Garage Spring Cleaning Made Easy in 10 Steps

“If you want to get rid of stuff, you can always do a good spring cleaning. Or you can do what I do. Move.”

~Ellen DeGeneres
Even the tidiest people sometimes use the garage as a dumping ground. After all, out of sight, out of mind is a great way to clean your house. It’s a pretty good strategy until you can no longer use your garage for parking your car(s).

 

Organizational experts say only about 30 percent of us have space to park our car in the garage. And if you don’t want to move, as DeGeneres jokes, you’ll need to make room for your cars. By parking in the garage, you’ll extend the life of your vehicle and make your life a whole lot simpler.

 

A messy garage is also a safety hazard. With items strewn hither and yon, you may find yourself tripping over objects left on the floor or squeezing between piles of junk and boxes to get to your car.

 

Finally, a cluttered garage is a logistical nightmare. If you’re like many people, you probably store sports equipment, holiday decorations, tools, moving boxes, and off-season clothing there. But if everything is in a heap, how will you ever locate what you need? And besides, we’ve all seen Hoarders. You don’t want to be that person.

 

At Bench Solution, we’re experts in organization and space saving ideas. Our ideas and products will help transform your home and garage from chaos and clutter to sparkling and spotless.

 

Organizing your garage doesn’t take much money. But it does require a plan and some elbow grease. Now that it’s spring and the weather is fine, set aside a day or weekend, enlist some volunteers, and tackle the beast that is your garage. Garage spring cleaning can seem like a daunting task, but if you gather volunteers you can get it done in no time.

 

Here are 10 practical ways to reclaim space and create a functional and beautiful garage.

 

1. Move all your items into four piles: Save, sell, donate, and toss. To make space in the garage, you may wish to sort items out on your driveway. Be relentless. If you haven’t used something for a while, it doesn’t belong in your garage taking up space. Here’s where your volunteers can come in handy. They can cart off boxes and items in their cars while you’re still working. They may even want some of your belongings.
2. Clean and scrub. Now that everything is out of the garage, you can really make the floor sparkle. Whether you’ve got oil, mud, pet fur, or another substance coating your floor, it’s time to blast away the debris. If you can get it clean using just a broom and hose, go for it. But if your garage floor looks like a crime scene, you may wish to rent a pressure washer to blast away the grime.
3. Paint or seal your garage floor. Remember how dirty it was before you scrubbed it? Let that vision be your motivation for painting it. Garage slabs usually don’t have much, if any, sealant. This is the perfect opportunity to protect and beautify your garage floor. Applying several coats of epoxy paint will make the space look brand new. You can enjoy it right now and, when you’re ready to sell your home, buyers will notice your TLC.
4. Paint other areas of your garage. Why just stop with the floor? Are there other places that would sparkle with a bit of color? Look around. Chances are that the walls, your door, the steps, and window trim are all pretty dingy. Pick one or all and make them pop.
5. Install a pegboard, slat wall, or our amazing Ideal Wall organizational system on your free wall space. Once this is secure, you can begin hanging smaller items there to free up floor space. Tools, sports equipment, gardening supplies, paper wrapping, wreaths … the sky’s the limit. Since you’re starting from scratch, you can design the solution that works best for you.
6. Build a folding bench or buy the economical Bench Solution Workbench. Why folding? If you’re trying to save floor space, a foldaway bench just makes sense. Use it for your woodworking or craft projects and then simply fold it against the wall when you’re done. It’s a simple and elegant solution to simplifying your life.
7. Use hooks on the ceiling or walls to store heavier, bulky items. This organizational hack is a great way to get bikes up and off the floor. Use them to hold snow skis, fishing poles, or other sporting equipment. They’re also a wonderful way to organize larger tools like brooms, rakes, and shovels.
8. Buy inexpensive or used lockers, spray paint them, stencil on names, and assign one to each of your family members. This is a short cut to having a proper mudroom. Ask your loved ones to store their shoes, coats, backpacks, and books in the locker before coming into the house. Genius, right?
9. Install some simple mounted shelving. Then you can label and organize loose items in bins for easy access. Need ideas? Well, what about listing any of the following: children’s toys, Christmas lights, fabric, children’s artwork, wrapping paper, college memories, vintage signs, yarn, or emergency supplies. In other words, create a bin for items you need, but don’t want in your home.
10. Purchase a rolling sports cart or affix a wire wall basket as a place to store all your sports balls for soccer, football, basketball, baseball and other recreational activities.

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed some of these ideas for decluttering your garage. We’re big believers in a minimalistic approach to life.

 

Contact Bench Solution today for more ideas and suggestions on how to transform your garage and home.