Some ways I have organized our garage

Most people have limited garage and basement storage space. One way to maximize the floor space available is to get as much as possible off of the floor. I am all about maximizing the amount of space I have (perhaps having grown up with 5 brothers and sisters in a small house) and having room for the things I want. In the case of the garage, space for our vehicles. We already had some shelves in the garage, but things were just being thrown on the shelves without any real rhyme or reason. The result was things were "missing" or the item one needed was on the bottom of the pile. I'm guessing that many of you know exactly what I am talking about. I'm also about using the materials I have on hand and not spending much. We had 1 x 6's that I was able to employ and for about $21 I purchased screws, hooks and brackets. The pictures below show the results. It was an easy project giving us more space and more importantly, the ability to locate what we needed quickly and easily. We always had room for our vehicles, but now I am able to walk completely around the front of my van when it is pulled in. My next garage project will be installing a pulley system to hoist the bicycles up out of the way. School starts next week, so that may be a project put on hold!

One other thing that is a good idea in a garage. Having unfinished walls can be used to your advantage. Not only do you have the studs exposed, but if you look closely in the pictures, you see that I was able to have bulky items set back further in between the studs. No bumping heads or knocking things off!

I also put items closest to where I am more likely to use them. For example, the sports equipment is right next to the garage door opening. We can just grab a ball and head to the hoop!