If you’re like most people, you probably can’t live without a car. It’s an important investment that you cannot simply leave outdoors where it can suffer damage from tree sap, bird droppings, and UV exposure. Also, no one wants to climb in a scalding hot car left outside in the middle of summer.That being the case, it’s best to store your car in the garage where you can keep it cleaner. That also helps you prolong your car’s life. However, things often get messy inside the garage because of the limited space.
To help you organize your garage, here are some DIY garage storage ideas. Avoid the mess and possible accidents by following garage storage systems. Follow the guide and tips below to declutter your garage once and for all.
Get Started by Cleaning Your Garage
The first step in making neat garage storage is looking through your space. Identify the items you should and could store. According to organizing pros, only 30% of people store their cars in the garage. The main reason for that is they have too much stuff.
On that note, here are some garage ideas to help you sort out and get rid of the things you don’t actually need.
- Set aside a day, a weekend or two to have time enough to get the job done.
- Have some family members or friends over to help with the garage de-cluttering project, so it goes a lot faster.
- Go through everything in the garage, even the boxes you haven’t unpacked yet – to determine which items you need and don’t need.
The items probably inside your garage include:
- Sports and hobby gear
- Holiday decorations and other seasonal stuff
- Gardening tools and supplies
- Household tools
- Automotive supplies and tools
- Garbage and recycling
- Paints and combustibles
If you’ve determined which items to get rid of, take the time to sort them out into three piles – to be tossed, recycled, and donated. Once you are done sorting them, you can begin cleaning the entire garage from the top to bottom.
This is a great time to remove stains from the concrete floors or change wall paints. To prepare your garage, it will be great to learn tips on cleaning and painting a garage door. After cleaning, now’s the time to plan for you to organize your messy garage.
Draw a Plan for Your Garage Storage
The next thing to do is come up with a plan so you can maximize your garage space. Using a grid paper, don’t forget to take note of measurements including doors, windows, and utilities. Along with that, find out how much space your car is going to need.
Following that, mark zones of the room for storing all the stuff you need. The garden tools are best stored near the door. For trash and recycling materials, you should put them somewhere you can easily reach. As for seasonal items, you had it better stored somewhere out of the way.
4 Ways to Better Organize Your Garage
To help you better organize your garage and make use of the space, here are some brilliant ways you would want to try.
1. Use Garage Shelving to Store More on Walls
Using only brackets, hooks, and similar hardware is a waste of a lot of opportunities. Instead of them, use garage shelving using a layer of plywood over bare studs or drywall. This provides you with a continuous surface to mount your storage hardware.
This is an easy and efficient way of using space. At the same time, it gives you more space to put more stuff onto the wall. Using only plywood and some inexpensive hardware, you can double your garage’s storage capacity.
2. Putting Up Garage Storage Wall
This is a storage system capable of solving two of your garage challenges. For one, it solves the problem of creating design storage space for the narrow space between your car and the side wall. Secondly, it creates a sturdy mounting surface to hold shelves and hooks capable of carrying heavy stuff.
To do this, all you need is to create a framework made of inexpensive, horizontal strips of shelf standards. These are easy to arrange and capable of holding any organization of hook and shelves at any part of the wall. With these, you will have enough space to move around but keeping things organized at the same time.
3. Add Garage Cabinets
Cabinets are often used in home improvement projects. You can use it as well for keeping your garage organized, a gear that’s worth your money and time. The best part about garage cabinets is for an inexpensive price, you can already get a pre-assembled cabinet with shelving at any home center.
If you are good at design and construction, you can even modify a cabinet, so it suits any garage. You can choose your own material but make sure it’s sturdy and reasonably priced besides being nice looking. You have to also ensure each cabinet is fastened securely.
4. Corner Shelves for the Garage
Who wouldn’t want to use more shelves in their garage? You have the shelves for the obvious spots but what about the corners? To utilize the corner spaces, you can make use of a nifty shelf unit that fits snugly into your garage corners.
Corner shelves are great to store smaller items such as waxes, glues, oils, and polishes. Most of these items end up lost when put in the larger shelves. Using corner shelves offer a great way to maximize the space of your garage and get more things organized.
In addition to garage shelves, you can also use boxes and outdoor storage to add space and better organize your stuff. If you have a lot of stuff and you need them all, the best remedy is to add storage somewhere else.
You can just add a small locker just outside your garage to store your garden gears. Doing this is such a big relief in your crowded storage. With these garage storage ideas, you can finally put order into your messy garage and leave your car in a nice and neat room.
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