When purpose-built to your particular needs, a garage can be one of the best places to double as a storage unit. However, as easy as it is for you to keep piling that space with things that ‘you don’t need right away,’ unpacking or looking for the things lost inside become just as difficult with time. Moreover, since you never filter things before stuffing them into the garage, you usually never know when you’re putting yourself or your space at risk, making it prone to a pest invasion or a fire occurrence.
The reason you let your garage get to this state is because organising your garage space can be a somewhat daunting and overwhelming process. Nevertheless, once you know the dos and don’ts of garage storage, this frightening task surprisingly turns out to be one of the easiest!
Here are our ten tried and tests tips to keep your garage safe and completely organised at all times:
1- Map the Garage Space Strategically
Strategically mapping each nook and corner of our garage before moving anything inside is the first and the most important step when organising your garage space. To make it easier on yourself, you should hire custom builders, such as Fair Dinkum Builds, to manufacture a garage that’s specifically built to match your needs. This way, you’ll never have to deal with the hassles of a limited space.
Once you have your own custom garage space, you can assign a specific area for different purposes, from storing household items and gardening equipment to car accessories and all kinds of other tools. When you know which corner is designated for which purpose, organisation duty becomes way simpler.
2- Divide and Conquer
It would also help if you always considered storing things in a garage in two different ways – horizontally and vertically. By horizontal space, we mean the traditional way of putting things down on the floor. Furthermore, by vertical space, we mean utilising your wall space as best as you could.
For example, you can nail some hooks into the wall to hang plenty of tools and gardening accessories that would otherwise be scattered on the floor and come in your way unhelpfully.
3- Don’t Keep Things You Don’t Need
One of the biggest mistakes people make when organising their garage is that they refrain from throwing out things they don’t need. No matter how much you paid for something, you should throw it out if it doesn’t work and has no value whatsoever. On the other hand, if you can make money off of it by selling those items, all the better! Regardless, things that aren’t functional and hold no sentimental value should be ridden of on point.
4- Label, Label, Label
Label everything! Much like you label everything in your pantry and craft room, this needs to be done for your own ease. When you can’t find anything in your garage, you turn every box around just to find it. The best thing you can do to avoid this hassle is to put a marker in your garage at all times so you can easily grab it and label each box with things that it contains. Every time you put something in, mark the box! Similarly, when you get rid of something, cross the label, so you don’t get confused later.
5- Piling Things Over One Another is a Big ‘No’
While putting stuff on the ground, you should make sure not to pile things one over another. Doing so will only create clutter and make it difficult for you to find things afterwards. Instead, it would be best to keep everything in easy visual, setting each item height-wise, so the small objects and boxes don’t get lost.
6- Install Sturdy Racks and Shelves
Not to mention, you can never have too many racks and shelves in your garage, even if some of them are left empty once everything is put into place. There will always come a time when you’ll need that extra space to store more items. The only thing you should remember when installing wall storage is to choose sturdy materials that last a long time.
7- Never Keep Paint in a Garage for More Than 24 Hours
No matter what season it is, you should never store paint in a garage for more than twenty-four hours. When exposed to harsh conditions, both opened and unopened paint cans begin to separate or gel, making them instantly unusable. Instead, we strongly recommend using your basement or utility closet to store paint for ensuring longer durability.
8- Don’t Use Your Garage to Store Wood and Paper
Similarly, while you might think that keeping firewood in a garage would be a good idea since it can remain dry there, your act can pose destructive threats to the confined space. Case in point, wood is a known object to attract pests and give them a home. Moreover, if the situation goes ignored for some time, you might as well be dealing with a severe pest infestation soon enough.
Paper is also a big-time attractant for mice, so you should avoid throwing your documents in a garage for safe-keeping. Even the boxes you use for storage should be made of plastic or some other material instead of cardboard since that can also attract rodents into your garage.
9- Keep the Flammable Materials and Chemicals Out of the Garage
Moreover, you should never store flammable materials and chemicals in your garage space since they can start fires when the temperature gets warm. If the garage is attached to your house, the fire can even spread to the house, endangering your lives and property.
10- Don’t Forget to Reach the Heights
Lastly, when you’re organising your garage, you should not forget to reach for the heights and install some kind of wall storage that you can access through a ladder. This will especially come in handy once you have close to no extra space left on the lower level of the garage.
By keeping these ten dos and don’ts of garage storage in mind, you can make the most of your custom-built garage space without encountering any problems whatsoever!
Stay Connect With Get News 360
