As winter is only a few months away (yikes!), it is a good time to get your garage organized before it finally arrives. Here are five tips you can use to organize your garage before winter:
Consider what you actually want to store in your garage
For many homeowners, a garage is the perfect storage for a car, along with assorted yard and sporting equipment. But we don’t all have to use a garage in the same way. What is it that you actually need in your garage?
If there are items in your garage that you don’t need, consider donating them or storing them in a self-storage unit. If you have old family photos, clothes that you rarely wear or items that have sentimental value, you can keep them in a secure storage unit for a long term.
At U-Lock Mini Storage, we have storage facilities across Greater Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Our facilities include self storage Victoria, self storage Parksville, self storage Nanaimo, self storage Burnaby, self storage White Rock and Surrey, and self storage Chilliwack. Contact us if you have any questions!
Do a pre-winter cleanup
Once you have cleared up your garage, it’s time to do a thorough cleanup before winter comes! In many cases, garages can get out of control and disorganized during the winter months because when it is cold or rainy out, we may be less likely to spend enough time in the garage to keep things tidy or organized. Use the last weeks of summer or the cooler dry days of fall to clear the clutter from your garage and give it more purpose. This way, your garage can remain clean and useful all winter long.
Use all the available space
Many times, our garage floors are full; yet the walls and ceilings are not utilized to their fullest potential. Walls and ceilings can offer an abundance of additional storage that is otherwise wasted.
Pegboards, lattice with “s” hooks, wall hooks and wall-mounted or free-standing shelving can maximize the space you have, and still leave you floor space for the car, craft tables or whatever you would like to use the middle of your garage for. There are customized garage organizing systems you can buy, but you can certainly find plenty of DIY options to help you organize every available inch, for less.
You can also use shelf standards, which hang from a single track affixed to wall studs. These systems can bear the weight of heavier objects; standards, hooks, shelves and organizers can be relocated easily.
Use jars, bins and cabinets
Invest in a few jars, bins and cabinets to help store items in your garage while minimizing the amount of space used to store these items. Once you place items such as old clothes or document files in a bin or cabinet, you can store these containers vertically, which significantly limits the amount of used space in your garage.