Divide and Conquer
One of the basic garage organization ideas is to simply split things up into categories of some sort. For the garage, this typically means dividing things by season (summer, spring, winter, fall) or category. Categories would be things like gardening, grill items, sports equipment, car repair items. Organize your garage with the end goal in mind of making it easy for you to find things. Categorize everything in your garage with that in mind.
Another garage organization idea that goes along with this is to swap items out by season. So when you know that you do not need those gardening supplies anymore, swap them out with the rakes that you know you will need to clean up those fall leaves. Keep the items that you need for the season on hand and put the others in a harder to reach area of the garage.
What’s In There Anyway
Since garages are large and tend to be an area where things simply accumulate, make sure that you take an inventory of what is in your garage. Even better, create a map of what is in your garage and where it is. Garage organization ideas like this sound crazy on the surface but you would be surprised by how much time and energy you can save by making the simple investment of time to do this one thing. It also means you will not be arguing about where things go. A simple check of your garage organization map and you can easily see where the item belongs.
Another good garage organization idea is to make an inventory list of what is in the garage and where it is in the garage. This saves you from having to hunt around the garage for that perfect sized nail to hang your new picture.
Contain The Mess
If at all possible, try to avoid having lots of loose items in the garage. Make sure that you put like items together in containers. Remember, your goal in getting your garage organized is to be able to find all of the stuff that is in it. Having the same kind of items together will make this easier. It is also a good idea to make an inventory list for each box and tape it to the front of the box. That way you know what is in the box without having to drag it down from wherever it is and rummage through it to try to find something. And avoid having a “miscellaneous” box. The problem with having that kind of garage organization box is that it tends to get bigger and collect all sorts of things that it should not.
There is a lot of small stuff in the garage that will need to get organized into containers too. Nails, screws, nuts, bolts all need a place to live in the garage. Two helpful garage organization ideas for those small items: 1) baby food jars for the very small items; 2)
take the metal tops of jars and nail them under a shelf (this prevents you from losing the lids and makes sure that those containers always stay in the same place).
