If you have a
two-car garage, and one or two
of your cars are habitually parked in the driveway or on the street,
it’s time to put an organizing plan into place.
Garage design
is a simple process, but it takes time and drive to get it done.
The first thing to do is to sort and
discard. Set aside an entire day for this process. It may even take
longer – a whole weekend, or in extreme cases, two weekends.
Do it when the weather’s nice, so
you can take advantage of
your driveway and yard. Start sorting everything in your garage. Make
piles based on activity or function.
Have a pile for garbage, as well
as piles for donation and sale. You will probably find enough items to
sell in a garage sale or on the internet to pay a big chunk of your
garage design.
Piles that you’re sorting into may
include: gardening, outdoor toys, sporting equipment, lawn care, paint,
tools, car repair & maintenance, holiday decorations, etc.
As
you sort, really think about each item. Do you use it? Will you use it
in the next year? If not, get rid of it! Keeping every little thing is
how your garage got to be such a mess in the first place.
Open all
containers, and sort what’s in them, too. Don’t let
“miscellaneous boxes” clutter up your space. Open
all paint cans – many of them will be dried up.
(Don’t just throw these away
– check with your
municipality to see how you should discard them to meet environmental
regulations.)
Once everything’s sorted, throw
out the trash, and take a trip to the donation place to drop off those
items. Now, look at what you have in each pile, and look at the
available wall and ceiling space.
Most garages have extra high
ceilings, so you can install large shelves that hang from there
– this is a good place to store holiday decoration in bins
– clear bins, so you can see what’s in them!
Organize the rest of your garage by
category, so that all of your tools
are in one place, etc. You will love your new garage design!