You should know by now, my favorite way to organize is to start with decluttering, space planning and THEN let’s see where we land. Let’s really see if anything more is necessary. When families reach out for help, in general they think they need new wall systems and bins to resolve the issue. Yet most of the time, in the end all we actually needed was a solid decluttering and space planning session. This garage project we completed in San Francisco is a perfect example!

BEFORE

This is a deep, tandem garage where they park two cars. She has some solid, free-standing shelving on the right side. And the left side, which has drywall, may have been where we targeted some new shelving or a drawer system for the tools…

I like to leave our minds and options open – not overthinking until we get through the decluttering phase. Just know better and prefer not having you spend money on a system that isn’t necessary.

By the way, this sweet mom was surprising her husband with this garage transformation. And she was a decluttering monster – super proud of her hard work that day! It was a HUGE load of items for the dump and donation center.

Using our signature process, we sorted out every single item so that she could review it all. Then we binned, labeled, space planned, cleaned and put it all away. And then of course had everything hauled away at the end of the session.

She wanted all new matching bins. We got mostly there with the bins – essentially clearing out the entire local Target inventory. I LOVE these $9 bins from Target.

( bins )

They are on sale right now for $7.20 actually – grab these if you need bins for college dorm packing or back-to-school organizing!

As mentioned, the Target local to her didn’t have enough in stock for us to do the complete swap so we made do. But looks so good!

AFTER

She loves knitting and sewing so now one entire shelf is her fabrics, yarns, needles and more. There’s overflow kitchen appliances and entertaining items here. Holiday decor, costumes, gift wrap and more.

On the left we organized her overflow paper products, tools and other home supplies.

Check out this before and after…

I wish I could share the video she sent me that evening when her husband came home from work. His smile was beyond! It was awesome and made it all worth it!

A team of five in this garage for about 6 hours = totally transformed. And…wouldn’t you know, they don’t want to move forward at this time with new shelving. They’d like to live with it and I couldn’t agree more. Is it a pristine design? No, but it works and they can easily find everything!

I’m here to encourage you to start with the act of decluttering and space planning, then see where you land. Do you really need to invest in new shelving? Maybe not.

More to share guys!

xo,

Sam