HOME ORGANIZATION 101
HOW TO SIGN UP:
If you would like to join our organizing challenge, sign up (here) on the event page. Once you are signed up, join the Home Organization 101 group page on Facebook (HERE). On this page, you can ask questions, post pictures, and support each other during this 14 week process.
I only have one rule for the challenge.
GRAB A BUTTON!
If you are joining the challenge, please place the challenge button on your blog. If you don’t have a blog, please share the challenge on your Facebook page, Twitter, or Instagram.
HOW THE CHALLENGE WORKS:
Home Organization 101 will continue for 14 weeks. Each Saturday, I will post a new “space” along with pictures of my finished space and share the process of how you can organize yours. You can take as long as you need, and once you are finished organizing your space, come back here to this post and link up your blog (with pictures) to share with all of us. If you do not have a blog, you can take pictures and share them on our Facebook group page (here). Questions, ask away… Our facebook page is the best place to ask them. Have fun! Now lets get organized.
WEEK #2 – THE GARAGE
Let me just start by saying that my garage has not always looked like this. We used to have a LOT more stuff. We saved things, “just in case” we needed them, (which we usually never did). I finally got sick and tired of cleaning up junk and clutter. I had enough! Once we moved into our dream home, I vowed not to hoard clutter anymore. So we purged… and purged some more. We got rid of a TON of stuff! Then we got rid of some more. Now we are at the point where we can finally manage what we own. If you are not at the point where you can “manage” what you have, its time to purge! This challenge is for you! This week will be the hardest week of all. If you can get through this one, the rest will be downhill from here.
Week #1 went perfect. So many of you shared your pictures, dilemmas, support, and questions on our Facebook Group page. Thank you for that! Community is what makes events like this successful. Once you have completed your kitchen, make sure to link up to the party (here).
THE TASK:
During week #2 we are headed into the dreaded garage! If you are like me, this place gives you a headache just thinking about it. For some of you, this may be a task thats just too much to handle in one week. Please don’t be discouraged. Do what you can. Attempting something is better than not trying at all, right? I broke this week into 3 options. Those of you who want to dive in head first will complete option #1. Those of you who are hesitant, don’t have the time, or if its too much work for one week can choose option #2. Option #3 is for those of you who do not have a garage or storage building. Okay, thats it. Now its time to get organized! Good luck.
THE PROCESS:
*Choose one.
OPTION #1 – The “Go getter”
For those of you who really want your garage organized and clean and are willing to get your hands dirty, this option is for you. You will finish the task of completely organizing your garage with this process. The local goodwill will become your best friend!! The most important step in option #1 is to COMPLETELY empty the garage of all contents!
BEFORE YOU START THE CHALLENGE, TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR GARAGE.
1. Call your local charity organization to schedule an appointment for them to come with a truck and pick up your “junk”. Sometimes it takes a week for them to arrive.
2. Make sure you have boxes, bins, etc… before you get started. You will need them. I purchased mine at Target.
3. Line up your empty bins (in a row) in the driveway.
4. Go through all of your junk, once piece at a time, organizing your stuff into categories (bins).
(Sports, garden, tools, car maintenance, painting, pets, light bulbs, grilling, beach/pool, etc.)
5. Go through each item, emptying the garage… completely!
6. Make sure to place the items you no longer want or need into “donation” boxes.
7. Once you have sorted through your stuff, the garage should be empty. At this point you can sweep, blow (leaf blower), or hose down the floor (depending on how dirty your garage is). This is an important step! You do not want to organize a dirty garage. During this step, if you have a problem with spiders or ants, you can spray the perimeter of your garage with insecticide. Im not crazy about using insecticide, but living in South Carolina, its a MUST every 3 months.
8. Place all of your neatly organized bins & boxes back into your garage (on shelves if you have them).
9. Label each bin with a labeler.
10. Hang things on wall hooks. Try to keep everything off the ground. Spiders like to hide behind stuff on the ground & so does dust!
11. Pat yourself on the back. Your done!
*This process should be repeated at least twice a year (spring and fall), to keep things clean and organized.
OPTION #2 – The “tidy upper”
For those of you who just don’t have the time or energy to tackle such a huge task, the “tidy upper” option is for you. There’s no shame in choosing this option. Doing something is better than doing nothing at all. With this option, you will not empty your garage, but straighten things up a bit. This task should only take you a couple of hours to complete. The biggest step in this process is getting rid of things you no longer need, to make space.
*BEFORE YOU START THE CHALLENGE, TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR GARAGE.
1. Collect boxes & bins. You will need them.
2. Survey your garage. Do you see things that are not in there place? Put them back.
3. Categorize things. Place like items together into bins.
4. Throw away any trash thats laying around.
5. Look for things you no longer need or want. Donate them.
6. Sweep the garage floor.
OPTION #3 – The thank goodness “I don’t have a garage” girl!
For anyone who does not have a garage or storage building, this option is for you. You can either skip this week, or you can work on organizing your basement, attic, or car. Tidy things up. Purge. Clean. You will be so happy you did!
OUR GARAGE
Our garage is pretty simple. Its not “decorated” fancy or anything. Its plain, organized and functional, which is how we like it.
I park on this side.
The cupcake bucket on the right side has my 5 year olds sidewalk chalk in it.
My husband parks on this side.
This is our “bin” section. We didn’t want to waste any space in the middle of the garage so we placed these shelves here. We keep EVERYTHING that goes into a bin, on these shelves. Everything is labeled and easily accessible.
We utilized our ceiling height (Its taller than it looks), with these Hyloft shelves. We store seldom used items here such as the Christmas tree, etc…
Hyloft shelves…
Its always a good idea to hang the ladder. It takes up valuable space!
I purchased these garage storage hooks/units from Home Depot. They are “Husky”.
They hold everything from beach chairs to sporting equipment.
This basket sits right by my van. We live by the beach so whenever we want to go for the day, I just grab the boogie boards and put them in the trunk!
Im excited to share our bike organizer below with you… because I am having a giveaway for one of these units (this week). I love this thing. Its so functional and easy to use. Below the bikes, we keep our generator, power washer, and carpet shampooer. We also have our folding tables, saw horses and our corn hole.
I am a member of an organic produce home delivery service. I keep the box on top of my freezer and place it on the porch every Tuesday for a new box of goodness.
Below is my Freezer inventory checklist. I got this from Clean Mama printables on Etsy. You can visit her shop (here). When I stock the freezer, I write in how many of each item I have. When I take something out, I minus it on the check list. Love it! I take the list to the grocery store with me as well. It keeps me super organized.
This empty shelf will be the future spot for our “Emergency Preparedness” station. Stay tuned for that post later.
This door takes you to the mudroom in our home.
We keep on top of sports schedules with this chalkboard!
My recycle box is placed right by the mudroom door, so I can easily unload the recyclables form the kitchen. We also have a cubby for shoes (if needed). We usually keep our shoes in our closets.
This shelf is right outside of our mudroom door. I keep items we use often on here:
1. Extra food containers for school parties.
2. Packaging tape.
3. Sunglasses.
4. Grooming items.
5. Grilling items.
6. Coolers.
7. Empty bags.
8. Sunscreen.
Grooming supplies.
Sunscreen.
Sunglasses.
Coolers & empty bags.
It’s baseball season here now so we like to keep stocked up on sports drinks. On top of the mini fridge is a perfect place to store them for easy access.
No, we are not alcoholics. 😉 This fridge holds our “on the go” drinks. Its super easy to grab a drink on my way out, since I park my car in the garage. We also keep our alcoholic drinks here.
The following pictures are more of a close up of our bins. We keep everything that fits in them.
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*I spelled “organization” wrong on some of my pictures. Too late to change it now. 😉
ORGANIZING ON A BUDGET
If you are tight on funds for your garage organization, you can still participate. I found a blog that organized using cardboard boxes. You can get these free behind just about any store out there then print out labels to hide the picture on the box.
PRODUCT OF THE WEEK
Since I have many requests asking where I have purchased the products we’re using in our home, I thought it would be a good idea to highlight a product that I have used in the challenge each week. This week, my labeler is the product of choice. Follow the link below to read more. On the bottom of the left sidebar of my blog, you can visit my Amazon store to see all of my products used in my home.
If you have any questions about our garage organization, dont hesitate to ask. Please ask your questions on the Group facebook page (here) so everyone can see them, and so I dont have to answer the same question multiple times. 🙂
Thank you to Kaila from Jamberry Nails for sponsoring this weeks’ post. Check out her AWESOME website (here).
VISIT WEEK #3 THE PANTRY ORGANIZATION (HERE).
Once you have completed the task of cleaning and organizing your garage, link up below. Have fun organizing.
LINK YOUR GARAGE PICTURES ONLY…
Tags: garage, garage organization, home organization 101, how to organize, organizing
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36 comments
36 comments on “Home Organization 101 Week #2: Garage Organization”
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Your garage look great! What kind of label maker do you have? That have different color of label like you use in kitchen and a thick label in garage? I would need a new label maker! Thanks!
Its a Brother. Here is the link to it… http://astore.amazon.com/abowlfulloflemons-20/detail/B0047T7JMW
Thanks for sharing! We moved last year and our garage is so incredibly full that this process will take several very long days to have any success. I have an entire children’s consignment store *PLUS* my entire classroom since I’m taking the year off to raise the baby. I know it’s sooooooo much easier to donate, but we could really use the money. Anyone have suggestions for how to organize for selling to make the most profit? Garage sale, Craigslist, eBay, Amazon… We are talking a three-car garage filled to the ceiling… Thanks for your help!
looks awesome! what a great space, so many inspiring ideas! thanks for sharing them!
I love this post and very inspiring…although this week I won’t be able to do much in the garage I have a goal for when my husband is home to make the garage more functional!!! I laughed so hard at your statement of “no we are not alcoholics”!!! I find that amusing as our mini garage fridge always is full of my husband’s beverages too!
Not sure why click “relay” is not working. But wanted to say thank you for the info about label maker.
AMAZING – another seriously incredible space in your home and Martha should be BEGGING you for your help and wisdom on her show! : )
I also wanted to let you know that I made a little list of some of my most favorite blogs for inspiring organizing ideas and pictures and tips and I included YOU on the list! It’s meant to be a compliment and I added your button with a link to your blog – you can see it all here. Thanks for providing me with lots of inspiration! : )
-Mel the Crafty Scientist
This is so inspiring!! LOVE! I wish I could participate in the garage cleaning this week but we are in the process of building a Morton building and then moving half the garage into it (The hubby’s toys and tools), I will have to catch this challenge later in the fall!
Where did you find all of the plastic bins with ‘locking’ lids that you used on your shelving? I can’t seem to locate more than one at a time in local shops and they don’t really work well together. Thank you in advance!
How should you decide how many bins to purchase?
Your garage is AMAZING!!! Our garage is definitely the dumping ground around here and could use a huge purge. Pinned this for future inspiration!
I’m in LOVE with your garage! So many great space saving solutions! I think I might make use of your between the garage door shelves. I don’t know exactly how but somehow!!
OMG…. we had just worked on our garage all weekend! Last week, I started exploring blogs. Found yours tonight at work! I AM SO EXCITED to have seen your pictures…. it NEVER dawned on me to put the shelves between the two garage doors. We have been struggling trying to come up with where to put our shelves and leave room to hang things on the walls…. this is PERFECT. Thanks!
Love your site… Just found this.. Can you tell me where you purchased your bike rack. This is what we have been looking for.. we have 4 bikes and have not found anything that works..
The bike rack is from monkeybars.com. 🙂
What brand are those bins on the shelf? And where did you purchase them? Looks AWESOME!!!! I am inspired and headed to the garage RIGHT THIS SECOND!!!!! Thanks!
Love how you used the space between the garage doors. Your garage looks amazing! We have a two-car garage, but between the huge garbage cans (we cannot keep them outside), the riding mower and our three bikes and our son’s 2 ride-ons, there isn’t much room in there.
Where do you keep items like these? (Sorry, I don’t facebook, so I can’t post there.)
that looks AWESOME! I wish we had a garage 🙂 I’m working DH’s man closet today instead 🙂
It’s too cold here to do garage organization this week, however I thought I would use the week to gather & purchase the shelving & other supplies. I know this question was asked earlier, but I font see an answer yet. Where & what brand of storage totes did you use? I was wanting to know which sizes stacked & worked best with the steel shelving you used.
Your garage looks wonderful. I want mine to get organized too!
How did you anchor the shelves in the center of the garage? I’d like to put mine in the center of the garage as well (currently along one wall, anchored), but haven’t figured that out yet and I’m afraid they may topple over.
Mine are not anchored. 😉
Hi! I am really loving this topic you shared. Many of our clients have garage organization on their to-do list, after closets, kitchen pantries, muddrooms etc. You use some great tips and your photos are very descriptive. It’s important to remember any home organization, whether small or large, is not a one day task. It takes time and patience, as well as an execution plan. Resources like yours are a great influence, thanks for sharing! Happy organizing.
Working on the New Year’s Resolution and with an impending spring blizzard, I had time time stumble on your site. I’m hoping I can convince my husband to do a quarter of the garage organizational tricks you have. Wish me luck!
Thanks for this post! So encouraging and I can’t wait to get in our garage.
can you tell me where you got your bike rack? i really love how it holds so many bikes!
Its called monkey bars.
where do you get the bike rack? I really love how it holds multiple bikes!
The company is called monkey bars.
Oh my goodness. I just stumbled upon your site and… wow. You are my new organizing hero. I consider myself extremely organized and I am totally blown away by your meticulous care. I am so encouraged and excited by your site, thank you!