboard, bedding, clothing, firewood, pet food, bird food, and plain old rubbish.
- Refrigerators: They cannot cope with fluctuations in temperature and humidity (and consume tons of electricity in the process).
- Anything particularly fragile or valuable
After clearing all the dangerous things first, space should be freed up. If this is not enough, if necessary, you can proceed to the “normal” disposal of garbage .
Determine the direction for the space
There are a million different ways to make your garage space less disgusting and more rewarding. Before diving into a massive redesign project, you should probably figure out what your ideal garage looks like. Need usable space (like a gym or workshop), more storage space, or both? What is currently stopping you from achieving this?
You may not immediately have a solid answer to these questions, and that’s okay. Garages are just empty spaces by design, so the possibilities are almost endless – and you might change your mind as soon as you start moving things around. Keep a rough sketch of your plan at the back of your head and revisit it as needed.
Move everything from floor to wall
Now comes the fun part: getting things off the floor and out of the way. This almost always requires improved wall storage, which can get expensive if you have a particular look. But if you can stomach the comforts of home, industrial shelves are fantastic. They are durable, customizable, easy to build, and surprisingly inexpensive, even brand new.
This Muscle Rack device is huge (six feet high and four feet wide!) And just under $ 120 at Home Depot, which means you can probably find something similar for less on Craigslist or the Facebook Marketplace.
You can also add storage space to the walls themselves. Wall-mounted shelves and hooks for outerwear or stationery are affordable and versatile. For more customization, consider installing a Pegboard or Slatwall system with hooks; they are great for relatively light items that require easy access, such as hand tools and some sports equipment (such as hockey or lacrosse sticks, bags, crash pads and helmets).
Large items such as bicycles, kayaks and ladders will require a special type of wall mount . These attachment systems can be expensive and difficult to install, but if you are determined to hang large and heavy objects on the wall, it is worth investing in something that won’t collapse right away.
Use your new space now
Reorganizing a room is an ongoing process. No matter how carefully you stick to your plan, it is impossible to know if it worked until you try it. Once you have a free space, take it and use it – get your tools and fix something, do a workout, do your laundry, or just take a moment to enjoy the free parking space. If your plan still needs some work, you’ll figure it out soon.