When it comes to a cluttered garage, things often get to a point where they seem too messy to fix without some Herculean effort. Your garage seemed so spacious – how did this happen? Easy: You got disorganized. To clean your garage you need to get organized, from the actual cleanup to how you act later on. By using the five-step process below, most people should be able to clean their garages in an afternoon and keep them clean. All you need is garbage bags, storage bins and a steel pegboard garage storage solution to get the most out of your garage’s interior space.

Step 1: Drive Away

Let’s make one thing clear: Never try to clean around your vehicle! Things will roll away underneath it, you’ll take longer to move things around and you’ll just end up with a half-finished job. It will also be difficult to execute Step 5 and install metal pegboards to make use of vertical space. So take your car out and find another place for it to park for the afternoon. If you’re worried about your reorganization efforts taking up space you need for the vehicle, just mark the space you need in masking tape. Simple!

Step 2: Take Out the Trash

Now that the car’s gone, take stock of all of the garbage in your garage. To do that you need to define “garbage” – and that can be trickier than you think. Garbage is anything you can’t or won’t ever use or sell. Many people are packrats who want to keep that rusty jar of screws or keys to your old, long-gone home, but be strong – they need to go. The same goes for that lawnmower you’re going to fix some day (if it’s been a year, that’s not going to happen – admit it!).  Once you’ve defined your trash, toss it out. You may need to run a load to the dump, but a lot of your garbage is going to be standard waste, good to go in a couple of bins. Make sure these are sturdy and able to stay outside, since if you bring them in you’re not really cleaning, are you?

Step 3: Move Things Back In

No, not “back in” your garage. This is your chance to repatriate all the stuff that’s wandered from closets, rec rooms and basements into the garage. Focus on moving these things back to their proper place. Families experience this kind of migration a lot; kids dump sports equipment, school books and other stuff at the threshold of the garage door. Well, it’s time to return these “gifts” to their senders. You may need to do some cleaning deeper inside your house, as indoor clutter tends to “invade” the space intended for these newly-returned objects.

Step 4: Organize Seasonally

At this stage the garage should only contain things that belong there. Now’s the time to ask yourself which objects belong there all the time and which should really only be there at certain times of the year. For example, if you only use your workbench in the summer, move it to a backyard shed. The same goes for garden tool storage. Likewise, move your skis, snowboards and other winter gear into a different area for the summer. Remember your choices so that when the seasons roll around you can switch out the right equipment in an hour or two instead of making these decisions all over again.

Step 5: Use Pegboards to Exploit Vertical Space

By Step 5 you should be left with only what you need in your garage for that particular season. Take a look at your garage. See any tables? Bare walls with nails? These are signs of under-used vertical space. Fix this by installing a steel pegboard system that’s strong enough to hang as much as possible, including bicycles, shovels, storage bins and heavy tools. For instance, Holey Rail’s steel pegboard system mounts on wall studs to let you hang very heavy objects – plastic bins and other items you’d normally have to leave on the floor. Once you’ve finished you should have a clutter-free garage with maximum available floor space. You only have the things you need, and have used pegboards to exploit wall space.

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Consumerism is the name of the game in the US, and people who have been participants for any length of time usually end up with more things than they can comfortably fit into their living spaces. So the items which are no longer in regular use but are too valuable to toss or give to the Good Will often head for garage storage.

This system, however, has one major drawback; if enough things make their way to the garage, the garage stops being a garage and turns into a garage storage unit. It may become so overloaded that it cannot even be closed, or have pathways between boxes and furniture by which people can access what they are looking for.

Eventually, however, most homeowners with overstuffed garages surrender to the reality that they need to do a garage storage cleanup. And those who do will help themselves a great deal by realizing that if they haven’t used some of the things in the garage since they were tucked away months or even years ago, they are not likely to use them in the future. It definitely makes the throwing-out process much less painful.

Getting Started

If your day of reckoning with your garage storage problem has finally come, arm yourself with the biggest, strongest trash bags you can find, and prepare to be merciless. If you have a van or truck into which you can place each bag as it is filled, even better.

If you have someone who can drive the truck or van to the nearest Good Will as soon as it is filled, even better still. The more distance you can put between yourself and the things which constituted you garage storage problem, the easier it will be.

Re-Organizing

When you have eliminated all the things you can no longer use from the garage storage equation, it’s time to re-organize the rest. If you find things that really belong elsewhere in your house, put them in cartons marked with the names of their final destination, and get them out of the way.

Break down the remaining garages storage items according to their uses; place like near like. Paints, thinners, brushes and roller pans can go together; grass seed, lawn feeder, and other gardening necessities can go together. Just keep going you have a place for everything, and everything is in its place.

When you’ve reached that point, you’ll be in a much better position to determine if its time to upgrade your garage with new garage storage cabinets and wall shelves. More importantly, you’ll have the room to do it!

For the remainder of the items in the garage storage, reorganize them by placing like products near each other. For example, all cleaning supplies should be in the same place while all the gardening supplies should be grouped together. Continue until all products have been grouped together.

When you first approach the job of cleaning out the garage storage, it will seem nearly impossible. Rest assured that by doing a little at a time, you can certainly return your garage as close as possible to its clutter-free state.