Home Maintenance Tips: How to Organize Your Garage

Home Maintenance Tips How to Organize Your GaragePerhaps you plan to sell your home in the next few months or years. Keeping your garage organized can save time and ensure that you have storage space when you need it most.

Get Your Purge On!

Clear out the garage and separate items into categories: keep, trash, donate and recycle. If you get rid of 50 percent of your stuff, you’re doing great. The more you can get rid of up front, the less you have to organize! And if you haven’t used it in years, why would you need to keep it around?

Create Zones

Map out space with masking tape, starting with where your vehicles go. Mask out where you can put heavy-duty shelves for tools, sports equipment and other stored items. Also, you can maximize storage by building cabinets or shelving from floor to ceiling.

Buying clear bins in various sizes and interlocking shapes helps you stay organized. When you store like items together, it’s much easier to find them, especially if everything is properly labeled.

Think strategically. If your garage doubles as a workshop, include space for a workbench. If you bike every day, hang your wheels on the wall near the garage door. Additionally, remember to include garbage and recycling bins near the door for easy access. 

Organizational Supplies
With the zones mapped, it’s time to get organized. For example, store shovels, rakes and brooms in a large trashcan. Meanwhile, sporting equipment such as bats, balls, skateboards and protective pads can go into larger bins, on shelves or inside lockers. Pegboards provide a versatile way to hang tools you use the most.

A cabinet that locks protects children and pets from hazardous materials like chemicals, paint and cleaning supplies. Meanwhile, constructing long open shelves of wood or metal gives you plenty of support for heavy storage bins, while a rolling cabinet lets you move craft supplies or gardening implements.

Storing Small Stuff

What can you do with screws, nails, hooks, nuts and myriad small items on a limited budget? Repurposed glass containers or mason jars let you see contents clearly while recycling. Use tin cans for screwdrivers and paint brushes. 

Once your garage is neat and clean, you may find yourself spending more time there. You might even have enough room for a home office or craft corner. A well-planned organizational strategy helps you keep it that way. 

If you are interested in buying a new property or refinancing your current property, be sure to contact your trusted home mortgage professional.

 

Garage Organization Ideas For Your New Home

Garage Organization Ideas For Your New HomeNow that you have a beautiful new home with a garage, the fun of organizing can begin. When your garage is well organized, everything is much easier. You can get home projects finished faster, get out the door quicker and better enjoy all your sporting activities.

Here are some tips to organize your new garage. 

Make Use Of The Walls

A lot of homeowners overlook the wall space when organizing the garage. If your garage has exposed studs, this is actually a benefit in terms of storage space. You can easily create shallow shelves in between the studs using 2 x 4 and shelf brackets. Use these shelves to store smaller items that tend to get lost on larger shelves. You can also create an effective space for hanging garden tools. Screw extra large hooks onto the outside edge of one of the 2 x 4s. Hang brooms, rakes and shovels from the hooks.

Utilize The Ceiling

You can also utilize the back area of the ceiling, beyond the area where the garage door stops when it’s raised. Install hanging systems that you can source from a local hardware store. You’ll be able to hang things like bicycles, skis, kayaks and more. Some homeowners even hang small lawnmowers and spreaders during off-season.

Invest In A Workbench

Even if you don’t do carpentry, a garage workbench is a useful part of an organized garage. This is the place where you can do small repairs on household items or add to your garage organizational systems. You’re more likely to repair an item when it’s sitting on your workbench and you have all the needed parts within reach. Install some smaller clear storage drawer units above the workbench to hold screws, nails and nuts and bolts in various sizes.

Hang A Pegboard

A pegboard provides a central place for your garage tools. Hang the pegboard on the wall within reach of your workbench. Outline the spaces on the pegboard for hammers and screwdrivers so they always get put back where they belong.

It’s never fun to have to endlessly search every time you need something from the garage. These garage organization ideas will make your new home and garage even more enjoyable.

If you are in the market for a new home or interested in refinancing your current property, be sure to contact your trusted home mortgage professional to find out about current financing options.

4 Signs You’re Going To Need A Bigger House

4 Signs You're Going To Need A Bigger HouseThere comes a time in every young homeowner’s life when they need a bigger house. When you buy a starter home, it’s unlikely that will be your forever home. But how do you know when it’s time to spend the time and effort to upgrade to a larger home?

Here are four signs you’re gonna need a bigger house!

1. You Have To Move Stuff To Get To Other Stuff

In a house where there is enough room for everything, you can move freely and access all your things without having to rearrange furniture. If you find yourself constantly pushing other things aside in order to get to what you want, there isn’t enough space in your home.

2. You’re Always Misplacing Things

The key to organization is having a spot for everything. But if you’re short on space, everything can’t have its own spot. That’s when things get lost or misplaced. If you repeatedly misplace your belongings, you probably need a bigger house.

3. You’ve Got A Growing Family

Do you have a little one on the way? As your family grows, your need for space will increase. It’s hard to imagine that a small baby will take up much space, and they don’t. It’s the baby accessories that take up the space; the high chair, the playpen, the walkers, the crib, the toy chest and more. It’s all fantastically fun, but you are going to need a bigger house.

4. You Just Feel Cramped

You and the other members of your family should each feel like you have space to be alone, spend time on hobbies, and have private conversations. If you just feel cramped all the time or you feel like you don’t have any privacy, it could be because your house is too small.

When you finally realize that the problems aren’t with you, but with the size of your house, it’s very liberating. Now you have the answer to the issues. All you have to do is go out there and find a bigger house to move into.

Whether you are looking to purchase a larger home or refinance your current property, be sure to contact your trusted home mortgage professional to discuss financing options.