How To Declutter And Organize The Garage

I have a secret. Some might call it a “dirty little secret”. In the interest of transparency, I feel I must come clean. I ~~have~~ had a messy, cluttered, garage. There, I said it. At one point, the clutter in our garage was so bad that we could hardly walk from one side to the other. Forget about being able to park a car in it. I knew I needed to declutter and organize the garage. With a little (ok, a lot) of help from my husband, that’s just what I did.

How to Declutter and Organize the Garage

Yes, I know. I help people declutter and organize their homes for a living for goodness sake! How did I (of all people) end up with a cluttered space? First of all, while I am a minimalist, my family is not. Second, I never said I was perfect.

Ok, so on to the garage. If you are familiar with the Shock Treatment Declutter Method, you’ll know I’m not a gal who likes to declutter a little at a time. Nope, for me, it’s all or nothing. Which means, I needed to completely empty my garage before I could begin the decluttering/organizing process.

Here’s what my garage looked like before my husband and I began:

Honestly, I am embarrassed to even show you these photos. But, the first step in recovery is to admit you have a problem. And this garage was definitely a problem!

In order to declutter and organize the garage {the right way}, my husband and I pulled everything out and organized it according to type. We had piles of sports gear, lawn equipment, fishing paraphernalia, tubs of clothes, holiday decor, etc.

Let me tell you, it was a lot of work getting the garage emptied out. So much work that I completely forgot to take photos. (Sorry).

We were just so darn happy to be done with the first step. We were ready to dive into step two {cleaning the garage} when suddenly, a storm appeared out of nowhere! Everything had to be crammed back into the garage before a torrential downpour (complete with hail and damaging winds) struck our area.

Tip: Before you declutter and organize the garage, check the weather!

Oh well, at least everything was already separated into categories.

Declutter and organize the garage attempt #2

The storm ended up being so bad, that we had to postpone our decluttering efforts until the following day.

On day two, we (again) emptied the garage, gave it a good cleaning, and began sorting through the piles of stuff in order to decide what to keep and what to discard. This was “easy” to do because all like items were gathered in one spot. I ended up boxing up 4 large boxes of stuff which was sold at a friend’s garage sale the next weekend. We made several trips to the dumpster as well.

We then began the tedious process of moving everything we decided to keep back into the garage. Finally, my favorite step. Organizing! We stored the items which our family does not use frequently on higher shelves (accessible by ladder). This included holiday decorations, camping equipment, and seasonal sporting goods. We also stored a few empty boxes on the higher shelves to be used when we move. {More on that later}. Next, we hung all of our lawn tools along the wall. Then, we placed items on shelves in the areas we use them. Finally, we placed the kid’s outdoor toys in a bin by the door so they can get to them easily.

This is what our garage looked like when we were finished:

See that thing in the middle? That’s called the “floor”.

Phew! That was hard work. But it was so worth it!

While our garage is not much to look at in terms of pretty organizing solutions, it still manages to get the job done. If pretty garages are your thing, check out these awesomely organized garages from around the web.