Can you really organize the garage in just one day? You betcha. In fact, you can completely re-organize a small garage in just a few hours.
This garage has always been a place to park the car, but recently a home renovation meant that some things had to be moved out here, and the car got moved to the driveway. That was last fall. Brrr.
Now, with spring fully unfolding, it’s time to get that car back in the garage. Not only is it safer, but the car won’t be covered in green pollen all the time. Achoo!
Honestly, I wasn’t sure how much was going to be moved, purged, or stored.
We had about 6-8 storage tubs worth of items that got moved back into the basement where they belonged.
We had an overabundance of plastic and decorative plant pots for this gardener. She sorted them out and kept just a handful.
We had squirrel baffles. As if squirrels aren’t baffling enough…
We found an old broken garage door mechanism, some gutters, some unloved lawn chairs, and a few other construction items that are never going to be used by this homeowner. They went out for bulk trash/recycling collection.
And we had plenty of good-for-nothing garden tools just loafing in the corners.
We lucked out because this masonry garage has always had wood mounted along the sides, so we screwed in some regular old screws to hang up everything possible. Doesn’t it always seem like there are a few tools that don’t have a hole or loop for hanging? Easy, peasy. Just drill through the handle about 2 inches from the top. Sorry, I didn’t bother to take a picture in this garage, but I’ve done this plenty of times before. Just drill, lightly sand, and hang.
We go through the same five steps to organize: S-P-A-C-E every time. If you haven’t read them, click through to see those critical five steps, in order.
Three hours later, yes just three hours with 2 people working, this is what we had.
We re-set the back shelves so we could use them all. The top one was set too high to be useful at all. Those big cone looking things are the squirrel baffles. They go around bird feeders to block the squirrels from getting too much bird seed.
We got nearly everything off the floor except a cooler, the ladder, and a few bags of soil and grass seed that she’ll try to use up this spring.
If you’ve ever organized the garage only to feel like it immediately gets disorganized again, labels are the answer. But they don’t always have to be fancy schmancy. We took a Sharpie and hand wrote right on the wood what tools hung where, so they’d be easy to put back. I forgot to take a picture, but this is kind of what we ended up with.
While I love the look of a great garage system, sometimes it works just as well to keep it simple and use only what’s on hand, as it did here.
If organizing the garage is on your summer list, you might want to pin this for later.
If you want to see some more organized garages and ideas, check these out:
It’s Perfect Weather to Organize the Garage
3 Frugal and Cute Tips for Organizing the Garage
