It may help to think of the garage the way you do your kitchen and organize it accordingly. In the kitchen, you have storage, work areas, and traffic areas. The kitchen, like the garage, is very utilitarian. (Did I use that correctly?) So, when approaching the garage, try to mentally divide it into zones.
Start with the traffic areas. Do you have a refrigerator or freezer out there that you need to access? Plan a path. Do you need to get to your tools? The bicycles? Snow shovels? It might help to store all the frequently used items on one side of the garage so you can maintain a clear path to everything you really need in there. That may not be a typical, or even logical, design but if you struggle with space, try it out.
If you have plenty of space, then you can design and organize according to functional storage space instead of traffic patterns. By this I mean that all the tools can be in one place, all sports equipment in another (regardless of how frequently it is used), and all camping gear together in another spot. When it comes to garage storage, don’t forget to use the walls and the overhead space. There is a wide variety of inexpensive shelving available from home improvement stores or places like IKEA. Get the kind with adjustable shelves so you can change the height of each shelf as your season of life changes. One interesting thing I have seen is a large platform shelf, probably 4′ x 8′ suspended off the wall about two thirds of the way up. It serves as a very large shelf, and is placed high enough so that when a car is parked in the garage, the shelf is higher than the roof so you don’t have any “accidents.” It was attached to the wall on one side, then had two wires on the other side that went to hooks high up on the wall, kind of like a suspension bridge. Great way to add lots of additional storage to otherwise wasted space.
The final consideration is work space. Does the storage room or garage double as a workspace? If so, design it like your kitchen where all the necessary tools are at arm’s length, and everything has a place. For visual people, you can use open shelves rather than cabinets, or label metal drawers with what is in them to make it a more workable space. Keep safety in mind for both the project manager and any little ones that might come around looking to help or to imitate a project they’ve just watched with avid interest.
Take your time with this and really think through those three areas to see if you can improve the space to be more efficient and more organzied.
NOTE: This is an excerpt from one of my Whole House Support Program weekly emails. Feel free to join in at any time.
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