Take a tour of our organized garage! With two vehicles to park in our two-car garage, we worked to maximize storage on the walls for power tools, yard tools, ladders, bikes, and more.
When we moved into our suburban home, I was very excited about the two-car garage. (Our previous home had a single-stall detached garage that wasn’t very useful.) But once we parked our two vehicles in the garage, it hit me – our garage is juuuust big enough for two cars and not much else. I guess I was expecting more extra space around the edges, but I suppose our house is as builder-grade as they come and they probably don’t splurge for more garage than necessary in houses like this.
With a growing collection of power tools, yard things, and kids’ toys/bikes, I set out to maximize the space in our garage the best I could. Since we live in the Midwest where winters are long and severe weather is common, we still wanted to be able to park both cars inside. So that left me with a few extra feet along the back wall and the narrow wall space around the edges for everything else.
I cleaned up our garage and organized it in zones little by little over the past year and I have to say, it’s so much more functional now! We have storage for everything, know exactly where things are, and can still get our cars inside. Let’s take a little tour, shall we?
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How To Organize A Garage
a simple DIY workbench
One of the big needs in our garage is space for storing power tools and DIY items like painting supplies. I don’t have a giant collection of these items, but it continues to grow. A small work surface was also on my wish list.
We created an entire DIY/woodworking zone along the back wall and what’s crazy is we kept it all to less than 24″ deep! Still plenty of room for cars.
The DIY workbench was made with a plywood top and 1×2 edging around all sides. We mounted it to the wall and added tool storage above it to create an awesome work area.
Tool Storage Cabinets & Pegboard
When your space is limited, always think vertical! We used the space above the workbench for tool storage.
The white cabinets are off-the-shelf stock kitchen cabinets from Home Depot. One houses my smaller power tools like drill, sander, and jigsaw along with small containers of screws, drill bits, that sort of thing. I added a few of my favorite adhesive bins to the inside of the cabinet doors for things, too.
The other cabinet is home to DIY supplies, mostly things for painting like paint trays, paintbrushes, putty knives, painter’s tape, etc. I also keep spare lightbulbs and Command hooks/picture hanging supplies in here. (Note I store all paints/stains in our basement so they don’t freeze in the garage.)
I added a Wall Control metal pegboard in between the cabinets to create a convenient storage area for hand tools you reach for often like screwdrivers and hammers. You can get all kinds of different hooks and organizers from Wall Control to really customize things depending on what you need to organize.
Lumber Storage
Inexpensive shelving from Home Depot (these tracks and these brackets) makes use of the wall space above my miter saw. It’s nice to have space up and out of the way for long boards and trim pieces.
The shelf brackets are adjustable and I could add more to the tracks to create even more lumber storage in the future if needed.
Smaller scrap wood is corralled inside this little organizer. It’s a simple box made from plywood with a few compartments inside, and it’s on wheels!
The few larger sheets of plywood I have lean against the wall in the corner by my miter saw.
Storing Lawn & Garden Tools
Another category of items in our garage are lawn and garden tools like our snowblower and snow shovels. We do have a small backyard shed where we store our lawnmower, rakes, hoses, etc. so I didn’t need a ton of storage in our garage for this type of thing.
I created a zone between the garage door and the door to the house for our snowblower to park with storage for long-handled items on the wall above it. This makes them easily accessible in the winter when we need to quickly grab a snow shovel, and there’s enough clearance behind our car to push the snowblower out into the driveway.
For hanging tool storage, I chose the Elfa Platinum Utility Track from The Container Store. The track is mounted into the wall studs and the hooks click into the track, making it really flexible if I want to move hooks around or add different ones.
I like this system because there are a lot of hook styles and options for different things, plus the hooks can either clip into the track or screw directly into the wall (which I did for ladders). This is a great garage storage solution for getting those awkward long-handled tools organized and off the floor, plus they’re still really easy to grab when you need them.
Ladder Storage
Ladders are really awkward to organize, especially the large ones that you don’t need often but take up a lot of floor space. I used a couple of Elfa ladder hooks to get our ladders off of the floor and out of the way. Like I mentioned up above, these hooks can clip into a track or screw directly into the wall which is what I did for ladders.
The nice part about ladders is they aren’t very wide so you can hang them on small sections of wall on the side of your garage without being in the way.
Bike Storage
Bikes are another awkward thing to store, and they can quickly take up a lot of the floor space in your garage. Our family only has a couple of bikes at this point, but using the Elfa bike hooks to get them up off the floor has been a great improvement. A definite must if everyone in the family has bikes in the garage!
Garage Shelving
I placed this large heavy-duty shelving unit in the corner of our garage and it’s a great spot to store all the random garage things that don’t have a spot. Things like my paint sprayer in its carrying case, a box of drop cloths, a container of extension cords, a couple of spare flower pots and potting soil, etc.
Cleaning Supply Pegboard
And the last zone in our garage is for cleaning tools/supplies! I created this a while back as a way to get the awkward brooms and mops out of our coat closet inside. They hang so well on this little pegboard I made and I located it within arm’s reach of the door to the house. These are the little pegboard hooks I bought for it.
Learn how I made this DIY pegboard organizer for our garage here.
Sources:
Shelf Tracks & Shelf Brackets (used for lumber storage)
Clear Adhesive Bins (inside cabinet doors)
I think that covers everything! I hope my garage tour gave you some ideas for organizing your own garage this year. This is a space that can be really overwhelming to declutter and start organizing, so my advice is to tackle it in small pieces. Consider your big needs, clear out one small area at a time, and create zones for each category of items. You can do it!
Looking for more organizing inspiration? Take a look at these blog posts:
- Organizing Craft Supplies In A Small Space
- How To Organize Your Small Pantry
- Organizing A Nursery Closet & Using A Dresser As A Changing Table
- Decluttering Clothes With KonMari – How I Got Rid Of 50% Of My Closet
Have a fantastic day!
