When you’re having a hard time squeezing your vehicle into your garage between the yard and sports equipment, workshop tools, and other items that call it home, it’s probably a good time to consider an organizational plan to maximize the storage space and functionality of your garage.
As garage door specialists in Chicagoland and southeast Wisconsin, we at Overhead Garage Door have some amazing garage storage ideas for you, including organizing items into zones based on usage habits and seasonal needs.
Yard Equipment Storage
Because lawn mowers, rakes, string trimmers, push brooms, and other yard tools are used throughout the spring, summer, and fall, it’s easier to access them when they’re stored near the garage door. The same goes for snow shovels in the winter.
Garage track systems are a great option to store anything that you can hang from a hook or click into a slot. They’re available in several different lengths and with a variety of attachment options to accommodate tools and equipment of all sizes and dimensions. You can also opt to build your own track system by attaching pipe straps or hooks to a strip of wood and mounting it on the wall.
When it comes to lawn mowers, you can create a designated parking space to push your mower below the hanging rakes and string trimmer, or if you’re in the market for a new lawn mower, choose a foldable one to save even more space.
Sports Equipment Storage
Balls, bats, rackets, golf clubs, skis, and fishing poles — whatever your family’s sports of choice are, organizing sports equipment in your garage is easy to do. Just use these efficient storage options in the area of your garage that works best for you and your athletes.
Pick up some bins to store balls, mitts, hockey pucks, Frisbees, and other smaller items. It’s a good idea to label the bins so that it’s easy to find the equipment you’re looking for when you want it. Depending on the setup of your garage and space availability, you can store the bins in floor or wall shelving units, which can be purchased or custom-made by you.
Track systems work well for more than just storing yard equipment. They’re great for storing thin and thin-handled sports equipment, such as fishing poles, ski poles, tennis rackets, lacrosse sticks, hockey sticks, and more.
An ideal way to store bicycles, pitchback nets, golf bags, and other bulky items is to hang them from your garage ceiling using screw-in, vinyl-coated hooks. They’re easy to install and do a great job of freeing up floor space so you can access your other equipment.
Workshop Tool Storage
Image by Antonio Manaligod is licensed with Unsplash License
To accommodate your hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, and all your workshop tools, as well as nails, screws, washers, bolts, clamps, and other fasteners, choose an area in your garage to place a workbench. You can store items in workbench drawers, on the wall above or next to the workbench, or all three.
Wall-mounted magnetic strips will hold everything from saws to scissors and more, and they’ll keep your tools within easy reach when you’re working on projects. Stick soup cans or similar metal containers to the magnetic strips to store and organize your fasteners. To make it easy to find the fastener that you’re looking for, label each container with the name of its contents.
Another option is to mount a pegboard on the wall. There are several types of pegboard hooks available that allow you to hang tools of all different shapes and sizes above or next to your workbench. There are even pegboard bins to store small items.
Garbage Can and Cleaning Supply Storage
It makes sense to keep similar items near each other to optimize the functionality of your garage’s space. Garbage cans and cleaning supplies are among these items. Where garbage cans are located, there are likely to be messy spills, and it helps to have supplies nearby to clean the messes.
Some people like to store their garbage cans near the garage door for easy in and out on garbage collection day. Some people prefer to store their cans near the entry door to their house so they can easily take their indoor garbage out to the cans throughout the week. Choose the location that works best for you and your family. When it comes to the garbage cans themselves, if you’re in the market for new ones, choose square or rectangular cans to make better use of floor space.
Once you have decided where you want to keep your garbage cans, it’s time to set up your cleaning supply storage. Track systems, pegboards with hooks and bins, and floor or wall shelving units are all great options to organize brooms, dustbins, mops, rags, and cleaning fluids. Select the system that works best with your inventory of cleaning supplies.
Ladder, Hose, and Miscellaneous Storage
Rather than store ladders leaning against a garage wall or in the rafters where they can be difficult to access, try using vinyl-coated hooks screwed into the wall to hang ladders off of the ground. It’s safer, and it keeps them within easy reach. Screw-in, vinyl-coated hooks can also be used to store hoses, lawn chairs, and pretty much anything you can hang on them that you want off of the ground.
Set up a gardening workshop area in your garage similar to the tool workshop area. You can include a gardening bench and pegboard or magnetic strips to store trowels, pruning shears, and spading forks. Use bins to store gardening gloves, flower seeds, fertilizer, and other small items.
Ready To Organize Your Garage?
You won’t believe what a difference an organized garage can make, but no matter how well your garage is organized, if the garage door doesn’t function properly, you won’t be able to utilize your garage to its fullest. Our trained professionals at Overhead Garage Door are here to help. We offer 24-hour emergency garage door repair services in greater Chicagoland and southeast Wisconsin. You can also contact us to schedule a garage door inspection appointment.