6 Easy Steps to Organise your Storage or Garage area

This area is a habitual winner of the “Still in Progress” award in most homes. Organising storage rooms and garages can be so overwhelming. The sheer scale of the task makes it an intimidating one, but imagine having it all neat and tidy, contained in grouped boxes on perfectly aligned shelving. Now stop dreaming and get to work....

Here’s some pointers that will help breakdown the task into more digestible chunks to make this project come out a winner.

This is not a one-day project.

Remember organising is a journey, not a destination. Do it in small bits and the result will be far more satisfying.

Break the greater space down into mini spaces.

Each day you should tackle a different mini space by first pulling everything out and creating donate, dispose, sell, and keep piles.

Planning

Now that you have cleared some of the clutter and know what you are planning to keep, the first step to getting back to some semblance of order is dealing with the ‘like items.’ You will be storing these together to make them easier to find and access when needed. An important part of this step is assessing the space requirements needed for each “like item” group. Things like sport- ing equipment, bikes, or garden tools need to be easily accessible and are likely to take up a substantial area of floor or wall space, whilst paint tins may only require a single shelf somewhere, as will car care and cleaning products.

Zones

Plan your space by creating different zones. This could4 include a workbench for the handy person, an accessible section for bikes, wall shelving for boxes and containers, and fixed or free-standing cupboards for lesser used items.

Get creative with your storage and invest in good solutions.

Tools don’t need to live in a tool-chest; Pegboards are great idea if you have plenty of free wall space. Again, if wall space is aplenty, then bikes or garden tools can be easily stored there by investing in wall hooks or storage poles. There’s no point having 20 neatly packed tubs or boxes if you are only going to stack them up in a corner somewhere. Murphy’s Law says that whenever you need something, it will always be in the bottom box, so heavy duty shelves are a great way to ensure easy access to each and every tub or container; This solution is also beneficial in keeping your boxes up off the ground to avoid the affects of damp.

Label, label, label!

Label every single zone and storage solution in sight. There’s nothing worse than having an un- labelled organised space where everything is neatly packed away, yet nothing is easily identifiable. Clear descriptive labels will help you and the rest of the household find items easily, and make sure they are put back where they belong.