The garage is one of the most useful spaces in your home. It can work as a place to hang out, a place to do work or pursue hobbies, and a place to store things that wouldn’t fit anyplace else in the house.
However, when your storage takes over the rest of your garage, it limits the other ways you can use the space. If your garage is disorganized and overcrowded, it may not be that you don’t have enough space; you could just be making a storage mistake. Correcting these mistakes can give you the room that you need.
Mistake #1: Wasting Space
If it’s your garage floor that’s cluttered with junk, there’s a good chance that you’re making a very common and easily correctable mistake – wasting perfectly good storage space. If your walls and overhead spaces are empty, you’re missing out.
Installing shelves, cork, or Slatwall on your walls will allow you to store and hang items on your walls. Store parts or small machines on wall shelves, hang small gardening tools from your corkboard, or install hanging baskets for storing balls and sports equipment.
But don’t stop there – look up. Your ceiling offers plenty of usable space. Install tracks that allow you to store plastic bins overhead, and you can use those for storage as well. This is a great way to store things that you don’t use very often, like Christmas decorations or Halloween costumes.
Mistake #2: Not Cleaning Out the Clutter
Sometimes things wind up in storage and stay there for a really long time. If you haven’t used an item for months or years, do you really need to keep it? Garages can become disorganized and cramped when homeowners try to keep everything.
It may be time to go through your garage and figure out what you can discard. A disorganized garage is a great excuse to have a garage sale. Not only will you get rid of unwanted items, but you’ll make a little money in the process. Alternatively, you can donate unwanted items and throw away things that you’re sure no one else will want. Just take the time to go through your garage and get rid of things that you don’t need anymore.
Mistake #3: Not Having a System for Bike Storage
A bicycle isn’t a big item, but its awkward shape means that it can take up more space in your garage than it really needs. Bicycles are also easily knocked over. When you have several bicycles all stored on the ground, you end up sacrificing a lot of space.
If your family is a bicycling family, then you really need a system for bike storage. A rope and pulley system will allow you to hang the bicycles from the ceiling, getting them out of your way completely, and this is an easy DIY project.
However, it may be difficult for children to get the bikes down without help. There are also bicycle racks that can be installed on the walls that can allow you to store multiple bikes off the floor and that may be easier to use if the bikes are getting used frequently.
Correcting garage storage mistakes can give you back your garage storage space. For more great garage storage ideas, schedule your free design consultation today!
