How to Reorganize Your Messy Garage

If you are like the approximately 20% of homeowners with garages, you don’t park your car in it. Instead, you use it as a storage area or hobby space. There is nothing wrong with that, especially if you have a small home. Suppose you are storing items in your garage. If that's the case, you may be faced with a cluttered mess where it's impossible to find anything. 

To properly organize your custom garage:

• Get Rid Of Stuff You Don’t Need
• Organize Items Into Categories
• Clean-Up and Consider New Floors
• Make a Plan and Zones for Storage
• Invest in Suitable Storage
• Keep Items Off The Floor
• Go Vertical
• Use The Ceiling
• Leave Room for Additions

If you’re ready to clean up the mess and gain control of your garage, keep reading to learn more!

The hardest part of cleaning a messy garage is, of course, the beginning. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and discouraged when you realize it’s not a task that will be finished within an hour. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get started because you don’t have a day to devote to the job.

In the beginning, you need to open each box or container and empty the contents. Make piles for keep, trash, and donate. As you go through each box, put items into one of these three piles. Before you consider donating an item, determine if it is suitable for donation. Clothing that is worn out or toys that are broken should be trashed or recycled instead of donated. You should also safely dispose of expired chemicals.

Don’t try to do everything at once. Focus on emptying one box at a time; it’ll feel less overwhelming. Once you have sorted everything in your garage, immediately dispose of trash items and take donatable things to your charity of choice. You might not feel like leaving a mess in the middle to run to the dump or donation site. However, if you don’t take care of it immediately, the chances of all those items ending up back in your garage are high.

To make this tedious part of organizing go faster, get your family involved. Just make sure everyone is aligned on what to keep. If you find it hard to part with something that has sentimental value, but feel you’re on the verge of being a hoarder, take a picture. Then donate or dispose of the item.

Your garage is beginning to look more manageable, but there is still a lot left to do. Now that you’ve returned from disposing and donating items, it is time to organize what you want to keep.



The best way to organize your stuff is to group like items together. Put your sports equipment in one pile and your decorations in another. Organizing everything into groups will give you a clearer visual picture of how many storage containers you’ll need.

Everything is sorted and organized. At this point, you’re probably standing in your garage looking at the disaster area, thinking all you’ve done is move junk around. Take this moment to clean. Sweep your floors and dust the cobwebs off the ceiling.

Thisoldhouse.com also adds in to check for holes and cracks in the baseboards. Fill in the damaged areas to keep pests out. You should also add new sealant to windows where there may be a draft. If you have a gap under your garage door, letting debris and pests in, add a rubber strip along the threshold.

You’ve swept, mopped, and dusted, and now you notice how stained your concrete floor looks. If you're feeling extra adventurous, research adding an epoxy coating or Swisstrax tiles for additional durability.

It might not make sense to wait so long to plan out your storage, but you need to have a clear idea of how much space is available. Now that you’ve sorted and cleaned everything, make a sketch of your garage layout. Use the drawing to plan where to store everything. 



When planning out your storage, create zones to group items by type and how often you need to access them. You can use your sketch to determine what kind of storage bins, shelves, and accessories you need before heading to the store.

Only after completing the above steps will it be time to go shopping. One of the most significant issues people have when clearing their garages is buying storage bins too early. If you purchase containers before you remove the clutter, you risk having too many, too few, or the wrong sizes.

Look at investing in:

• Plastic Bins
• Hooks
• Clear Jars to Store Smaller Items Such as Nails and Screws
• Label Maker to Mark Bins so You Can Tell What’s in Them

You've planned out your zones and purchased the necessary storage bins. They are packed and labeled so you can find things easily. Now you’re considering stacking them, one on top of the other. If you want a neat and organized garage, try not to store anything on the floor. Instead, invest in cabinets.  Many cabinets come with a locking mechanism, allowing you to keep dangerous chemicals out of reach of children.

To store tools and sports equipment, you may want to use the walls. Walls are often overlooked as the ideal storage space for rakes, shovels, and other lawn essentials. Slatwall panels offer you a durable, vertical storage area. Once you hang the panels on the walls, you can choose different hangers and baskets to contain your tools and lawn equipment. Most Slatwall systems can be adjusted, based on your needs.

Another overlooked storage area is the ceiling. Storing seasonal gear and flat items, such as ladders, can free up your walls and cabinets for other things. A word of caution when considering what to store. Always make sure anything hanging from the ceiling does not get in the way of your garage door tracks and opener. If you hang shelves, make sure they are fully supported. If you park your car in the garage, ensure that there is plenty of space between the vehicle’s roof and the storage to not scrape your vehicle.

Just a Girl and Her Blog suggests setting aside a little extra room in your newly organized space for additional items. You’ll collect more throughout the years, and need to make sure you have room for those items.

You will eventually have to go through the bins again and reorganize everything. However, leaving a few extra empty containers will keep your garage from looking cluttered so soon after cleaning it up.

Reorganizing a cluttered, messy garage takes careful planning. Don’t be put off by the idea that you won’t be able to finish in a couple of hours. Make a plan of your garage and create zones to store items in an organized manner. Invest in suitable storage containers. Keep things off the floor by using cabinets, utilizing the walls and ceiling. Don’t be frightened by the amount of work it takes. Instead, focus on how great your garage will look once you’re done.