3 Clever Ways To Clean Up And Organise Your Garage
The garage always seems to end up as the dumping ground for anything that doesn't have a home, but cleaning out and keeping a garage organised doesn't have to be such hard work.
22/08/2020
I'm not a neat freak so you can imagine that my garage isn't as clean and organised as it could be, so finding ways to clear out the garage and set up an organisation system something I try to tackle at least once a year. If your garage is looking more like a dumping ground and has little or no room to park a car, perhaps it's time for you to get in there and clear out and organise your garage.
1. COMMERCIAL SHELVING MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE
Industrial or commercial shelving systems are just the thing for any type of organisation and if they can do this for major organisations and companies, they can surely tame the chaos in a garage. Plus, if you shop around you can generally pick up commercial or retail shelving for less than what it costs to buy almost the same product from a hardware store - and it looks just as nice.
DIY TIP: Make sure that shelves, racks or rails are securely fastened onto the wall using NYLON wall plugs and screws.
A system that allows you to set up steel shelves and assorted baskets will be easy to set up in any configuration for your personal needs and you can knock it up in a morning and spend the rest of the weekend sorting and scrapping stuff you need or no longer use to reduce how much stuff you have to store.
DIY TIP: If you find that industrial or commercial shelving works out too expensive for you, look at using steel brackets to support laminated pine shelving, or keep an eye out for reclaimed wood that you can use as shelves.
2. DIY CUPBOARDS FOR PLASTIC BIN STORAGE SYSTEM
If I can save money by building storage cabinets or cupboards for organised storage, I'm the first to grab my power tools to do it. A basic storage unit is nothing more than four sides and some shelves and you can make it using chipboard, plywood or SupaWood depending on how much you want to spend.
If you decide to make storage units like the ones shown below, allow for hanging space on the side of the units to make maximum use of the available space for hanging items that you use regularly.
Make the storage unit around the size of the containers you can source, that way it looks neat and organised once set up in the garage. There are quite a few stores that specialise on plastic containers and you can generally pick this up for a decent cost, or buy one or two as you can afford to.
For better organisation, make labels for the plastic storage bins so that you know straight away what's inside each one. Items that you don't use very often can be placed on shelves at the top of the storage unit.
3. PLYWOOD PEGBOARD WALL
If you are looking for an affordable option for garage storage and organisation, making a pegboard wall is easy with a sheet of plywood and a few pine or meranti dowels, both of which you can buy at any larger hardware store.
Making a plywood pegboard wall lets you assemble shelves according to your storage requirements, or to use pine pegs to hang things from.
Use a spade bit or MAD bit that is the same diameter as the pine pegs/dowels to drill holes in the plywood. Mount this safely onto a wall and then arrange the pegs, shelves and storage in an arrangement that works best for you.
DIY TIP: Make a jig or template that you can use to help when drilling all the holes in the plywood board.
DIY TIP: Add large steel washers to the end of the pegs to prevent items from sliding off.
image credits: family handyman