How to organize your garage

The household garage is for storing a lot more than cars. It stores bicycles, tools, ladders, lawn mowers, and most of all “stuff.” The garage often becomes the place to shove all the stuff you have no room for in your house. Before you know it you have no room for the vehicles; the things are actually supposed to be in the garage. Sorting through the garage can seem like a daunting task but once it’s over-with everything will have a place, the vehicles will have a spot, and you will probably have a lot of items to throw out or donate.

When organizing your garage using space effectively is important. The floor space should be mostly dedicated to vehicles. You’re probably thinking where are you going to put everything if you can’t put it all on the floor? The walls and ceiling of course! Vertical space is abundant in garages and so is ceiling space.

Before you decide where everything should go you need to sort through everything. Make piles of things to keep, throw out, and donate. Once you know how much you have to put back you can decide where it should go.

For smaller things like paint, holiday decorations, and sporting equipment you may want a shelving unit. If you can, group items like holiday decorations into totes and label them. Your shelves will look less cluttered if there is less to see. If you don’t have room for shelving units, totes can be stored in a sliding system that attaches to the ceiling.

For larger items like bicycles, ladders, and shovels, go vertical. Use hooks to hang large items on the walls. Pegboard can also be installed as a quick and easy way to hang tools that get used a lot.

Take a day to go through your garage and organize it. Once you have it organized, try to keep it that way so you don’t have to repeat the process all over again in a few months.