Our poor garages… They’re often overlooked, yet highly trafficked rooms in our homes. Of course, as homeowners, our focus tends toward the kitchen, living room, bathrooms, and bedrooms. But, when it’s time, it’s well worth every minute of your time to also take a look at your garage.
Typically, we house a lot of high-priced gizmos and gadgets in there. It also stores a lot of our important items, like our annual Christmas trees and storage containers full of memories. So, coming in with a garage storage & organization plan will allow you to turn this space into something more than an afterthought.
Together, let’s explore the world of cabinetry, wall space storage, overhead storage, and even car lifts. We’ll help you paint a promising plan of attack that will lift that feeling of clutter off your shoulders and into its appropriate space.
Garage Cabinets
Let’s start with one of the most important installations: residential garage cabinets. These aren’t your average kitchen cabinets housing delicate teaware. They’re going to house heavy tools, be subject to all kinds of dirt and dust, and need to stand the test of time.
What you want to avoid here is your average assembly-line product from the local hardware store. This is the place for big-ticket items like patio furniture, holiday displays, sporting goods, gardening gear, and more.
These cabinets should be sturdy enough to stand the test of time but still be easy on the eyes. Otherwise, you might as well keep piling stuff in corners. Just like your kitchen cabinets, you can do anything under the sun here.
Sure, there’s your basic white or gray. But, what about some snazzy red? When beginning your garage organization plans, a nice wall of cabinets is the place to start. Just note that they do a lot more than store items.
A New Desk Space
One of our clients chose a small section in their garage, cleared it out, and invited us in. We were able to install white cabinets, slats below, and small desk space. Now, they roll up a stool and get to any number of evening and weekend projects.
With a smart design, you can open up enough space with your cabinetry to create a new desk space. Enter evenings filled with wood-burning projects, sewing machines, or any other hobby you might enjoy.
Hidden Breaker Boxes
With the right plans, you can use your cabinet system to hide some of the more unseemly items in the garage.
Panels that can house breaker boxes, irrigation control systems, WiFi towers, and other odds and ends. This is a nice way to maintain the clean lines that cabinets create.
Garage Storage: Wallspace
Beyond the clean lines of cabinetry, let’s discuss residential garage storage. The key here is to utilize your wall space and ceiling to make room for the garage’s intended purpose – your car! One of our favorite options for this kind of residential garage organization is StoreWALL™.
It’s a system of racks, hooks, and baskets that make it easy to get things up off the floor and into an organized space. Kitchens call them floating cabinets. We call them infinite organizing possibilities!
When you have professionals do the installation for you, you’re going to enjoy this system’s many benefits. It’s weatherproof, termite-proof, and comes in a variety of colors and sizes. This is the going to organize your garage so much you are going to ask yourself how you ever lived without it.
This system has infinite possibilities, it can be used to store spare tires up and out of the way, bikes, gas cans, ladders, lawn tools, and more for your garage storage & organization.
Garage Storage: Overhead
Now, let’s talk about that under-utilized overhead space. Picture glistening white cabinets and slats that organize all your goodies across all three walls. But, what about that overhead space? If it’s not housing your picnic coolers, Christmas tree, Rubbermaid containers, or other seasonal items, then you’re not doing it right!
The trick to organizing your garage is to use your space wisely. It doesn’t matter how many square feet you’re dealing with, you can maximize it. With overhead storage, the racks are mounted to the ceiling and then you can look at fixed platforms or retractable systems. This is the place for all your seasonal items that you don’t need daily access to.
Car Lifts
If you’re tired of doing the one-two shuffle to make your car situation flow better, then you might consider joining the ranks of those who have installed residential car lifts. It’s a shame to have beautiful cabinetry installed in your garage only to “suck it in” and shuffle sideways around your cars.
With a car lift, you can hoist your collector’s vehicle up, park your everyday car in the driveway, and make room for the one you like to tinker with the most.
For this to work, garages have to be, at minimum, ten feet high. But, then the height of your collector’s vehicle will matter, too. For example, a short and sleek 1970 Stingray LT-1 won’t be as tall as a Model T.
Power Tool Storage
Now, let’s fire up the big guns and talk about power tools. They’re an investment and, as such, should be stored someplace that not only looks great but also maintains them. Traditionally, organized handymen used pegboard, but we have something else in mind that’s gonna improve garage storage & organization.
Slat Systems
Pegboards work, but we’d only suggest them for smaller hand tools. Pegboards are prone to buckling under the pressure of major pieces of equipment.
What we’d tend toward is a slat system like the StoreWALL™ organizational option. It’s heavy-duty, given its tongue-and-groove panels. We’ve helped folks lift up their air compressors and store them on a slat system. That was a nice piece of equipment to get up and out of the way.
Melamine Cabinets
But, if you like the look and feel of tools that are stored away, then you might consider Melamine cabinets. This is an industrial-grade laminate that offers excellent durability and easy cleaning. It can handle the scrape and ding from a SAWZALL or a lawnmower. We like the idea of cabinets for power tools because a few of the pieces can be put on wheels and rolled out to the project at hand.
Best of all, with cabinetry, you can combine slats and wheels. A garage organization company can mount cabinets to the wall, install slats below, and run your rolling carts along the floor. Now, you have organized access to everything from small tacks to table saws.
Man Caves and She Sheds
What if you want to transform your garage into something completely different? What if you don’t want it to be a generic place to come in, park your car, and head into the house?
How about a corner space for poker night or a crafting space for the scrapbooker in your life? It’s not exactly a she shed, but what does one call a woman cave in the house?
Well, there are a few steps to discuss here. Let’s outline the most important elements when it comes to turning a garage into an additional room in the house:
- insulation, drywall, and paint
- flooring
- new lighting
- heating or air conditioning
- updated electric
This can shove that 1970 Stingray right out of the garage, or it can simply occupy one corner of the garage. Insulation, drywall, and paint are probably pretty straight forward. So, let’s talk about residential garage flooring.
If you only want your man cave to encapsulate part of the garage, then you might consider RaceDeck flooring. These are modular tiles that snap together and can be arranged in any pattern. They come in a wide range of colors, patterns, and sizes – nine styles and 14 colors to be exact.
So, this is a nice way to protect both the cars coming in and out of your garage and the late-night poker traffic. You can also consider epoxy flooring which bonds with concrete and makes things pretty impervious to damage. It’s also easy to clean up any potential grease stains and the like.
Then, as for the man cave or “she shed,” you can drop down an outdoor area rug to differentiate the scrapbooking space from the power tool cabinets.
Garage Storage & Organization for You
And there you have it! How about that for some nice cabinetry, storage, and living space ideas? Think of how often we pull into and out of our garages. A garage storage & organization plan will create a whole new feeling as you can enter into this space and see it decluttered, neatly organized, and totally maximized.
And, if you live in the St. Louis area, we hope you’ll give us a call at 314-308-7780 to discuss your overhauling dreams. We’d like to extend $250 off your garage organization project, just for stopping by to visit our site today.
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