Organizing your garage for the summer makes it easy to run out to the beach or park without wasting any time at all. Otherwise it can take forever to find your beach towels, sunscreen, flip flops, and other warm weather necessities. Let’s straighten things out so you can easily transition through the seasons and enjoy all that summer has to offer!
From choosing cabinets that will keep everything in order to shoe storage that will save your sanity, we’ve got you covered with these seven organization hacks to get your garage ready for summer.
- Do some inventory. Keep what you use, toss what you don’t.
The first step when organizing any space is to clean-out any broken or unused items. In the garage, you probably have sports equipment and bikes your kids have outgrown, or cans of paint you’ve been holding on to for way too long. If the items have any monetary value, sell or donate them. The rest should be recycled or trashed.
When cleaning out the things you don’t need, also pay attention to what you do. This will help you determine what types of organizational methods will be most beneficial for your garage.
- Keep your cabinetry functional and avoid using it as a store-all.
Choosing cabinets for your garage really comes down to their function. In your home, the garage might double as a laundry room, and your cabinets might store laundry detergent, dryer sheets and the like. Or maybe you use your garage as a workstation, and your cabinetry is filled with tools and DIY supplies. The point is that cabinets should support a specific function and not be an easy place to store anything and everything. Using ready to assemble cabinetry is a smart way to design the perfect storage solutions for your garage.
- Give everything a home.
One way to avoid the mess is to designate a specific spot for each item in your garage. The key to organizing your garage is to give every last nail a home. Yes, you can avoid clutter and know where everything in your garage is. Bins, boxes, hooks and pegboards make this possible. Labels help.
- Set up an arrival/departure station.
Does it take you forever to leave the house? An arrival/departure station could easily expedite that process for you. Next to the door into your home, install a few hooks on the wall. Use some to hang totes and backpacks and the others for baskets. In the baskets you can keep the odds and ends you’re always searching for, like sunscreen, your beach passes, or even your keys. Put a shoe storage cubby below (if you can find a bench with a shoe cubby, even better). You can customize this area for your family’s needs. Just think about all of the steps you normally take before leaving the house and try to condense them into this station.
- Hang it up.
If there’s no room in your garage for cars because of the tools, bikes, skateboards, and strollers, it’s time to take advantage of your vertical storage options. Walls and ceilings can be a great place to store these bulky items and free up some floor space.
- Store away what’s out of season.
While the weather has been crazy lately, you probably won’t need your snow boots after May. Store winter gear away in labeled bins so they won’t be in your way this summer. Bonus tip: try and make your storage as methodical as possible, so transitioning from summer to fall is seamless come September.
- Give beach towels their own bin.
If you let your beach towels mix with your bath towels, there’s a good chance your beach towels will be used for bathing and never be clean when you need them. Keep your beach towels in their own separate bin or cabinet in the garage so you can just toss them into your beach bag before heading out.
At The RTA Store we help make your dream home a reality with RTA (Ready To Assemble) and Pre-Assembled cabinets and accessories. Whether it’s your kitchen bathroom, laundry room, home office, bar room or TV room, we offer the same (if not better) quality you would find at any retail store, but for a fraction of the price. Stop by our website or give us a call and let us make your dreams come true with the help of our free room design tool!
