Our garages often becomes the dumping ground for everything we gather that doesn’t have a place inside. As you organize the inside of your home it is common to find your garage becoming more and more disorganized. Here are 7 pro tips to helping you organize your garage and keep it that way:

Pro Tip #1 Get Everything Ready

You will want to make sure you are prepped and ready to go before jumping into organizing your garage. Make sure you have set aside more than enough time to accomplish the entirety of the garage. Many people set aside a weekend to get it done. Decide in advance what you will be keeping. Doing this will help you get rid of more stuff you don’t actually need in the future. Make sure you aren’t organizing your garage by yourself. Have family, friends, neighbors, or even a professional organizer come and help to make sure it doesn’t take you longer than necessary.

Pro Tip #2 Get Everything Out

Take everything in your garage (that is movable) and get it out of your garage. You can bring things to your driveway, yard, or if needed inside. As you bring everything out of your garage sort items into three different categories: keep, toss, and donate. After you have done this go through your keep pile one more time and purge anything and everything that you know you no longer use or need.

Pro Tip #3 Clean the Nitty Gritties

Before moving the keep items back into your garage you want to make sure your garage is clean. Take the time to clean out your deep freezer, clean the walls, repaint anywhere that is chipped, and consider power washing the floor of your garage. You want your garage to look sparkling new so you can have a fresh start when putting items back in the garage. You also want to make sure you have swept cobwebs off the ceiling and taken the time to see if there are any holes for rodents to enter.

Pro Tip #4 Determine the Best Organization System for You

You need to have some kind of organization system that works best for your lifestyle and the size of your garage. Our number one suggestion? Get everything off the floor! Install overhead storage racks, cabinets, or even different kinds of shelving to store your items on or in. To keep everything that is coming back inside organized well, find matching plastic storage bins that are the right size for the system you have selected and installed.

Pro Tip #5 Put Everything Where it Belongs

After you have put all of your items into their respective storage bins it’s time to label them! By labeling the sides of the bins you will be able to see what is inside easier than if you only label the top. Next, decide exactly where everything will be going and make one last purge of everything still left behind. Place lesser used items up high and more frequently used items below so you can have easy access to the items you use most often. This will ensure you don’t have issues keeping your garage organized in the future.

Pro Tip #6 Dump the Junk

As your garage organization is winding down it can be tempting to put everything from your toss and donate piles into your garage until a more convenient to go to the dump or the thrift shop. However, taking the time to do it now will give you the freedom to finish the organization of your garage!

Pro Tip #7 Put Things Back and Tidy Up Weekly

Now that you have gutted and organized your garage it’s crucial to take the little extra time each week to put everything back where it belongs after use. This will keep you from having to do this process again in the future. Taking 20-30 minutes each week to tidy up your garage will make your life a lot easier in the long run.

If you’re ready to take back control of your garage, we encourage you to implement these 7 steps to organize your garage and keep it that way.