Traditionally, a garage is a space in the home meant to house a car. Today, this may no longer be the case. The hefty real estate prices mean households could feel short on square footage and use an extra room. Instead of housing just the car, garages are used as a dumping ground for all sorts of belongings, aka clutter.
Clutters comprise things you may never even use again, and you’re now left with the idea of organizing your garage to provide a system and a place for everything. Once you start organizing and decluttering, you’ll eventually realize that your garage looks spacious.
While organizing a garage and creating solutions for clutter isn’t a one-size-fits-all project, there are tried and tested strategies to help you get started. Whatever the state of your garage, the size, or your intended goal, here are tips you may want to explore:
1. Get Rid Of What You Don’t Need
Before you start organizing, it’s a good move first to assess each item in your garage to see if it’s to keep, throw, donate, or sell. Think this thoroughly, as the goal should be to let go of at least half the items in your garage.
A good rule of thumb is if you haven’t used it in the past year or two, chances are high that you won’t ever use that thing again. So, it’s time to let go.
Getting rid of what you don’t need means keeping the clutter away. Once that’s done and dusted, it becomes easier to start organizing. You’ll have fewer items to deal with, so it’ll create more room and space in your garage.
2. Store Up
Storing up means utilizing as much vertical space as you can. Keep the floor clear, as that already makes a big difference in making your garage feel cleaner. There’s more room to walk around now that things are up rather than on the floor.
Look at your garage now and look for opportunities to build wall shelves, starting with any blank walls. Your hanging or wall shelves can be wire shelving, closed wooden, or metal shelves, whatever fits your fancy and your garage’s interior design. Hardie Boys, among others, will have a few options for you to start your search.
3. Label Everything
Labeling everything helps maintain the organizational system you’ve come up with. It’s easier to look for things you’ve stored in baskets, boxes, and shelves when you know what’s inside.
Go ahead, buy a label maker, and start labeling. Once you start enjoying the fun of creating labels, there’s no looking back now. You’ll feel the difference in your garage’s efficiency when you know where to find what you’re looking for.
4. Have A Few Grab-And-Go Baskets
Storage boxes work for big, bulky, and various items of the same kind, but some are best stored in baskets for a grab-and-go system. Have a few baskets near your garage door to house some everyday items you don’t necessarily need.
There are umbrellas, outdoor gear, equipment, daily shoes, winter accessories, shoe cleaners, organizers, mosquito repellants and lotions, hats, and many more. There’s no point in keeping those high up on your shelves, locked in boxes. It’s time-consuming during your daily rush to gain access to those storage boxes.
With grab-and-go baskets, you can easily retrieve what you need for the day. But, instead of being all over the place, they’re tucked away in the baskets they belong to.
5. Incorporate A Small Workstation
If you have more space for it, design a corner to be intended as a mini workstation for crafts, DIY projects, metal works, woodworking, and other activities you’ll need that workstation for. Sure, you have your dining room and office in the main home, but some projects have a lot of mess, and it’s pretty cumbersome to do that in your dining room.
A small workstation helps create order in your garage, as there is added functional space. Have a desk with drawers, as those are handy for storing little office or craft items you may need.
6. Create Different Zones
Because homeowners can store many things in a garage, it helps to create zones. Doing so makes it easier to know where a particular item is, even when the boxes, baskets, and other storage solutions already have labels.
For example, you can have a zone for your worktable. Then, there’s one for hardware tools, another for a mini pantry, and even one more for seasonal decorations and kids’ costumes. Grouping items enables homeowners to make the most use of their garage space, big or small.
The Bottomline
Now that you’re armed with the organization tips above, you can start decluttering. Take a day or two to do this. More, if you have loads of things in quite an oversized garage.
Leave yourself only with those belongings you’re sure are worth keeping and can still be used, so you’re not drowning your garage in all sorts of things. Once done, it’s time to have a storage system in place. Organizing a garage, as in any space, is entirely personal, so above anything else, find that system that works well for you.
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