18 Garage Organization DIY Tips
The secret to garage organization DIY is creativity. At its heart, garage organization is an engineering problem: You have a unique collection of stuff that needs to be given structure, and that structure requires a creative solution.
We think our garage cabinets provide a pretty nice solution in this regard, but most people are still going to have recycling bins on the floor or spare parts that need to be corralled.
This post is designed to give you ideas for tackling your own garage’s organizational issues, whatever they might be. Here are 18 tips and tricks that can take your garage organization diy projects to a whole new level.
Recycling Bin Hangers
This tutorial from The Family Handyman will get your recycling containers off the floor and stacked neatly on the wall.
Hang Jars to Organize Screws
This ingenious trick, courtesy of Chez Larsson, will get loose screws organized and out of the way.
Build a Mudroom for Less Than $150
Anna Carter’s mudroom, which she blogged about over at Remodelaholic, is a thing of beauty. The best part? She only spent $132 building it.
DIY Sliding Storage on the Ceiling
This tutorial, also from The Family Handyman, will get your stuff far off the floor, and it can be built with materials that are either lying around or will not be hard for you to find.
Get a Magnetic Tool Strip for Short-Term Storage
It’s not a tutorial, but Toolmonger raises an important question about using magnetic strips for tool storage. As one commenter noted, tools tend to get magnetized after a while, which can become a problem. As a short-term way of keeping up with screws, nuts, etc. during a project, though, they could be handy.
Build a Tape Roll Organizer and Dispenser
American Woodworker has a nice tutorial that shows you how to build a jumbo tape dispenser that will hold all of your tape rolls in one place. You just need to add a small hacksaw blade for clean tearing.
Repurpose Household Items for Garage Storage
A couple of ideas, courtesy of HouseToHome.co.uk and The Family Handyman respectively, for organizing loose bits around your garage includes metal planters and muffin tins.
Store Your Ladder on the Ceiling
YouTube handyman Jeff Beecham has a useful tutorial for how to install a hanging storage space for your ladder.
Use a Wall-Mounted Bucket for Water Hose Storage
This one’s a classic. Five Gallon Ideas shows you a few ways to use a bucket to either collect or wrap up your water hose.
Try Building a Flippable Multi-Panel Pegboard
Remember buying posters as a kid and being able to flip through those big display frames? Woodsmith eTIPS has a tutorials that shows you how to create the same thing for your tool collection.
Install DIY Fold-Down Tables
Jack Olsen, who built the fabled 12-Gauge Garage, has diagramed the directions for how he built his woodworking table. “I’ve jumped up and down on it,” Olsen says. “It’s pretty strong.”
Source Expensive Parts Like Countertops from Ikea Furniture
One of the more creative blogs anywhere is IKEA Hackers, which shows you how to customize IKEA furniture to fit a variety of needs. In an old post from 2008, the blog’s authors share a story from an automotive tech in Connecticut who bought a $129 Numerar countertop and simply cut it for depth to give his tool chest a butcher block work top.
Steal Some Ideas from Organize With Sandy’s Awesome Garden Shed
The Organize With Sandy blog is a great resource in its own right, but her garden shed, detailed in full here, is a master class in garage organization DIY tips and tricks.
Paint Cans Everywhere? Take Inventory, and Transfer to Clear Jars
DIY blogger Cassie at Hi Sugarplum has a nice tip for anyone with old paint cans: Check to see which ones have gone bad, then pour the good paint into easily closable glass jars so you can see immediately which colors are which.
Organize Your Tools With a $10 DIY Trick
Gail Wilson at My Repurposed Life shared a trick in 2012 that she had discovered involving a Husky tool bag and a cheap plastic bucket. Now, her go-to tools are portable and always in one place.
Build a Fishing Rod Storage Rack with PVC Pipes
Jim White, a retired fishing enthusiast, shares a PVC pipe design he came up with to store his fishing poles. This is an excellent and inexpensive storage option. White himself said on his Tennessee Grandaddy blog that he’s had more than 100 requests from others for plans so they could build their own.
Store Things in Clear, Labeled Tubs
This one is going to be obvious to a lot of people, but anyone tackling an garage organization project that starts to overwhelm them might forget. Toni Hammersley, on the old version of her A Bowl Full of Lemons site, teased this photo of her garage organization project. Get a bunch of these tubs, and make sure to label everything. Also, check out the newer, shinier version of Toni’s site here.
Remember: You Can Hang a Lot of Stuff
Professional organization blog Mary Organizes has a nice roundup of what garage organization DIY looked like for her family of six. There are a lot of good takeaways here, but we liked the way she managed to get everything off the floor and stored vertically
image credits:
Todd Quackenbush / Unsplash
Russ / Flickr
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