Is your garage the default dumping ground for all your old stuff? Or perhaps you’ve piled up many boxes from your old house there and haven’t mustered the courage to open them?
Don’t worry; you’ll get to it one day, won’t you?
In this article, we will tell you that you can actually reclaim that space and fall in love with it as much as you love the rest of your house. The process is not too difficult but does require a little planning and some investment of your hard-earned time and money to do it right.
Keep reading this article to find out how you can transform your garage into another functional room in your home. Who knows, you might even turn it into your own private hideaway.
How to Successfully Organize Your Garage?
As the old saying goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail.” So, the only way to successfully organize your garage is to think it through carefully.
If you intend to keep your car in the garage, your storage options will be limited. However, this also poses a challenge because most of you with a garage use it for storage.
Nevertheless, even if that’s the case, there are still plenty of viable options to maximize what remains of your garage space. If you’re determined to get that garage in order, plan to set aside at least a full day, if not a weekend, to complete the task.
With the time allocated, the first step is to plan what you want to keep in there. Chances are, you have a lot of stuff you either no longer need, don’t work, or have never used in your garage.
If so, it might be time to declutter. You can do this alone, but decluttering will go a lot faster if you make it a family activity and invite a few friends over to help (free beer is a great incentive, by the way).
Examine everything, including boxes you didn’t open when you first moved in—you never know where that family artifact could be hiding.
Next, sort everything into one of three piles: keep, donate sell, or toss. Place them on tarps or use chalk to mark off portions of your driveway and place them there. Outgrown toys, objects that are beyond repair, outdated home chemicals (which may require specific disposal), and anything you haven’t used in two years or more should all be tossed. If you have a hard time letting go of treasured items, you can always take photographs as keepsakes.
That being said, as any self-declared DIYer will tell you, little bits of wood or other spare parts can be kept too, as you never know when you’ll need them in the future. However, be realistic. The more you keep, the more you have to store.
Sort the keepers into broad categories (sports equipment, hand tools, etc.) and store them in clearly labeled cardboard boxes or, better yet, stackable clear-plastic bins that you can reuse later. For the time being, return the keepers to the garage.
Donate giveaways as soon as possible, and hold a yard sale (or car boot sale) to get rid of unwanted items. Alternatively, you could sell them on any of the various auctioning or private second-hand selling websites out there.
For larger quantities or heavier items, consider using a service like Bagster to deal with the problem for you. Also, always pay attention to old equipment or metals you may have stored; they could be a hidden treasure trove in scrap!