There are not many tasks around the home that will be as challenging as organizing your new garage. The reason for that is simple – just take a look at your garage. Chances are that you are going to see some serious clutter piled up all over the place. That’s something our residential movers Ottawa will confirm – time and time again, it’s the garage that gives us the most trouble. But don’t worry – we have a couple of tips for you that will make the organization of your garage a much simpler and more efficient process.
Declutter before you dive into the process
Organizing your garage will be impossible until you organize the clutter itself. If you have ever gone through a move, then you already know how the process works. You are supposed to create three piles – keep, donate, throw away. Ideally, we would suggest that you pull out everything onto the driveway and make a decision for each item separately. And just like many people who are decluttering before a move, you can’t let yourself get sentimental. Throw away as much as possible and keep only the essentials. That means that your tools stay, but your old and run-down holiday decorations go.
Once everything is at a corresponding pile, do a good sweeping and cleaning of your garage. Believe it or not, people have even found bats in their garages. Hopefully, the situation has not gone that far, but that doesn’t really make a difference. Because only once everything is sorted and clean will you be able to start the organization process, right?
Organize your new garage into zones
An average garage contains many different types of items. From the aforementioned tools to old bassinets and sports trophies, sometimes it’s amazing how much we dump into our garages. What our residential and office movers Ottawa will be able to tell you is that, when amid the relocation process, we always do the work in zones. This division works so well that it will do wonders for your garage. Now, nobody can tell you how many categories or zones your garage will have. But you can have:
- A zone for your sports equipment
- A place for car supplies
- Dedicated space for tools
- A recycling zone
The four abovementioned zones are the main ones. You can add a couple of more zones, but we suggest you first pull up the items for these four. Once you see how much space that’s going to take up, you can add more zones in order to fill out the empty space. Just remember that this time, the goal isn’t for your garage to be full to the brim. At Discount Moving and Storage Ottawa, we are all for the minimalistic look. After all, it’s a look you can never go wrong with, right?
Storage space is very important when organizing your new garage
These days, you will hardly be able to find a person who isn’t in dire need of extra storage space. While you can always rent a storage unit in Ottawa and solve many of your problems, you can also look for storage space right at home. One thing we don’t recommend you to do is buy an expensive organizing system and then check whether it fits all of your belongings. This might be an unnecessary waste of your funds.
Instead, we suggest you turn to safe options that you can find at your fingertips. You should start with some basic garage organizers, such as shelves, and work your way towards more intricate systems. But the one thing you must do when sorting your garage is ensuring any dangerous chemicals are locked in a cabinet. Not to mention how important this is if you have kids.
Keep the place neat and tidy
Once you organize your garage into zones, you are going to be very proud of yourself – as well as you should. But you shouldn’t let that cloud your judgment – the real work is yet to come. Now you have to maintain the order and not let it get messy again. Besides a regular sweep here and there, you will need to return every item back to its place after using it. That sounds simple but just wait – it will turn out to be a much more complicated process.
Think of it like this – the more frequent you are in keeping your garage organized, the less time it will take to clean it. It’s a general rule of thumb to reorganize your entire garage twice a year – once at the beginning of summer, and once during the fall. We know this will be a tough thing to do one more time – but it’s a mandatory process nonetheless.
Don’t put off organizing your garage after moving in
It’s completely reasonable to leave this task for the very end. After all, your garage isn’t vital for your family’s daily life, so it can wait, right? But that kind of thinking will quickly lead to a garage that’s full of boxes, tools, and clutter in general. And you don’t need us to tell you how much more difficult it will be to organize like this.
And even if you don’t have a lot of stuff, start by putting up a shelf or a rack. It will be easy to fill it up later, but it won’t be so easy to put up a shelf when there are a dozen of boxes blocking your way. Organizing your new garage isn’t rocket science. You just have to do it on time and in a structured way. And, of course, maintain the space after cleaning up. Simple enough, isn’t it?