Garage Organization Tips

Recently we completely reorganized our garage. (And by we - I mostly mean my husband.) :) It was a mess! It’s not a large garage and it’s our only outside space to store anything. Our HOA does not allow anything outside the home other than your car. So everything has to be inside the garage. But we did it! We finally bit the bullet and spent several days revamping the garage. We did this for only a few hundred dollars and it looks so much better! The last thing we need to do is the floor, but that is going to have wait just a bit. 

Here are some tips that worked for us.

1. Get rid of anything you don’t need. This sounds simple. But somehow the garage is like any other large space and we keep things that really need to be tossed or donated. Things go to the garage to just hang out.

2. Don’t store anything in the garage that can be stored elsewhere. The garage is for tools and equipment that you can’t keep in an inside space. Unless you have a massive garage, you need to save this space for only things that must be stored outside.

3. Hang as much as possible on the wall. Garage walls are usually very sturdy since they are an outside wall. I will add in the links below several things that worked well for us. Getting things off the floor and on the wall is the best way to save space and make your garage as neat as a garage can be.
   We also utilized a

4. Paint - we all have those random paint cans. If a can has a very small amount in the bottom, just toss it. The paint will have likely separated and with such a small amount will be unusable. However, you DO want to take photos of the tops of all the cans before you throw them out. I keep the photos on my phone and also have an ongoing note in Evernote where I keep the list of what paint colors are used where. For example: Garage, Behr Satin. This is extremely valuable when you need to touch up!
   For the paint cans we do keep, I use a sharpie to label the top with where this paint was used.

5. Projects - The garage is where those half-finished home projects go to die. Be honest with yourself. Is this a hobby I am still going to do? Am I actually going to finish this project? Give yourself a deadline. If I don’t do this project or participate in this activity by xxx, I’m donating these items.

6. Sell or donate things immediately. We listed quite a few things for sale and some sold and some didn’t. While it may be a half used box of lights from Home Depot that are still new, you may need to donate them if they don’t sell in a reasonable time on Facebook Marketplace, or wherever you sell your items. Give yourself a deadline. If these do not sell in 30 days I am donating these. Otherwise, you are defeating the purpose of your hard work.

7. My last tip is this, make things easy to get to. The reason we could never keep our garage organized was because the layout was all wrong. In order to get to the tools, we needed to move a kayak. So we would wiggle through to get the tool, but when it came time to put it back, it just ended up on the floor on the kayak. We had to get rid of quite of few things to make it work, but now we can walk up to the table where the tools are. My husband used some inexpensive pegboard to hang the tools on the wall.

One day we may live in a house with a designated storage for these things and only keep our cars in the garage. For now, we live in this house and we have to make this space work for us in this season. While the garage is still not picture perfect, it functions really well. Like any other space in our home, it will only stay this way if things are put back where they belong. Scheduling a few days during the year to do a garage refresh will help with this. 

I am thankful for a place to park inside and out of the rain and heat or cold. We lived in an apartment in the midwest and I have memories of holding a baby in one arm and scraping ice with the other. I will not take my garage space for granted!

What has been the most challenging for your garage space?