Garage Storage Ideas

We always complain about our rooms and houses being too small to accommodate all our stuff. But have we ever given a second thought to how much space there must be in our garages? Apart from the car, there are several things that too can reside in our garage. Keep all your car and garden tools there and see how your same old house starts looking a lot bigger! So let me give you some cheap garage storage ideas that won't burn a hole in your pockets.

Storage Ideas for Garage

• Firstly, you have to decide what is the objective of the garage. Besides the car, what else do you intend using the garage for? Are you using it to keep your outdoor activity stuff like your mountain bikes and other sports equipment or are you planning to store all your car/motorbike tools and gardening accessories. You have to decide this in advance before you get started with your garage design storage. Because this decision is eventually going to shape up your garage. There is no point in trying to make it with something else in mind and then finding yourself unable to use it in that way. Make a definite design of your garage storage ideas in your mind before you get started.
• The problem is, once you see a cluttered garage, your imagination is just not going to work. Seeing all that mess lying around the garage floor really isn't going to help the creative juices along. So the first thing I'd do would be just clear out the entire mess. Remove all the old garbage and the ancient tins of car oil and other useless stuff. As for the things that you still want to keep (like your car!) keep it aside for a while. Neatly vacuum the area. This neat and clean garage is now going to get you thinking.
• Now recheck how much space you REALLY have in that garage. You might need to rework the design in your head, if you've overestimated your garage capacity; which is rare, because people generally tend to underestimate it. Either way, you might have to draw up a final plan. Once you have decided what exactly goes in your garage (other than your car), draw up a plan on how you can best fit everything in. If the walls have started becoming dingy and if you have the time, I'd suggest you paint the walls too. White would be a headache for upkeep, so I'd say go for wooden colors such as brown. No need to break the bank locker for it though. It's just a garage! Be minimal. It should look fresh, not luxurious. Unless of course, the garage is housing a Ferrari.
• Compartmentalize the garage. Make sure that birds of feather stay together. Keep all the garden tools in one place so that you won't need to go around looking for them. Similarly, ensure that all your car tools have a place of their own and do not get mixed up with the garden tools.
• Now, depending upon the things you intend to store in the garage, you can start designing the storage. Among hooks, nails, magnetic clips, shelves and cupboards, you have a wide variety of things you can use to store your goods. You can use big hooks to hang most of your garden tools from shovels to scrapers. Use cabinets or metal shelves to hold slightly more valuable stuff like drills. Lawn mowers again are too dangerous to be left out in the open. Use the cabinets for pointy objects such as nails, pins, etc. Or better, put all those nails and drill components in separate jars, high out of the reach of small children.
• You can use the shelves for storing all the unused paint, oil and other canisters. For sports equipment like baseball bats, basketballs, hockey sticks, gloves and even trekking equipment, you can use metal racks. If you have that thing for home improvement and are continuously building and constructing some thing or the other, you can also have a small 'study table' where you can do all your carpentry work. Just make sure that the saw goes inside the locked cabinets once the work is done.

One more thing to remember while you bring your garage storage ideas into reality, whether it's hooks or shelves, make sure they are out of the reach of your children. Otherwise your precious little toddler might just end up hurting himself.