Your garage seemed innocent enough when you first moved in to your home, but now it has grown into a cluttered jungle of junk which haunts your dreams.
It begins as a covered space to park your car, but your garage soon becomes a dumping ground for any odd objects and a place to store the odd few tools and things that didn’t fit in the house.
Broken lawn furniture, toys that your kids haven’t played with in years, tangled webs of garden hoses, half-finished DIY projects, garbage bags of clothes that you meant to donate to charity, and that hammer you borrowed from your neighbor are all stacked precariously in dusty corners.
It’s getting to the point where you can barely even squeeze the car in, and something needs to be done.
Taming a garage that has gone out of control is a big job, but if you have some helping hands and a day or do to dedicate to the task, you can hack your way through the mess and turn it into a space that works for you.
Get Rid of the Junk
The very first step is to get rid of anything that doesn’t need to be in your garage in the first place. Although it is tempting to hold onto stuff for sentimental reasons, be brutal in your elimination of junk.
Is it broken and not worth fixing? Throw it away. Have you not used it in the last year? Give it away or sell it. Is it something you borrowed from a neighbor? Give it back.
Keep only the tools and other items that you really need and use often. It is much easier to organize your belongings if you have less of them.
Once you have removed everything out of the garage, this is a great opportunity to give everything a good sweep and scrub so that you have a clean space to work with.
Create a New System for Storage
If you want your newly clean garage to stay clean, you need to create an organized storage system for keeping everything tucked away where it should be. For example, you can get a pegboard for the wall where you can mount rakes, brooms, tools, and hoses neatly without taking up floor space.
If you often work on projects, bring in a table or a cart to work on with drawers for storing your supplies and tools. Keep seasonal gear or other objects in sturdy plastic tubs. You can even get special hooks for bikes and kayaks so that they can be stored hanging from the ceiling.
Congratulations, you have transformed your savage and untamed garage into a practical and efficient storage space!