Our family needs to get things in order and back in their place.You need to think about how you want to use your garage and how you want it to look when you are finished with this project. In simplest terms, you need a plan. It doesn’t have to be a complex one at all, but you need a clear vision so you will know when you have achieved success.
—BARRY IZSAK
The garage can be your friend or foe. Too much stuff and too little time to get organized may have turned your garage into a labyrinth of clutter. But one, two, or even three good weekends of sorting can give you more room, pleasant surprises of found items, and renewed interest in your hobbies.
Armed with determination and a good plan, you can park your car in the garage, safely store extra supplies in labeled boxes, and use your tools and workbench again.
So why do so many garages become filled with so much clutter? The trouble begins when you have not answered the following three important questions:
1. Whose space is it anyway?
2. What do we keep in there?
3. Who’s going to clean it out?
These three issues are important to consider so you don’t create an emotional explosion over a broken lawn mower, a bag of tile grout from an unfinished bathroom, or the ice cream maker you got as a wedding gift and haven’t used in fifteen years.
Never fear. There are ways to get through the emotional entanglements and garage cleaning. And the benefit is always order and extra space. Put on your organizing hat and be ready to clean the garage. Today’s the day!
Create a Plan
Your family’s garage-organizing plan must be clear to everyone involved. Even if you are single, consider dividing the two side walls into masculine and feminine walls. An effective overall approach looks like this:
1. Garage floor
2. Main wall
3. Left wall: the “guy” wall
4. Right wall: the “gal” wall
Bonus: Rafter storage
That means distributing items to their rightful categories to clear the center of the garage floor. Then you can deal with the surrounding three walls. (The garage door isn’t considered a wall.)
You now have four clearly defined areas to organize in the garage. As you sort the items on the floor and each wall, organize by sections: trash and recycle bins, lawn and garden supplies, workshop tools, sports equipment, and household storage. Fine-tuned areas could include a personal storage box or space for each person.
Assign organizing an area to whoever uses those items most, such as sports equipment to kids, tools to Dad, and household items to Mom. What they organize, they should maintain. You may want to take a picture of how the area was before and after as reminders of your progress. If the area deteriorates, you can pull out your picture of how it should be maintained. Pictures are more motivational than any lecture.
Simplify Your Garage
Motivation:
Our family needs to get things in order and back in their place.
I’d like to actually park our car(s) in the garage!
I want to stop the embarrassment of a messy garage.
Supplies:
Index cards, tape, and markers for signs
Notepad and pen for next steps
Big, empty trash bins
Plastic storage boxes with lids
Gym shoes, snacks for breaks, and a plan
Time Estimate:
4–8 hours per section, depending on how many things you have to organize
Reward:
An organized garage that holds your cars, tools, storage items, hobbies, and outdoor activity equipment
Approach It by Sections
A garage is usually a box-shaped space, so items can easily span the perimeter of the room. If you live in snow country you will have shovels and snow blowers, while families in warmer climates may have pool equipment and beach chairs. You need to adapt your organizing categories to meet your particular needs.
Floor
To begin creating order in your garage, begin by clearing the center of the floor. If you intend to keep your car(s) in the garage every day, then you need to make sure your garage floor is no longer a dumping ground for miscellaneous clutter. It’s possible.
To sort the items on your garage floor, label the walls with signs for four major categories per wall, such as:
Left Wall—The “Guy” Wall
Yard and lawn equipment
Workshop tools and paint
Gardening tools
Sports equipment
Right Wall—The “Gal” Wall
Household storage
Giveaway Items
Children’s toys
Pet care supplies
Rafters—Household Storage
Holiday decorations
Household carpet and trim molding
Suitcases
(If you have no rafter storage, put these items on the left and right wall space.)
By setting up signs around the room, you can cut your sorting time in half if you decide now rather than later where things go. As you sort through your belongings in the garage, place similar items together. If there is not room along the garage walls, then place your signs along the driveway or side of the house.
In this major sort, focus on clearing the center of the floor. When you can see the center of the floor, this visible sign of progress will motivate you to keep going.
Sweep the garage floor when you can see significant space. This will make you feel like you’re really cleaning the garage—plus, you won’t track old dirt and grease into the house.
The initial big sort of the center of the garage floor requires decisions. Some things have to go to make room for today’s activities in your life. Not everything can stay.
SPACE-SAVING TIP #40
Cardboard boxes tend to wilt over time, so upgrade your garage storage to plastic containers with lids.
Main Wall
This is often the most noticed wall of the garage from the driveway. It is usually deeper than the side walls, so it is valuable for deeper items.
Refrigerator or freezer. These need to be near an electric plug and, if they are used often, as close to the door to the house as possible.
Workbench. This may be situated at the back of the garage so you can allow room for a stool. Be sure there is electricity for power tools and storage for related items in drawers and cabinets.
Cabinet storage and shelving. Kitchen cabinets make ideal storage over a workbench or a craft area in the back of the garage.
Washer and dryer. Depending on their size and the power connections, these may need to be on the main wall of the garage.
Give some thought to what you put on the deeper back wall of your garage. Don’t put anything narrow on this wall that could go on a side wall unless you need the space for walking to your car.
The other most important space in the garage is next to the door to the house. Do you want your trash and recycle bins there so you can drop in trash from the house? Or do you want a clear ledge to set things down as you open and close the door?
SPACE-SAVING TIP #41
An important step in garage organizing is using large labels for your boxes that you can see from a distance. A black marker and index card will do the job well.
Now that the bigger items are placed on the main wall of the garage, it is time for sorting and containerizing smaller belongings. Make a diagram of what you want on each of the two remaining walls.
Left Wall: The “Guy” Wall
Here are some tips for organizing your “guy” wall or the tools for outside of the house:
• Keep yard tools on the same side so you don’t have to crisscross the garage.
• Keep your most used sections the easiest to access, even with the cars parked in the garage.
• Store outdoor equipment, such as rake, edge trimmer, shovel, or broom on a hanging rack, on wall hooks, or put them in an upright can.
• Workshop tools and paint occupy anywhere from three feet to three yards of wall space, depending on the hobbyist or serious carpenter. Keep all the equipment in drawers, bins, and a pegboard over a workbench to keep this person happy and your home in good repair.
• Gardening tools should be near workshop tools because they need the same kind of drawers and shelving, even if someone else does the gardening. Keep these areas organized so more work is done.
• Sports equipment like golf clubs, tennis rackets, soccer balls, cleats, hockey gear, and bats can be propped upright in a cabinet so these items won’t fall. Use bins or sports racks to hold balls and related gear.
• Hardware stores and closet companies can outfit you in modular cabinets and wall-mounted rack systems to get ladders and wheelbarrows out of the way.
• If you live in an area that gets winter freezes, do not keep aerosols or paint in the garage. If you live in a warm climate, stay away from cardboard that goes limp from humidity, and do not store items in the garage that may melt in the summer heat, such as candles and other decorations.
Right Wall: The “Gal” Wall
After the tools, yard equipment, and sports equipment are organized, it’s time to sort the remaining items. Your garage’s “gal” wall will likely include the following items, which relate more to inside the home:
• Storage bins on same-sized shelves that can hold a box per person, per hobby, or other household storage. Kitchen appliances that are used only once a year (such as ice cream maker or turkey roasting pan). Yearbooks and memorabilia, though these are best stored in the house. As long as items are still useful or important, you can keep them inside if you have the space.
• Children’s toys and “keep” items sometimes need a place beyond their bedroom. Put them in labeled boxes so they don’t become a clutter heap on the floor.
• Pet care takes space, so put together all leashes, cages, terrestrial cages, and supplies. Pass on what could be used by someone else.
• Donation boxes are important to have permanently in the garage so you can drop items in there for charity all year long. Mark three boxes—“Giveaway Clothes,” “Giveaway Household Items,” and “Giveaway Media.”
Rafter Storage
Ceiling supports or rafters can expand your storage space in the garage. These can be made out of plywood and hung above the garage door or over the front hood of the car. Make your own, or purchase a professional system if you plan to stay in your home more than two years.
Ceiling shelving can hold the following:
• Holiday decorations stored in plastic bins.
• Luggage stored on ceiling-suspended supports.
• Patio umbrellas and picnic chairs stored out of the way on upper shelving.
SPACE-SAVING TIP #42
Simplify the look of your garage by choosing the same kind of containers, either solid or see through, and neatly labeling the contents.
Lighten Up and Let Go
Once you organize your garage, you should have a lot to get rid of. Take these items away the same day to a charity or dump to complete your task successfully.
Be sure to get your money’s worth out of your weekly garbage and recycle pickups by emptying all the household wastebaskets. Remember, clean homes have one thing in common—empty wastebaskets—because they pay attention to the little details.
Now go back and review your garage with this checklist.
Garage Checklist
____ 1. Is the garage floor clear in the center and cars able to fit?
____ 2. Is the main wall attractive and items intentionally well placed?
____ 3. Are all the yard and workshop tools in one area?
____ 4. Are all the storage boxes in one area and labeled?
____ 5. Are items placed in clearly defined sections?
____ 6. Are all containers labeled and able to withstand temperature changes?
____ 7. Have the ceiling storage items been labeled and sorted?
____ 8. Are the trash and recycle bins easy to open and use?
____ 9. Do I empty the house wastebaskets for weekly pickups?
____ 10. Does the garage function well for storage, yard items, and recreational purposes?
Tips from “The Decorating Coach,” Susan Wells
A garage need not look dingy. Painting the doors will add points of visual interest, as well as mask the scuff marks. Repeat the color beneath with “floor and porch” paint.
A tent-flap tarp will hide unsightly items on the open shelving. Cut a piece of canvas down the middle and install onto the top shelf, overlapping the fabric slightly in the middle. Along the center edge of each tarp, attach a ring, with corresponding hooks installed at the outside edges. The cover will easily pull back when needed.
Bins in matching colors will complete the look. If you can’t find the right shade, print out contents labels on tinted cardstock or use colored ink.
Manage It Simply
Every time you enter or leave your garage, look around to see that everything is in order. Putting things away now saves you so much time later. Keeping your garage in order is less of an ordeal if you keep it weeded out. Below are a few stories of what some clients did to simplify and manage their garage space.
• Trudy had a sofa and beautiful furniture for “staging” houses to sell. Yet when we organized the garage, she realized everything wasn’t going to fit. She had to choose whether she wanted to put her van in the single car garage or rent a storage unit for her side business.
Once she weighed the cost of storing the furniture with what she was making on staging, she decided to give up the business, sell the furniture, and continue the goal of getting her vehicle in the garage.
Trudy and I started by sorting and clearing the entire floor. That left room to sort the three walls, starting from the top shelving down on each wall. In two afternoons and one evening, we completed her entire garage sort and reorganization. She was relieved.
• Cindy had homemade storage lining the walls of three sides of the garage, about thirty-six inches from the ceiling. We noticed a round hole every so often and realized the prior owners had cleverly used sliding closet doors as the base shelving when they replaced their closet doors with mirrored doors.
The shelving was perfectly sized for two thirty-gallon totes to store back to back. We placed inherited family memorabilia in sealed containers in the back and often used household items in the front. A final diagram of the boxes posted in the garage and a copy kept in the house let the homeowner find anything at a moment’s notice.
• David brought home cardboard boxes filled with work papers when he changed jobs. The nine boxes were meant to be temporary, but after four months they were an eyesore and showing signs of wear.
A Saturday morning sort sitting on a three-step stool let David drop “toss” papers into a recycle box on the left and a “keep” pile on the right. Though he ended up tossing 80 percent of the papers, this was an important step for bringing closure to the prior job by reviewing all the work he had done.
“This is hard,” David said, “because I did a lot of work for that company. But I know I need to let go.” And he did. I know his wife was very happy . . . because it was me!
Review: The CALM Garage Approach
Create a Plan
Clear the center garage floor.
Organize the main wall.
Arrange the two side walls.
Approach It by Sections
Organize the left wall by sections.
Organize the right wall by sections.
Organize rafters and upper shelving.
Lighten Up and Let Go
Call charities to pick up items the next week.
Hold a garage or yard sale the following weekend.
Put giveaway items on your curb with a “Free” sign.
Manage It Simply
Daily—Empty your car and break down cardboard boxes.
Weekly—Put all weekend items away by Sunday night.
Twice a year—Sweep out and go through everything.
Treat your garage like a family room—everyone uses it and everyone cleans up what they use. If you have effectively organized the garage, you will be able to spend fewer weekends cleaning the garage and more time doing your hobbies and using your tools!
So when the going gets tough, the tough get chanting; I’m making room for a new life that brings with it new opportunities. I’m not going to settle for living with junk. I deserve better! I don’t care who gave that thing to me—it’s gotta go.
—CHRISTOPHER LOWELL