It’s officially Spring! With the weather improving, are you getting ready to tackle that cluttered garage?

After nearly fifteen years as a professional organizer, I’ve become widely known as THE one to contact when you need your garage organized. I’m extremely happy to claim this position for several reasons. It’s become my passion space to work in because every week I personally see and experience how organizing this space changes lives and makes a household run more smoothly. It makes a huge impact on the overall flow of a home AND on your overall spirit and stress levels.

I also love that I’m able to share my extensive knowledge and expertise of this space with you. No matter where you live, I can share blog or social media posts with tips and tricks to get your garage whipped into shape.

Our garages tend to be a big, oversized (or undersized) spaces that lack structure or purpose. On every garage consultation, I hear client after client express their frustration or overwhelm. They are confused as to where to get started or how to make the best use of the space. They have self-proclaimed panic attacks or experience high blood pressure when they open the door to see all the piles and disorder. They spend endless amounts of time searching for that one thing they need, ultimately buying another because their search efforts turned up fruitless.

This is completely normal because these are wide open spaces. But these stressful feelings can be easily resolved by breaking down the process … creating zones and order. That’s where I come in! So let’s talk about how to really get your garage organized with my steps below.

You can scroll through countless garage projects here on my blog or on the social accounts, but in this post I wanted to share my tips and simplify my expert steps to successfully getting that garage organized. Once and for all. AND how to maintain it after putting in all that time and effort.

By the way, I wanted to take a moment to share I’m launching a digital course on this very topic!

And I’m offering a free live workshop as well. Be sure to join my waitlist and be the first to know when both of these events are happening.

I’m here to coach you throughout every step of the process inside my course!

MY PRO STEPS TO REALLY ORGANIZE YOUR GARAGE

A quick overview of my steps, and then we’ll dig into each a little more:

PAUSE

ELIMINATE

APPROACH

CONTAIN

EDIT

Did you notice something there? PEACE. If I can offer you anything throughout the process of working through this vast space, it’s a peaceful strategy. AND of course, I’d love for you to experience the sense of peace you’ll feel once it’s all said and done.

Let’s go!….

PAUSE

THE ASSESSMENT PHASE

We don’t know where to begin until we first understand what is going on. Every single project, in no matter what area of your home, always begin with my full and complete assessment. Asking questions such as what is out here, what are your overall goals, what’s your budget and more…these need to be answered to completely understand the full scope. So let’s PAUSE and take an assessment.

Our garages tend to contain A LOT of different categories and volume. The contents in any given garage depend on who is living there and the phase of life they’re in. An example is my work with families. Children grow and change, therefore we are dealing with lots of changes that can occur even multiple times in a 365 day span. Sports interests change, their sizes change, the seasons change…things just accumulate for families. And families have a wide variety of contents. Everything from sports gear to bikes or ride-on toys to strollers to bulk overflow food to tools and more.

During this phase, I also encourage you to review your overall space and how we can improve upon it. Do you need better shelving? Deeper shelving? Drawers for tools or home utility items? A spot for the gardening tools to hang? Do you have ceiling space for overhead racks? Let’s take the blinders off and really take a hard look at how we can maximize your wall and overall space.

Taking a moment to inhale, review what is happening and discuss the end goals AND how we are going to execute a game plan is a critical first step. It ensures every step from here will be thoughtful and with reason / purpose.

ELIMINATE

THE DECLUTTERING PHASE

Our next step is determining the contents of your garage and deciding what is staying or going. Most often there are going to be items to part with or eliminate. This goes without saying but if we simply organize without decluttering, we’ll end up right back where we started. Why organize your clutter or items you aren’t planning to keep?

The way our team works is that everything comes out. I mean EVERYTHING. In the photo above you can see how we use the driveway as well to sort out the categories. Allowing you to see everything gives you a chance to see the volume, determine if there are duplicates, consider what has seen better days, locate what you have been searching for but forgot about and more. It’s an eye-opening process.

Decluttering alone is a huge benefit in getting organized because you’ll naturally end up with less volume / contents which also means less stuff to find a spot for.

APPROACH

NOW THAT WE KNOW, WHAT’S OUR NEXT MOVE?

Every garage project is different because every homeowner has a different end goal. Going back to the goal you decided on in our first step, what’s happening now? Now that you see what remains and you have a good sense of your available wall space, where can we capitalize on storage? Is there room to add wall-mounted shelving? Do you have pretty good shelving but just need better bins or containers? Do you want to contact a custom vendor to measure for cabinets? Is there room over the garage doors for overhead racks?

Going through the decluttering phase can sometimes change your thoughts or goals for the space. You’ve seen the potential and KNOW exactly how you want to move ahead. So, what’s our approach?

Since you have processed through your garage contents, and you can see your space as a whole, now’s the time to plan out your next steps. Your next investments or purchases.

I like pausing here again during this step because you’re armed with more knowledge and can make even clearer decisions.

CONTAIN

IT’S TIME TO PURCHASE, ORGANIZE, ZONE AND LABEL

Only now can we really organize your space. Where I see many people go wrong in their organization efforts is they start here, completely flying past all the three previous steps. Successful organizing begins with this plan of attack. Trust me! I’ve been doing this long enough to know. And if I can save you the money, time and effort, I will gladly do that! So please – trust the process!

Purchasing bins or shelving BEFORE knowing what you’re keeping or how much space you have = makes zero sense.

So when you arrive at this step after doing the three steps prior, you’ll be in excellent shape. And organizing will be a breeze AND fun!

It’s time to get your shelving installed or built and add your organization elements like bins or drawer organizers. You can label or even use QR codes to define your bin contents.

One of my biggest tips when it comes to organizing your garage is to create zones. There are natural zones in every garage I have worked in. For example, near your door to the house is the most ideal location for overflow bulk foods, shoes or bags. These are close to your homes entry point and you will likely want to grab them quickly from this area or have a place to drop / organize them when you get home.  Zones create order in this wide open space, allowing you to have a home for everything and makes it easy for you to find what you need in a pinch.

EDIT

THE MAINTENANCE OF YOUR GARAGE

We don’t live in a magazine. We live in and use our homes. So it’s normal that our home spaces require a touch up or maintenance. A garage generally needs a clean-up or tune-up a couple times a year. Where I see this needed with families is post-holidays around the New Year or when the kids head back to school at the end of a long summer. You can choose the seasons in which you spruce up your space.

This is a great time to do another round of decluttering and put items back in place, but this also serves as an opportunity to check in on your systems. Are they working well for you? Have you found them to be effective? If yes, great! If not, you can make tweaks and edits.

For example, maybe over the last several months you found you need more shelving. Or maybe the bins need better labeling because you noticed searching for items was taking longer than you hoped.

Setting a time to touch up your garage a couple times a year will keep all that hard work you did paying off in the long run!

I obviously have A WHOLE LOT MORE I could share with you, but remember when I said my digital course is launching soon? You’re going to find that this course leaves no stoned unturned. We cover everything in immaculate detail – even down to the products I recommend and more. You can join my list here!

Soon I will be announcing my upcoming FREE and LIVE workshop where I have even more gems to teach you. But you have to be on the list to be the first to know!

Back soon with more!

xo,

Sam