The weather is getting warmer (at the very least it’s thinking about it here in Southern Oregon) and summer plans are in the works. For many families, gardening, home improvement projects, family bike rides, and plans for vacation, camping and other summer activities are taking shape.

With summer calling, who doesn’t want to make sure their garage isn’t cramping their style? In this week’s blog, The Cleaning Crew will help you declutter and organize your garage for bikes, lawn equipment, sport gear, boxes laying around since Christmas, and anything else that may be cluttering your garage or prefab garage.

Follow these simple steps to help you purge and rearrange your garage, turning a frustrating space into a functional space so you can lay out garage floor mats and make your garage feel welcoming!

Empty The Entire Garage

It may sound painful, but trust us, it’s the only way to go! Check the weather first, but clear that garage out! It’ll be much simpler to assess your storage needs if you can get a good look at what you’re working with.

Organize your belongings into designated areas in your driveway or lawn: 1.things to keep, 2. things to donate or sell and 3. things to throw out or recycle. With everything cleared out of your workspace, you’ll now be able to scrub down all the flat surfaces and install/rearrange shelving, hooks and other organizational materials without your stuff in the way.

Clean The Garage Floors

Remove the dirt and grime in your now-empty garage. You need to do this with portable garages too. Use a shop-vac or an indoor/outdoor vacuum cleaner to suck up any loose dust, dirt and cobwebs. Next, depending on your desired level of clean, pressure wash your floors for a deep clean, or hose down your garage floor, or you may also choose to sweep then mop by hand.

If you’ve been considering painting your garage floor so it looks like this, now’s a great time to tackle that project.

Tackle Your Garage Organization

If you don’t already have shelving, hooks, racks and other organizational aids in place, now is the time to do it. Think about where you want things to be stored in the long run. This means considering how often you use certain items, who uses them, and during which seasons.

7 Tips to Clean & Organize Your Garage

1. Store sports balls using bungee cords. This genius storage solution allows you to easily access your ball collection, and it’s a cinch to put together.

2. Separate your garage into zones. Keep sports equipment, gardening accessories, power tools and kids’ toys each in their own area of the garage to keep things organized.

3. Install slatwall panels. This allows you to easily hang and rearrange hooks and baskets.

4. Get things off the ground. Use a storage system or build shelves to clear floor space. Becareful with how you configure this though, we have had reports of people damaging their garage door because of the way they have organized their garage. Requiring the services similar to Garage Doors Denver to get their garage door back in working order.

5. Keep your garden and yard work tools organized. Use wall hooks and bins, Build a tool rack. These DIY hooks are cheap and simple to build on your own. All you need are nails and a board to keep your garden tools beautifully ororganized.

6. Screw organization. Literally – keep your screws organized with this clever storage idea that uses dead space underneath a cabinet or shelf.

7. Bike rack. Bikes can be a storage nightmare, especially when they go in and out of the garage every day. Here are 5 simple solutions.

Helpful Storage Products We Use & Recommend

Wire Shelving

Wire shelving is the perfect place to start when it comes to garage organization. It’s clean and modern looking, can sit on the floor, be mounted to the wall, or sit on casters for mobility. They can be customized to virtually any shelf configuration for your specific needs. If you’ve got stuff to store, this shelving will keep it neat and tidy. These are available at most big box stores.

Wall-Mount Rack With Bins For garages with lots of small items like nuts and bolts, a great solution are these amazing wall-mounted storage bins.! You can label each bin and they are even easy to install! Woot!

Plastic Storage Box Plastic storage bins like these can be used for just about anything: boating gear, fishing gear, car wash supplies, bike helmets, or tools. We like bins with the attached interlocking lid rather than a separate lid as they don’t ever get lost! They’re stackable the contents are viewable!

Tool Caddy Paint brushes, spray paint, electrical cords, gardening tools, cleaning supplies… this Tote Caddy holds it all! It’s rugged, sturdy and the easy handle makes it portable, so you can move quickly and efficiently from project-to-project.

Utility Cart This is a mobile workstation that can hold a lot of weight, It has multiple bin configurations for even more organization, and has a space to place your morning cup of coffee! Boom. We’re sold! This 1-drawer utility cart is a garage necessity!

Detailed garage organization depends mostly on what items are in it, but these general principles should definitely get you started.

What garage organization ideas have worked for you? Leave your suggestions and comments below!.

~ The Cleaning Crew

P.S. If you need help organizing your garage, we have organization specialists on staff who can whip your garage into shape in no time, turning that clutter collector into a storage sweet spot. Call the office for more information!