Garage storage solutions have to start with a question that only you can answer: What is my storage problem in the garage? Once you have that question answered accurately you can then move on to a consideration of alternate solutions. If you seek a solution before you really know the problem or need, then you may end up spending money on a “solution” that really just becomes part of an ever growing problem. It wouldn’t make any sense, for example, to purchase a kayak rack to hang on the wall of your garage, if you don’t own a kayak. Or let’s say you have a garden shed that houses a lot of your yard tools and paint supplies. It obviously wouldn’t make any sense to purchase and install garage storage solutions for those items. You might purchase them for the shed, but not for the garage.

For years I was frustrated with how things just got tossed in my garage. I couldn’t ever actually put the car in there because there was never any room. The kids had their bikes in there. All my tools were sort of randomly stored there. With all the miscellaneous boxes, holiday decorations, sports equipment, etc., there was never really any order to it. Seems like the garage was this ever-changing monster that just sort of ate away at my peace of mind. My wife and I used to joke around about how feng-shui our garage was. I hope you are picking up on a little sarcasm here, because that’s exactly what it is. Feng shui? Are you kidding me. I think by joking about the garage we made ourselves feel a little less pain.

But the blessed day finally came when we snapped out of it, put our thinking caps on, and learned to itemize the real problems in the garage. We literally wrote down on a piece of paper all of the areas that needed fixing. The main garage storage solutions we found to work best for us were: first, bins, hooks and racks that attach to the wall for storing the kid’s sport balls, bats, roller blades, bikes, jump rope, and winter toys. This alone helped a lot. All those little things that used to just float around wherever now have a specific place to be stored. Second, adequate shelving and cabinet space. We had a little bit of storage before, but nowhere near adequate. Once we installed more cabinets and shelves the garage really started to become a place free of stress. So much of the stuff we had could be put behind closed doors or neatly on shelves that the floor space was freed up enough to pull the car in. We had a big cake to celebrate that day!

I have a sneaking suspicion that most home owners in need of good garage storage solutions just need to crank up the thinking a notch, and learn to identify exactly what it is that they need. After this is done, there has to be a willingness to implement a solution to fit the actual need. Having a messy, cluttered, unorganized garage is not something you have to endure any longer. Your garage doesn’t have to be your nemesis. There are so many great commercial garage storage solutions for the homeowner, that now there is just no excuse for a garage that doesn’t have at least some semblance of order.

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.

I do alot of work in my garage. I’d like to be able to let my dogs in the garage with me but since I open the door to let the air flow through, they always wander out the garage and into the street. My garage is impossible to be in without opening the door because of the heat so I want to come up with some type of barricade that will close off the bottom 3 or 4 feet of the garage. Kinda like a baby-gate except that my garage door is 16 feet wide. The first thing that comes to mind is using 2 panels of plastic latice framed in some manner that they can be attached to each other then attached to the garage door frame. This presents a storage problem though since these things have to be moved all the time to let the car in and out. Does anyone have any ideas?