subject: The Ultimate Garage- It Can Be Yours! [print this page] The garage is a place of wonder- few rooms in the house have quite as much versatility as a garage affords. In my house, it has been parking, storage, workshop, playroom, exercise room, art studio and pantry, sometimes all at once.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most organized person, but all of the uses for our garage have necessitated an extremely organized system- we can't have beach balls ending up with the hammers or the yoga mat or the lawnmower. Not even counting the actual uses for the garage, it also seems to accumulate more clutter than any other area of the house. Happily, we have created, what is for us, the ultimate garage, and I'm here to help you create yours!
No matter what your garage's main uses are, chances are you will require storage, and probably a lot of it. Not only that, but the very nature of garages- the temperature fluctuations, exposure to the weather, etc- requires that anything in them be heavy duty, and this definitely applies to your storage cabinets. Garages also present a unique situation in that, not only do you want things to be put away and organized, they have to be around the sides of the room if you want to bring your car inside.
Thus, the first step in creating any ultimate garage is to get everything off the floor and onto the walls. This will have the same effect on your garage as making your bed when your room is messy- such a simple, but big, change inspires you to complete the project. This is also a great step toward decreasing the actual volume of clutter- if you don't really need something, you are going to realize that it's not worth finding a new place on the wall for it. The Gladiator brand of garage storage offers wonderful little panels for hanging hooks and Gearboxes, which leads to the next step:
Finding a place for everything. Every item in your garage should have a home, otherwise it will all end up back on top of the tool chest. Most of it should be able to go on the walls, as garages have more wall space than floor space (especially if you actually intend to park your car in it). The Ulti-MATE Garage PRO company knows this, so they have made it incredibly simple for your to put together your own ultimate garage.
Part of finding a place for everything is having a place to put it, so you're most likely going to need some new cabinets. Luckily for you, this is Ulti-Mate Garage Pro's specialty. There are dozens of options, guaranteeing you will find what you need. They offer complete garage storage systems from 3 pieces to 11 pieces, or you can customize your own. The popular 10 Piece set includes four base cabinets with different drawers and doors, two tall cabinets, three partitioned wall cabinets, and a large recessed work surface. It provides more than enough room for all the things you have to put away, and comes less than two feet out from the wall, leaving you plenty of space.
Or, if you know exactly what you want, Ulti-Mate offers numerous products so you can configure it to your specifications. A whole wall of tall cabinets? Small wall cabinets lining the whole garage? A small workstation and a base cabinet? Your ultimate garage is just a few clicks away.
When you've got your new organizational system, you can start putting everything away. Be sure to keep like items together so you know where to find things when you need them. Smaller items can be put in drawers, either in the cabinets or attached to the shelves. One thing that has made our garage so much nicer is printing off labels for drawers and cabinets- now we don't have to open all the drawers when we want a screwdriver, we can just go straight to the right drawer.
As mentioned before, garages are often the hub of many activities; it's a good idea to designate certain sections of the garage for certain activities. Avid bikers? Maybe you should put the bikes on the ceiling (another great storage place unique to garages!) and have the cabinet in the front right corner be for helmets, tire pumps and other accessories.
Garages are commonly used for storing gardening tools, as well, and these seem to have a special gift for spreading themselves (and dirt) everywhere. A few hooks on a Gladiator panel will work wonders; suddenly, the rake, shovel and hoe are always in the same place! We keep our small gardening things, (gloves, pruners, etc) in a box in a cabinet, so when it's time to go out to the garden, we just open the cabinet and pull out the box. That way, we can carry everything we need in one trip, and we always know that everything will be there.
We've covered the basics of garage organization, and with a little motivation (which you probably get every time you pull into your garage), I'm sure you can create your own ultimate garage! Happy organizing!
