Declutter Your Life - How to Organize a Garage

Whether you're a professional mechanic or just a casual grease monkey who likes to tamper with the starter motor of their car every now and again, keeping your garage neat and tidy is an essential prerequisite for the success of your trade or hobby.

Now, depending on how many tools and machines you own, organizing your garage will take a varying degree of effort and commitment.

If you only have a motorcycle and a couple of wrenches in your garage, then set it all up is not going to be that tough.

On the other hand, if you have a rich arsenal of tools and contraptions, you probably need to worry about the electrical outlets as well as the steady air supply for your pneumatic tools, too, for example – so the entire process of tidying up gets more complicated.

In this article, we're going to propose to you a couple of ways you can organize your garage so that the place is easy to orient yourself in and it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to find the 9/16 spanner when you need it the most.

Here's the deal.

Create a Temporary ‘Dump’ Area

It is only once you’ve started decluttering your garage and sorting the various tools, machines, and items out, that you will find out how much junk you own.

In no time, you’ll find yourself amidst a sea of objects some of which are useful and some of which are merely taking up space.

So, to make your life easier when it comes to weeding out the rubbish, designate a small area where you will place all the junk so that you don't get bogged down in it before you can make any progress with your organizational venture.

For example, if you own a garage with a front yard, you can open the garage door and dump the garbage in a small area in front of it. If not, you can pick a corner of the garage itself, where you will be placing these errant items.

Sort Out the Biggest Pieces of Equipment

• so that you know exactly how much space you need to make for them and where in your new garage décor arrangement, so to speak.

For example, if you own a car, you need to take its size into account, as well as the large tool cabinets, and any machines you own such as lawnmowers, generators, and various other equipment.

You might even want to consider setting up different ‘stations’ in relation to what tools and machines you’re using on a regular basis. If you’re using a large bench drill on a regular basis, you may want to work your way around accommodating various other tools, so that there close to you when working.

At the same time, this can be a great opportunity to move some of the less essential items you don’t use as often to your attic, shed, or elsewhere in your house.

Store Vertically

One of the best ways to get more storage room for the same number of square feet on your garage floor would be to set up some vertical storage units.

A large vertical tool cabinet, for example, can take in a load of tools from off the floor, which can free up a lot of space in your garage you can use for other purposes.

Another way of approaching this for people who own pickup trucks would be to get a canopy toolbox for your vehicle. This way, you will have your essential tools sorted out neatly within your vehicle, so they don't take any space in the garage itself.

Plus, you don’t need to load anything on your truck if you need to do some work outside your house.

Clean the Dust and Clear Out the Garbage

Once you’ve created a temporary dump in front of the garage (or inside of it, whichever way suits you better), it’s time you get rid of it once and for all.

For some people, this can be a tough prospect as the mentality of ‘oh, but I might need this some time down the road’ is difficult to shake off at times. To battle this, take some time to deliberate whether you need something or not and then get rid of it if you don’t.

Also, once you’ve freed up space from the clutter you just discarded, you can proceed to clean the area thoroughly and get rid of any dust, mold, and other garbage that may still linger around.

All in all, for many people, the garage is a place of work, hobby, and even relaxation as you get to tinker with mechanical parts and get your hands dirty, so you can get in touch with your primal nature. With that said, if the place is clean and tidy, engaging in these three activities is much more enjoyable and rewarding.