Garages usually have a lot of vertical space. Use it to your advantage! If you don’t have a lot of room for cabinets or toolboxes, use the space above. The purpose of garages is to keep cars out of the elements, so work around the space where the cars are supposed to be parked and see where you can store things. Below are some tips to help you organize your garage better.
When I was young, my family had hanging cabinets along the walls of the garage next to the cars. You could still walk all around the cars because the cabinets were off the floor, and they provided a lot of space for things like spare hoses, extension cords, and other tools. I dug up some old pictures – as you can see, it’s along most of the length of the garage.
We also had a storage area under the ceiling that was big enough to climb onto and crawl around on. We stored my brother’s car parts there, along with various boxes and holiday decorations. I used to love crawling around there.
If you don’t have space for a toolbox, consider using hooks on a pegboard to hang your tools (see above). It’s usually better above a workbench or a table, but it can also be a low-profile way to store your tools and other small items. Even things that don’t have something to hang by can be hanged on a pegboard by placing two hooks slightly narrower than the item and placing the item on top of them.
Shelves are also really great in a garage, especially when they are up high. You might need a ladder to get to them, but if you use them to store things you rarely use, it’s not a big deal. Maybe your camping gear is on the lower shelves, but the spare insulation or construction materials are on the top shelves because you won’t use them as often. Our shelves are above the cabinets, so that’s a lot of surface area to store things. The top shelf is almost empty because we haven’t put our camping equipment back yet when I took the picture.
Another great idea I have seen is installing brackets above the garage door and sliding large plastic boxes into them so they are held by the handles. This way, you don’t need to build actual shelves and just slide the boxes in and out of the brackets when you need to access them. Just make sure the boxes are sturdy enough and don’t put heavy items as even strong boxes can bend over time. Also make sure the boxes are not so tall as to interfere with the garage door track. We didn’t have the tracks, but we also had another type of shelves mounted under the ceiling by using brackets and wire shelves.
Remember that walls and ceilings are your friends! You can also install hooks and hang ladders, bikes, and many other large items that can’t be stored inside something else. Just be sure that anything above the floor (cabinets, shelves, boxes, hooks, etc.) won’t fall on your cars by not putting heavy items or tools in them and securing them really well by attaching to the 2×4 beams instead of just the drywall and using strong bolts. Below, you can see bikes hanging from the ceiling, as well as the same set of shelves above the cabinet. Note: there is no car parked below the bikes since this is the third space, but the garage door opens freely.
The ladder below takes up very little space and you can easily walk by to get into the car. Low profile items like that are great to hang up on the walls.
You can find more tips for organizing and decluttering your home in my book Minimalism for Everyone: Balanced Simplicity.
