Who uses their garage to store their car these days? Not many people in our experience, and this is backed up by a survey carried out by the RAC a couple of years ago, which estimated that less than half of garages have cars in them.
Garages provide great storage space, so that’s what many people use them for. Apart from the obvious things like gardening equipment, garden furniture, bikes, painting and DIY supplies, bits of old furniture, Christmas decorations, tools. Then there’s the other stuff which you can’t find a use for but might come in handy one day – you know the sort of thing!
This accumulation of stuff, causes a messy garage, leaving you struggling to find what you’re actually looking for, when you need it.
What’s the solution to a messy garage?
The best way to resolve your messy garage it is to get everything out, sort through it, then sell, give away or dump what you don’t need. That takes time though and no-one really wants their possession all laid out in view of neighbours and passers-by for any length of time, especially as there might be some valuable stuff in there.
Fortunately for people in the Newark and Lincolnshire area, Ballards have the solution. We can deliver a storage container to you, and at 20ft x 8ft x 8ft, they give you just as much space as your garage does, so you can store things in there for a week or more – however long you need to sort everything out. Hire a storage container for a low weekly fee, then when you’ve finished using it, we’ll collect it back from you. Find out more about Ballards storage containers to rent.
Garage organisation tips
Once you’ve emptied your garage, you can set about making it more user friendly and organised for future storage. Here are some tips:
- Make a plan: Think about what you want to store and which items you’ll need to access most, so you can put them somewhere which is easy to access. Group similar things together.
- See what you can keep off the floor: Garages usually have 3 solid walls, perfect for attaching thing to. You might want to put up some shelves for smaller items like tools, screws etc. Hooks are also really useful for equipment, cycles and garden tools for example and the advantage of hanging them on the wall is they are easy to see and nothing gets stacked in front of them. Peg boards can be used too, just attached one board to the wall, and you can hang lots of smaller items from it.
- Putting things in boxes helps to keep them clean, tidy and organised. And if you label the boxes, you won’t have to rummage through them all to know what’s inside. I like to use the stackable plastic boxes that you can get from any DIY store, using a range of sizes and colours. The other advantage of plastic boxes, of course, is that you can see what’s inside.
- Shelves can be another easy way to keep small items off the floor and keep them at eye level so they’re easy to find and reach for
- Don’t forget to label everything. Group related items together in boxes, drawers and shelves and use a labelling system that works best for you. This could be stickers, post-it notes or a permanent marker! Implementing a labelling system that works best for you is a great way to keep your new organised garage space in good condition.
There is more advice available online but we think these 3 steps are enough to get you started, and having the benefit of a storage container gives you the time to get what you need and do the DIY work that will really pay off in future. Who knows, you might even end up with room to store your car as well!
See more information about Ballards’ storage containers, or give us a call.