Cleaning Out the Garage

If there is one area of our home that has been neglected for a couple years, it's certainly the garage. It has become a dumping ground for a lot of things including yard tools, car care products, outdoor activities, etc. The mess had gotten bad enough that even the Mister said we should address it! Cleaning out the garage was one of my tasks on my May Cleaning schedule so having help with this messy job was great. We got up early a few Sundays ago and tackled the disaster.

Our garage is not finished on two of it's three walls, so the studs are visible. There were nails randomly pounded into a stud here and there to hold a tool or a bag, but there was no rhyme or reason to where anything was located. There was also a pegboard not being utilized and hooks on the ceiling that were left empty. 

So to get started, we cleared everything out of the garage.

With a blank slate, we started with the largest items: our firewood storage, kayak storage, and bike storage. We kept the firewood rack but just moved it down the wall a bit. Our extra stash of firewood is located behind the garage, so moving the rack closer to the back door will make refilling it much easier. Next to the rack, we stacked up scrap wood and newspapers in old recycling containers left to us from the previous owners. 

We purchased two kayak hanging racks from our local sporting goods store and used the advantage of exposed studs to hang them on the opposite wall of the fire wood. We had to pull out quite a few nails to make this space work, but it was the most logical place for the kayaks in the garage. It's so nice to have them off the floor!

After double checking that the hooks in the ceiling were screwed into a stud, we hung each of our bikes from the hooks. Getting the bikes and kayaks off the garage floor opened up so much more space!

With the big items taken care of, we moved on to the rest of the piles in our driveway. We sorted through our car cleaning buckets and tossed anything that was empty, dried up, or just no longer of use to us. We also sorted through some bins of tools and got rid of duplicates or tools that no longer worked. These items along with our gardening tools, gas tanks, and bungee cords were organized on the metal shelf on the back wall.

Our weed wacker and hedge trimmer found a new home on the pegboard, located behind the bikes. And the rest of the larger yard tools were hung on existing nails next to the kayaks. We also put our trash and recycling carts closer to the door so they are easier to load up.

With everything having a home and most things off the floor, the garage felt twice as big. It felt so good to have it cleaned out, organized, and ready for summer. We both came home the next day and commented on how happy we felt when we went into the garage to leave for work. It's the little things in life...

Is your garage ready for summer time?

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