Tips for Organizing Your Garage

The thought of it probably makes you cringe. Garages are quick to get out of control – it’s sort of our temporary “dumpster” for seasonal things, or items we just haven’t fully committed to getting rid of yet. Long story short – it’s usually a mess for everyone and clearing/organizing it is always that last item on everyone’s “to-do list” that remains untouched for years.

If you’re planning on tackling the project of clearing out, cleaning, and organizing your garage, these are a few tips to keep in mind along the way:

Clearing and Organizing Your Garage: Tips

Everyone’s garage is different, and you may have a different end goal in mind. If you’re moving, clearing out a parents garage, or simply reorganizing your own garage, the project will look a little bit different, but in general, these are a few tips for clearing and organizing your garage that you can follow to make the whole process go smoother:

Schedule a Time

Seriously. This is not a “oh I’ll find a time this week to do it” like you do with laundry, vacuuming, and other household chores. Cleaning the garage is a big project and you’ll never do it if you don’t set aside a Saturday morning-afternoon or weekday.

Ask for Help

We know that’s a simple one, but seriously – if you have kids, other family, or friends who would be willing to help, ask if they’re able to come over for a few hours. If you can pay everyone a little bit, order pizza, or schedule the day to work a little and have a game night or some activity afterwards, it’s an easy way to ask without entirely being a nuisance.

Form the “Two Piles”

This is where you need to start. Two piles:

-        The “Throw Away” pile

-        The “Keep” pile

You can’t talk about clearing and organizing, categorizing, or anything else when you’re tripping over a mixture of “keep” vs. “throw” items all over the ground and walls the entire time. Split everything into two piles and tackle the organizing afterwards.

Organize

Organizing isn’t just a matter of clearing space or making things “look” organized. Organizing is about categorizing items based on usage, seasonality, and accessibility so your garage looks clean and is easy to use.

If you have tools, find a wall for them and stack everything so that the most frequently used tools are most accessible. Put your tenting, fishing, outdoor gear, and outdoor games in their own area, once again keeping the most accessed items in the most accessible location.

This is an oddly specific piece, but it may be a good idea to keep seasonal items higher up. Christmas trees, lights, Halloween decorations, Thanksgiving décor, etc. So long as you know you can get it down later on with the help of a friend or ladder, keeping seasonal items up high gives you more space to fill the easily “accessible” zones of your garage immediately available.