Day 23: Garage Storage and Bins

This is a follow up to yesterdays post. I thought I'd show some pictures of our garage and how things are stored. It might give you some ideas and ways you could store things in your own space. We've only lived in this rental home for a little over three months, so things are not exactly the way I would prefer, but good enough to get a car parked inside and know where everything is! And this did take some work...so don't think I went out to the garage for an hour and it ended up this way.

This picture above is the back wall of our garage. All the shelves you see in use were left by the owners of the home. The black ones are industrial type and super sturdy. Notice with the tree in the far right corner and the televisions boxes on the top shelves that I went vertical with how I stored them.

The owners also left a very tall ladder, in case we needed to replace a bulb for a light fixture on a very tall ceiling. The ladder is so tall we could not put it upright in the garage. With their permission we were able to hang it near the ceiling and off the floor. Cost about $15!

Ignore those boxes... :)

There are some less sturdy shelves mounted to the walls. In the first one below, we put all the paint and lawn items together. We even decided to use some of the extra space on the shelf for our mowing shoes.

The other set of wall shelves are between the two industrial shelving units. And for the most part this ends up being random stuff. A lot of items that aren't contained in any other way. In fact, I see a lot of items I could probably get rid of....like lamps! And below the shelves is some space to prop up some more random items...croquet set, saw horses, leaf bag for mower, and a furniture dolly. 

Yesterday, I mentioned bins to help contain things in your garage. Below are some examples of this in use in our garage. The two stacked and labeled bins contain miscellaneous electronics. We used to store these in our basement and now we have no basement so the garage ends up being the best place. But can you imagine if these types of items were not contained, that I would have cords, boxes, and instructions and a DVD player just tossed out on those shelves? A mess is what I imagine. The labels are just index cards attached with packing tape. 

The purple bin on the right has...smaller empty bins! 

We have quite a few random items in our garage that I have put together in a storage bin( in the picture above). Some things inside there are a hedge trimmer, saws, jumper cables...and many other large and random things we need to keep. At one time I had a larger bin with a lid, but the lid started breaking apart so it has been trashed. Now I'm using a smaller bin since it fits on the shelf better. But now no lid because there are too many items. (A work in progress really.) The leaf blower and extension cord are propped up next to it. In our last house we had hooks on the wall to hang these bigger tools from. Eventually we may invest in something similar for this home. 

The picture above has a bin labeled Paint Supplies. And the picture below shows you what is in there. Many, many drop clothes, a paint tray and two roller frames. With a lid on the bin, I can then stack other items on top of the bin. Stacking something on top of a pile of drop clothes and a paint tray is disorganized and harder to keep looking good.

I've shown this nifty storage chest in the past. We had it at our last place. Each drawer pulls out and can hold various tools we use in the garage. Most of the drawers are even labeled...which keeps us from playing the memory game with this chest. I didn't buy this I inherited it from my parents who got it from my mom's Dad. He had a construction business. Although, I think this actually stored files of some sort. It reminds me of a card catalog. Each row of drawers can separate from the rest, too. I'm going to try to keep this for a long time.

And if you do anything in your garage space, consider moving things to the garage walls. If you can only prop them up off the floor it will make a big difference. And try to go vertical. 

Our oldest cat decided to sit in the sun patch while I took pictures!

These two pictures, above and below, primarily show our old shelving units stacked against the wall. Originally, all the frame pieces were all over the floor. I ended up putting them vertical in two buckets. I thought the buckets would keep them from falling down, keep them from resting against the walls, and make them a little more possible to move.

Ladders stored vertically work really well too. 

Do you have a garage? Do you hang things on walls, stack items on shelves or use bins to contain items? Any neat tricks you use in your garage to keep things organized?