Your garage is cluttered and you can’t even get your car in it. Not that you imagined yourself wanting to leave your car inside the garage, but it is a nice thought. After all, a garage is built for cars, not storage.
Many homeowners long ago ceded their garage space, transforming the area into a storage room. As if the attic, basement, and shed weren’t enough, so goes the garage.
If you would like to use your garage for storing household goods and for parking your car, you can do both. Read on and we’ll explore some tips on how to reclaim your garage as well as your sanity.
When is the best time to organize your garage? Right now! Seriously, winter is too cold and summer is too hot, so Spring and Fall are the best times to tackle a garage reorganization project.
Short of taking out a home loan to finance the work, you can do most of the work yourself and expend only a small amount of money on related supplies. Of course, if you need to actually expand the garage to make it work, then you’ll need to draft a blueprint, take your plans before the town zoning council, and plan on adding weeks to what shouldn’t be all that difficult of a project.
1. Keep It or Toss It! Go through all of the stuff in your garage and determine what you really want to keep and what you can get rid of. With the “I don’t need this stuff” pile, plan on holding a garage sale, donating the goods to Goodwill, or find some other way to dispose of it. If still useful, avoid adding your stuff to the landfills — you’d be surprised who thinks that your trash is a piece of treasure!
2. Check Out Home Storage Systems Once you have your “stuff” trimmed back to a manageable amount, consider what sort of storage systems work best for you. Shelving, hooks, pulleys, cabinets, and the like can all be used. Do some online research and/or visit your local home center for ideas. Tip: your home center probably has a free “organizing your garage” class which can be a wonderful way to get some ideas for your project.
3. Prepare, Then Get To Work! Before putting your home storage system in place, give your garage floor a good cleaning and paint the walls. You have the perfect opportunity to get this done before you move everything into place, so why not do that now?
Most garage organization projects can be completed on a Saturday or span the entire weekend if your garage is particularly cluttered. Hold that garage sale right away otherwise you could be tempted to restore what you don’t need. Whatever is left over, donate. You don’t need it and your garage no longer has the room for excess stuff and your basement, shed, and attic are already full.
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