Some garages, especially those on historic homes, where they tend to sit within the house footprint, underneath the first floor, seem too small to be useful. Cars are bigger nowadays, and besides – where else are you supposed to put all the too-small kid’ clothes, gardening stuff and power tools? But with a quiet weekend and a bit of Marie Kondo energy, even a tiny garage can become a home for your car. With these strategies, you might be able to keep a lot of that other stuff in there, too.
Go Vertical with Your Storage
Take advantage of every non-floor space you can, including the ceiling. Seriously. If your tiny garage is wide and short, consider permanent cabinets across one side and pegboards and ceiling storage on the other. If your garage is narrow with a little bit of room at the back, create a system of wired shelving and monkey bar hangers on the back wall. You can even take advantage of the corners by building corner shelves. Shelving that allows you to stack tubs vertically is also a great space-saver.
You can get your garage door in on the storage action and install racks for things like fishing poles. It’s a unit that clips to the back of a section of the garage door panel that holds several fishing poles, golf clubs, or even small long tools sideways against the panel. They don’t interfere with the operation of the door and they don’t protrude much further than the door’s infrastructure when it’s lifted open. Just be careful not to overload these ones, as it’ll make your garage door opener work too hard, or could cause your garage door to come off track if it gets unbalanced.
Create Operable & Movable Work Spaces
Build a work bench that folds down, or one that folds out from a shallow compartmentalized cabinet for tools and hardware. Likewise, put things on wheels so you can wheel them out when you’re doing a project and then put them back in the corner when you’re not using it. To make the most of this tip, install outlets in several convenient places around the garage so you’re not always digging for and fighting with an extension cord in a cluttered space.
Organize Your Wires and Cords
Seriously. We get that it’s the last thing you want to do, but it’s also going to make for a messy corner of wasted space if you don’t just spend some time winding things into coherent coils and stacking them on a shelf or hanging them off hooks on the pegboard. They also make storage reels for extension cords you can find at a typical home improvement store.
And please, for the love of all that is good, throw out that tetanus-trap of a bucket of mixed screws and nails. Recycle them. Start over.