Homeowners understand the importance of keeping their place in order. An organized house is efficient and functional, and it greatly reflects on your mental state as well. The garage is the most overlooked area of organizing your home. The garage probably comes at the very end of your list of areas to clean if you even think about it.
Your garage is where you store all your stuff once you’ve cleaned your house. But keeping your garage space organized is just as important as managing any other area in your home.
If you’re looking for options on how to organize a garage on a budget, you will find many options and opportunities for you to do so. After all! The garage space is the one area of your home where function outweighs form. Here we will be recommending some DIY garage storage management tips to ensure that you can organize your garage on a budget:
Assess your space and needs
The first thing to do is not do anything at all! Just take a step back and have a good look at your garage. Notice how big or small the space is. Browse through everything you have placed in the space. Now open the boxes and the drawers to see what you had stored in them all those weeks, months, and years ago.
The average garage contains paint, oils, tools, old clothes, broken appliances, and gym equipment. Since you don’t invite guests to your garage, you mix them all in disarray.
You can divide these items into three categories – junk, donate, and keep. Once you’ve decided which items fall under which category, you can further group these items into “common items.”
Wrenches and rakes, for example, do not belong in the same category of tools. Mechanical tools like the screwdriver, hammer, and wrench would belong on one side of the garage. In contrast, gardening tools like your rake, water hose, and shovel would go in another area. Applying this logic and categorizing garage items will go a long way to keeping them organized.
Get creative with storage solutions
Now that you’ve categorized all the items in your garage, the next step is to see how to utilize the space to best store them. Here’s where you can express yourself creatively. You already have empty boxes, containers, and shelves in the garage. Think about how you can best utilize them to store your categorized items. You can even experiment with placement to see what works best for you.
Instead of finding compartments for safety gloves, goggles, and jackets, you can consider hanging them on hooks and placing them on shelves. Getting a pegboard is an excellent option to put tools and items you use more frequently. Tools like screwdrivers, scissors, hammers, and wrenches will always be at arm’s reach if you place or hang them on the pegboard.
Investing in stackable storage containers can save you a lot of space. Besides being a cheaper alternative to metal containers, these storage containers are more practical. Getting transparent or translucent containers can help you find the item you want more easily.
Use vertical space
Consider all the underutilized vertical space while assessing your garage. A lot of possibilities exist for making use of your garage walls. One of the most effective strategies is adding a three-quarter-inch plywood layer over the drywall. It will allow you to have a surface to fasten and mount any heavier hardware. You can use this option to hang drills and even shovels and rakes.
If you have bicycles, one of the best options is to hang them on the wall instead of placing them on the floor. They are light enough to be hung on the walls without causing any damage to the wall’s structural integrity.
You can also consider installing overhead garage storage on the wall. You can utilize the storage space to hold seasonal items like paint and mechanical oil. You can even use the area to store empty boxes and appliances that are not in use. Investing in overhead garage storage gives you a lot of space that you can use for any purpose. It also adds to the aesthetic beauty of your garage and is very practical in the long run.
You will, however, need to spend extra on getting the right quality materials and tools. This ensures that the overhead storage compartments are of superior quality and durable enough to last through the seasons.
Tips for maintaining an organized garage storage
These are some useful tips on how to organize a messy garage. Each garage is different, and you can be creative in finding the most effective options to keep them organized without breaking the bank. Make it a point to declutter and reorganize your garage regularly. Spending time once or twice a year can help you clean and tidy your garage.
Use labels and color-coding on boxes and compartments to easily identify the items you’re looking for. Creating a list of items and noting them on paper or your phone can give you extra assurance about where you’ve placed them.
You reflect your personality through your home. Since your garage is a part of your home, keep the space neat and organized. Dividing the items into categories and throwing away or donating unnecessary things free up space. Organizing your garage space on a budget is possible if you take your time and have a plan.
