Planning your garage organization is a lot easier if you plan ahead and do it with these 5 steps!
Garages end up being the storage place for so many items. Due to this, the car worth thousands of dollars is cold and dirty in the driveway, while junk and more unused items take up our garage space.
First of all, you’ll want to make a date on your calendar for the main work day. You will do some steps ahead of the main work day so that your actual work day is very productive. Think of what the goal is for the garage. Would you like to be able to park one car or two cars in there? Parking in the garage has great benefits. The car stays cleaner a lot longer, it’s warmer and not frosted up during the winter, cooler in the summer and you’ll never have to take the groceries through the rain.
Now, the fun part. Figure out what your reward will be for a job well done and let’s get started!
Step 1
It’s time to figure out the garage zones. Take a pad and paper with you to the garage. Walk around and write down the main groups of items that your garage currently holds. Examples would be: bikes, recreational, car supplies, gardening, yard, holiday decorations, long handled tools, paints, recycle bin/trash cans, and tools. Garage organization depends on storing like items together.
Step 2
On a separate day, walk around the garage with white garbage bags (since we think of black as trash). Place anything in it that you no longer use or love. These will be for donating. Keep a log of items you’re donating to deduct from your taxes. (It will add up.) If your garage is really full, don’t stress about digging down deep. This is more of a drift and dispose…getting things out of there within sight that you know you don’t use anymore so you have less to deal with on main garage work day. Place bags in car to take to nearest charity.
Step 3
Find some time to sit in the garage and think about your garage zone list and what items you may need to buy to help organize things better. Example: if you have a lot of fishing poles, you can buy a wall mount to house them. If you have a lot of sports items, you may need a sports gear organizer, etc. Having the right items ready on the main garage work day to use space more efficiently or house certain things will be very beneficial.
One main thing that garages usually need is more shelving units. You want to utilize the vertical space in the garage. If you think you’ll need one or two, purchase them before the main garage work day.
Most garages need to have a wall rack for all the long-handled items. If you keep your broom and mop in the garage, you may need a smaller wall rack for these items to be close to the entry door to house.
Step 4
Do your shopping to have items ready so you can complete your garage in one day.
Step 5
The work day is here! Be sure you have water, black bags for trash and white for donations. Begin pulling out each item onto the driveway, sorting as you go – into the zone categories.
Once garage is emptied, blow or sweep it out. Now that you’ve purged any unused items into the trash or donation bags, you are left with what will be going back into the garage. Create a layout for returning items using sticky notes temporarily. You’ll want to place items most used closest to entry door to house.
Begin placing items back into the garage in their proper place. You can see your garage organization coming to reality!
Final step and I’d say the most noteworthy is to label each bin or shelf. This will help you maintain your organization. Yeah! Now you have an awesome garage and you have earned your reward!
If you’d like our help with your garage organization, just reach out.
