Organizing your garage poses many unique challenges. The first one being how do you want to use your garage. Do you want to use part of it as storage? Part for a hobby? Or do you want to use part of it to store bikes, tools and outdoor sports activities?

Once you have a clear picture in your mind of how you want to use the space, then prioritize how often do you use that stuff.

That being said, there are some typical things that I am going to assume you want to use the space for.

1. Being able to actually park a car in your garage.
2. Laundry room – place to fold, iron and store cleaning products
3. Tools and gardening equipment
4. Sporting equipment and aquatic toys
5. Holiday decorations
6. Family heirlooms

Garages tend to be one of those catchall places in homes. Often things that don’t find a place in your home end up on the garage floor. If you want to use your garage for what it is intended for, parking your car, you’re going to need to stop using it as a dumping area. So the first step in getting your garage cleaned up and organized is to go through EVERYTHING that is currently in your garage.

Make a map!

Lets make a map of the garage as to where the important stuff should be. From the list above your car goes first. Now if we take everything else out of the garage what room is left over to sort and put the important things in its place. Some stuff we know needs to be sold, donated or stored in a storage facility.

The items we use the most frequently get the highest priority for space. Its easy to see that Christmas decorations and ski equipment gets used very infrequently and should be moved to a self-storage facility. Look at the Jet Ski’s, luggage and other less used items and put them in storage as well.

Parking your car in the garage.

You use your car every day. And if you take pride in your car and want it to last longer it will benefit by being stored inside. It will stay cleaner, the paint and interior will last longer by not being exposed to the elements. So you’re going to need to do something pretty obvious: get rid of whatever is cluttering up your garage floor right now. Chances are good that the majority of things covering your garage floor shouldn’t be. Clutter belongs in storage or in some other area of your home.

Laundry – Clean or dirty clothes?

This is obvious – most of us have our washer and dryer in the garage so the laundry area should be clean and well organized to do work. You need shelves, cabinets and workspace. This way you can keep the clean clothes clean when they come out and you have space to fold and sort.

Man tools?!

Storing your tools and outdoor equipment like the lawn mower and hedge trimmer should be next. We use them maybe twice a month or more if you have a green thumb. These are going to be near the garage door and not near the laundry area. A wall rack will take care of the hedge trimmer, shovel, rakes and other loose tools. A shelf will hold any fertilizers, hand pruners and bug sprays.

Be a sport!

Sporting equipment is an important part of our lives in staying shape, having fun with the family and recreation. Bikes take up a lot o space and with four in our family that’s a lot of space. There are cheap bike racks that stack one above another or some “J” hooks that let you hang them from the wall studs. Shelves can hold helmets, jerseys, bike shoes and miscellaneous equipment that you need. Tennis, soccer, hockey, windsurfing, motorcycle and on and on. Well, for me it’s more cabinets and a place for it. How much is enough? Well how often do you use it? If it doesn’t fit in a closet, put it in storage until you need it. It’s a garage away from home.

Seasonal sports equipment needs a special place. Fishing equipment is best stored in a storage facility until you need it. Likewise snow skis, snowboards and all the clothes that go with it. When the water is cold, why have a Jet Ski or float taking up space until next summer? Put it in storage. Depending on your defined space you can create a flex-space that has the ability to hold those things for the season and are exchanged with the next seasons equipment.

Happy Holiday – Happy Garage!

Holiday decorations are those pesky possessions that sit around all year around and do nothing until those few weeks before they are used. My neighbor goes all out for Halloween and I have no idea where he keeps all of those decorations. It gets bigger every year and he must have a storage unit somewhere. Christmas he has some of the biggest displays that are staggering. Not only are more people using imitation trees now, they have Santa and all the 12 reindeer on the front lawn. So for the four or five weeks out of the year they are being used, the rest of the time they sit around just taking up very valuable space for your car and the things you use more frequently. So there are the lowest on the list.

Grandma’s Goodies

Family heirlooms are really an important part of our family’s history. We all have furniture from grandma, pictures, tools and things that we don’t know what to do with but hate to part with. With some of these things climate controlled storage is the best way to go to preserve the quality and protect them from sudden climate changes. Preserving photos requires extra effort to limit the damage that time, heat and poor storage can do to these heirlooms.

Organize Your Garage … In No Time?

If you have to think too hard about where you put something and why you put it there, chances are pretty good that it is not in the right place for you. As with every organizing project that you tackle, organizing your garage is about making your life easier and more manageable. And as with all of life, if what you’ve created isn’t working for you …change it. As you can see the most important items are front and center available, the rest are in storage in a place that is convenient and secure. Now get to it and get that garage back! Everybody, including your car will love you for it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 1:32 am and is filed under Featured, Storage Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.