In most homes, including mine, the epoxy garage floor reno is thought of as more of a storage area than it is a room. This is the main reason it is always cluttered; if you think of your garage as a room and apply the same home organization principles as you would inside the home your garage organization solutions will become a long-term solution.
Your new motto is going to be “do it once and do it right”.
Remember that organizing your garage cannot be done in one weekend, it takes time usually a couple of weeks to do it properly.
The first step is to determine what you are going to use your garage for. Is it a workshop, storage area, partly used as an extra room for teenagers or do you want to park your car in the garage and also have a tool storage area. Next look at the room and divide into areas, the floor is one, the garage wall with a window in it is two and the other walls are three. Each of these areas are going to serve a different purpose and be organized slightly differently.
The second step is cleaning, you can’t be organized if you can’t see the floor or the walls. For now we are only going to organize the things that are on the garage floor. Make three piles one for garbage, one for a garage sale and one for storage.
Start by putting all garbage into a pile. If you’re not sure if it’s trash put it in the pile for storage (this will be sorted later). If you have an item that has not be used or seen for a year put it in the garage sale pile. Things that are in boxes can be left for later when you organize the wall space with storage racks and bins. Now get rid of the garbage and you should be left with 2 piles, now do the same thing for the walls. Take everything down, hand tools, garden tools and any old shelving. Sort through this stuff, including the boxes and place in your 2 remaining piles, a third throw away pile should be added. What is not sold at your garage sale, will be thrown or given away.
Have your garage sale. You are having a garage sale for one purpose. Making a bit of free cash so you can turn around and invest it into garage storage units and shelving. You are probably asking why we haven’t cleaned the garage yet? This is going to be done once because it is a big job and everything is going to be taken out. After your garage sale and you have taken the things that didn’t sell to a thrift store or have placed it in the garbage pile it’s time to clean.
Take everything out of the garage and I mean everything, you only want to be left with blank walls and an empty floor. Wash the cement floor and if you have gyproc walls vacuum then thoroughly. After this bring everything back into the garage, sorting as you go. Hand tools in one pile, garden tools in another, boxes in another area and bicycles and other items that are heavy and can’t go on shelves off to the side. This is also when you should decide if you are going to park your car in the garage. One section of the garage will have to be designated for automotive things like tools, oil and antifreeze, you don’t want to store these items near your other things incase the smell of oil can get on them. If you want to use your garage as an extra room for teenagers or yourself then you should paint the garage floor with a cement paint so that you can use an outdoor rug to make the room feel more comfortable. You will also have to look at your garage lighting at this time, fluorescent lighting is probably the best to use here.
