Five Easy-Peasy Ways to Boost Storage Space In Your Garage
When you initially moved into your home and spied the garage, you may have been thrilled with the amount of space you had available. However, the garage is most often the landing place for all of those odd and end items that don’t have a place inside of the house. Before you know it, you could have barely enough space to park your car and open the car door to get out. If the garage that you have in your home is starting to look more like a cluttered storage unit that houses a car, it is definitely time to start thinking about solutions. There are at least five easy ways you can increase the garage storage capacity in your garage, declutter, and make the space function as it was intended to from the start.
1. Create a Zoning Plan for Your Garage
The very first thing that you can do when you are trying to find more storage in your garage is to get more organized. Even if you haven’t yet mustered up the courage to step into the garage and get your hands dirty, you can start this step the easy way: on paper. Draw out a basic diagram of your garage, taking note of the space that you have to work with and what you would like to achieve. Carefully designate each area to a specific storage need. It is a good idea to start with the larger requirements, such as parking your car, and work your way down from there. Creating this zoning plan will give you a road map to go by as you work and will help you stay on track to eventually reaching the storage capacity that you would like to see in your garage.
2. Take Advantage of Overhead Space
You may have the garage stuffed from wall to wall, but have you ever considered just how much space you have overhead? Overhead storage racks are actually fairly simple to install and come in a range of forms. There are even DIY overhead storage racks you can create using simple plastic totes and wooden I-beams. Whatever route you take with overhead storage, this is a great space to store all of that seasonal stuff that just gets in the way throughout the year or the smaller items that you don’t really need that often, but still want to keep around.
3. Create Wall Racks for Landscaping Tools
Look in the corners of just about any cluttered garage and you will find something so common that it could be a cluttered garage trademark. Long-handled landscaping and household tools, such as brooms, shovels, and rakes, most often get stuffed haphazardly in garage corners to keep them standing upright and within reach. This is not a very efficient way to store these commodities, however, and can easily contribute to the clutter. Using simple wall hooks or clamps, designate one wall in your garage or one section of a wall to storing these items up off the floor where they will still be within reach.
4. Implement a Fold-Away Work Surface
It may be an absolute must that you have some form of tabletop surface or work bench in your garage, but those rickety racks and tables you may have been using probably take up a lot of space when they are not used all that often. To solve this issue, install a foldaway work station that can be tucked out of the way when it is not needed. The fold away work bench can be created with heavy-duty hinges that attach to the wall, a large piece of plywood, and legs that can fold in toward the underside of the work surface for easy storage. This is a simple DIY project that can usually be accomplished in as little as a few hours and will make all the difference in how much space you have to move when the table is folded away.
5. Install a Pegboard for Small Tools
Take a look at your small hand tools and check out the nifty feature you may have never given enough credit. A good portion of hand tools have a hole through the handle for storage. Wrenches, screwdrivers, and even hammers and hand drills can all be draped casually from small pegs on a peg board, and peg boards are not at all expensive to install. Choose a wall over a work surface and install a pegboard large enough to house the majority of your small hand tools. This will keep them all up off of the floor and may even eliminate the need to have an overly-sized tool chest hogging space in your garage.
Your garage may look like a disaster zone right now, but rest assured, with a little creative thinking, ingenuity, and the best storage solutions, it is possible to transform what you have into a more functional space. Be sure you take these five tips into consideration while you are working to boost the storage capacity of your overcrowded garage.