How to Organize Your Garage

Posted on July 8th, 2009 by MillionDollarMan

I have to admit that I’m not the most organized or neatest person in the world, but there’s only so much “messiness” a person can take. At some point, even the messy person will break down and clean up. That’s what happened to me and my garage.

Over the past year, I let the garage turn into the “miscellaneous” area of the house. In other words, it turned into the messy room where it was used to store everything but the car. Snow blower, garden tools, lawn mower, patio furniture over the winter, Christmas decorations, cleaning supplies, books, tools, you name it! It was getting to the point where I couldn’t walk through the garage without tripping over something or other.

So enough is enough, this past weekend, I decided to take some time and organize the jungle that was my garage. Here are some tips that I found helpful:

Get Rid of Stuff You Don’t Use – This was a big one that helped clear out a lot of clutter. Giveaway the stuff that you don’t use to charities, friends, family or even the neighbors. Another thought would be to have a yard/garage sale to make a few dollars with your “junk”.
Get Stuff off the Ground – What makes a garage seem really messy is when stuff is all over the floor. Get whatever you can off the floor and the garage will be instantly “neater”. I purchased and installed a rail and hooks system that hangs on the garage wall. From there, the shovels, brooms, hoses, and other garden tools can hang on the hooks. I’ve found that shelves also help immensely. I have some old shelves in the garage that keep other various knick knacks off the floor.
Use Storage Bins – Those large plastic storage bins can come in handy, especially if they can fit neatly into shelves. What’s great about using boxes/bins is that it keeps things out of sight.
Label Where Things Belong – In conjunction with using boxes/storage bins, label them accordingly so that items are easy to find when you need them (Christmas decorations etc).
Put Stuff Back when Your Finished – This is the key to keeping the garage neat, follow the system you’ve created! For me, I find it’s much easier to follow a system than creating one, so taking the time to create an intuitive system is well worth the effort.

I’m at the stage where stuff is off the ground, but it’s not as organized as I would like, that is my next step. Do you have any tips on how to organize the garage/shed/storage area?

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