The Garage Project #1 - the mess, the plan, and the tear-down

It all started with wanting to give David a cool birthday present this year.  My plan was to organize his tool bench area by adding storage baskets to increase the functionality of his space.

 

Then, David had a weekend trip so I decided to paint the garage as an added bonus to the surprise.

 

As the project came to completion, I got excited and put a little more money into it in order to organize areas other than his tool area.

 

Here is the story, from the very beginning: 

In March I decided to take a weekend (haha) and paint the garage. 

 

Three months later, hours of sweat equity, $200, the cost of paint, and with the gifts our families gave him, it was made possible!  We both love the end result and I think it will be the coolest gift I'll ever put together for him.

 

Instead of boring you with too many details, I hope maybe you will be inspired by this project.  In particular, to tackle something new.  My motivation was to give D a gift he never saw coming. 

You will see that I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING when I started this!!!  Really, no idea.  I know how to organize a closet.  But garages and the world of tools were a new thing for me.  For example, I had no idea about: how much paint it would take, what some of his tools were, how to use a drill, how to hang a peg board, what clips to put on the peg board... I learned so much and I it was all outside of my comfort zone. 

Here is the project.  Considering questions I've received, I'll lay it all out in posts over the course of this  week.

 

1. The Mess

The space looked like this.  Very typical, but not functional.

For a year it functioned like this.  My car fit in the garage but finding anything was a hassle.  Something as simple as finding a screwdriver to change the batteries in a baby toy became a bigger ordeal than it needed to be.

 

In my mind, messes are more effort than keeping a space organized. Messy spaces require more time to find things and add frustration along the way.  In our case, we decided to view the garage as an extension of our house.  We wanted it to be functional and organized.  And, it had to be done on a limited budget.

 

2. The Plan

The first thing I did was take a look around the garage and evaluate everything in it and what categories those items naturally fell into.  For this, I literally just looked at the space and later pulled out every last thing in the garage and sorted it into piles.  Doing this helped clarify what types of spaces/zones the garage could be divided into.

 

Next, I evaluated what organizational things I already had and could re-purpose.  This included things like baskets, tubs, and shelves already on the walls and a tool bench built in.  But, we didn't have high ceilings in the garage, so the over-the-car-storage-racks were not going to be an option for us.  I tried to view everything in a positive light and look for what would work instead of what would not work.

Then, I thought about how we wanted the garage to function.  Every family will answer this differently.  For us, we wanted to maximize the tool bench, I wanted to add an office space, and we thought it would be cool to have a mud room in the laundry area.   We did not need to reserve space for bikes, but we do have things like camping equipment, outdoor toys, and materials left over from DIY projects that needed to be stored. 

While thinking about how it could be re-zoned I sketched plans for how it would be organized and took measurements of everything!  I wanted things we used often to be easily accessible and everything else would be stored in less-accessible places.  For instance, outdoor toys ended up on an eye-level shelf near the door to the backyard but our camping roasting sticks (used rarely) are on the highest shelf that I need a step stool to get to.  Same applies in D's tool area.  Miscellaneous materials (like extra light switch covers) are in a box on the highest shelf above his tool bench, but his work shoes are on a low shelf and ready to grab!

 

Throughout this process I looked at pictures of professionally organized garages and Container Store ads to get an idea of what bins or shelving would be most helpful.  Pinterest made this especailly easy to keep track of.  In the end I did not buy the pricey things I looked at, but they helped me envision what I may need, and then I looked for affordable substitutes. 

Finally, during the whole planning phase I saved money to use for the project.

More Details

In the end, my plan was to divide the garage into spaces or 'zones'. 

 

First, I split it down the center. 

On the left was storage space.

On the right are tools and a parking space.

 

The zones I established:

* tools/hardware

* materials
* car maintenance/car wash

* yard/garden tools

* sports/camping/outdoor toy storage

* pantry/household goods overflow (with deep freeze in that area)

* mud room/laundry space
* trash/recycle/donations/store returns (all part of my work area space)

 

 3. Tear Down and Sort
On a Saturday Morning I pulled out every box in the tool area and started organizing it into piles.

I had piles for:
* tools
* materials (paint, tiles, buckets...)
* car stuff
* sports/camping/toys
* donations/items to sell
* things that needed to go back inside
* 'I have no idea what this is'
* trash

Since this was a surprise we worked while D was out of town.  Little man stayed busy checking things out while I worked.

Eventually, the garage was overflowing with piles so I moved things to the backyard to sort during nap time.

 

4. Gathering Bins

Also on tear-down day I gathered empty tubs and a shelf we already owned to use in the preliminary organizing stages.

5. Shopping

G and I later went shopping for tubs to use with the goal that they would also be used in the final installation. I kept an envelope of receipts all along the way and in the end returned quite a few odds and ends that were not needed.

 

Stay tuned!