How To Organize Your Garage & Storage Room on a Budget
October 1, 2019 No Comments
Category: OrganizationTags: Fall Cleaning, Garage, Organization, Organize, Storage, Storage Room
With summer over and Chloe back to school, it’s the perfect time to start my fall organization and cleaning. I have several rooms on my list but the garage and storage room have become my focus. I want to try to maximize the space we have and not spend a lot either. It’s an old garage so I just want it to be tidy – not new.
After 5 years and 2 kids, we’ve accumulated a lot of stuff so making a “home” for everything is important or things will keep piling up. Our storage room was pretty much a place to toss anything and everything but now it is organized, labeled and honestly… I feel so relieved. It’s like a load off my shoulders.
Do you have a cluttered closet, garage or storage room?
Here’s how I recommend you get started.
1. Make 3 piles: purge, sell/give away and keep.
As with all organizational projects, the first step is to remove everything out of the space.
Purge as much as you can – you don’t need half that stuff!
For the “give away” pile, decide what you can either re-sell or give away to a friend or family member.
Keep – Only keep the things that you truly believe you’re either going to use in the future or want as a keepsake.
2. Organize into groups
Once you’ve decided what to keep, figure out how you can best store items into sub-groups. I like to store things according to holiday and then sometimes I further organize by sub-folder if I have a lot of stuff in that grouping (e.g. Christmas then gets divided into Christmas ornaments or Christmas Home Décor).
For our keep sakes, I made a bin for Bill, Chloe, Jack and I. I also forced myself to pair down their clothes from 8 bins (yes, I had 8 bins for Chloe alone) into just one bin of “give away” for each kid so I would be forced to give away items as they outgrew them.
3. Store & Label
As often as possible, try to store items in a bin or enclosed container. It looks cleaner.
I love these bins with the handle for secure tightening. It’s worth the investment to buy good quality bins that’ll last, especially in a garage. I also appreciate that they are see-through so I can see the articles inside.
For less attractive storing items like rock salt, soil, and paint, I put them into these bins. Doesn’t it just look more buttoned up when they are in containers like this? I think so.
In our garage, I tried to put all of the kids’ strollers and car seats in one area and our gardening tools in another. These hooks are a game hangers. So inexpensive and simple to do… there is no need for those complex garage peg boards.
Yes, I even made signs for our strollers with pictures of their intended place on the wall.
I also loved these hooks for our stroller bags.
To label bins, I printed everything out on a word doc (pick a font you like) and then taped it to the bin. You’ll need this kind of tape.
Ready to get started? Everything you need to get organizing is below. I got everything I needed for under $100!
Bins with clasps
These are the best to hold all keepsakes, clothes and other storage items that you’d like to see what’s inside. They come in packs of 4.
Labeling tape
If you store it, you need to label it right? My easy (but buttoned up) solution is to print your labels from a Word doc and just use this packing tape to seal them on.
Hooks for your garage
Rather than buy an elaborate peg board, I got basic hooks, hooks to hold heavier items, and two-prong hooks which covered all of our items.
Christmas Ornament Holder
These are awesome! You can safely around 50 ornaments, keep them nice and neat and I love that there is a see-through flap so you can see what’s inside.
