The day is finally here! I’m finally sharing our decluttered, clean and organized garage after working on it for weeks. I’m pretty sure I’m more excited about this than you will be…but hang in there. It looks pretty darn good!
The day is finally here! I’m finally sharing our decluttered, clean and organized garage after working on it for weeks. I’m pretty sure I’m more excited about this than you will be…but hang in there. It looks pretty darn good! We’ve never had our garage this organized…not even close. I tackled this space because I was SO tired of stepping over messes or pushing them out of the way while I was in here cutting wood or working on projects. Or not being able to find the tool I needed. As I was in and out building our basement entertainment center, I was thoroughly annoyed with myself that my work space was just not working.
It hit me that (at least part of) the garage is as much my work space as my office. I decided then and there to figure out better storage and a set up that functioned better. I definitely splurged on a few things! But I saved in a lot of other ways too. I’m SO glad that I spent on the items I did — they were so worth it!
Let’s take a tour of some of my favorite spots, shall we?
I shared our wood shelves with the organized holiday decor earlier this year:
And I shared this beautiful organized corner last week:
Read all about how I got things off the floor and onto the garage walls here!
I also changed out a rolling basketball cart for this skinny ball holder that takes up WAY less space:
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I’ll share links to all of the items pictured at the end of this post!
Right down from that corner was where I used to keep my scrap wood:
Don’t look too close at the windows, so gross. #wherebugsgotodie
I thought this was such a brilliant idea for my scraps…at first. I quickly realized it wasn’t working — I couldn’t get the longer pieces out because of all the stuff that used to sit on the ground (see the after pic above). There was also nothing to keep all the little pieces from falling off all. the. time.
Once I got my workshop side of the garage cleared out, I knew what I wanted to do for my scraps. I figured out the size of the largest pieces I had and used that as my back panel on the wall:
You don’t have to have a piece against the wall, but it will protect the drywall.
I rarely have wood wider than three feet, since I have it cut down to fit into my car. I just kind of winged it while building this wood holder — I used uhhhh…some scrap wood 😂 to start building compartments:
I could have used a jig to screw it together with hidden screws, but I didn’t need it to be pretty. I just wanted it to be sturdy. I used 1x2s as brackets as I built to attach a new section.
My top section was the highest to hold the long pieces, the middle section was about two feet high, and the smallest about a foot. I also segmented some of those for smaller pieces that would have fallen over in the larger sections:
It works SO well and I’ve already utilized it a ton!
Next, it was time to sort through all of the items in here so I could organize them in a new storage cabinet. I had an obscene amount of spray paint from past projects and partnerships:
I think I counted at least 100 cans — they were taking over the garage! I saved the colors I knew I would use and donated or gave the rest away to friends.
I purged our garden/outdoor stuff as well, and what had been in two tall plastic cabinets was downsized into this one metal cabinet:
I used my favorite plastic bins to organize everything into like items…with labels of course!:
These are easy to slide out and I like that we can see what’s inside. Before we had everything out and stuffed in the shelves…this has already worked so much better for us!
I love that this cabinet has peg hooks on the doors for longer items too: 
Before we had plastic cabinets that just didn’t hold up to any kind of weight. The shelves sagged and the doors never shut completely. I spent almost the same on those as I did on this one unit that will hold up to just about anything!
My favorite part of this redo is my tool storage. I built a long workbench into the wall in our old garage, but knew I wanted something I could roll outside instead. (The sawdust gets out of control!) Shortly after we moved in I built this rolling work bench with scrap till I figured out what my permanent solution would be:
Those cabinets next to the cart were filled with my tools — and no matter how much I tried to organize them, I could NEVER find what I needed.
So I looked into options for months and found what may be one of my favorite purchases EVER:
This is the Husky work bench and it is AWESOME.
The drawers fully extend, so you can see everything inside: 
They are soft close too. The bench comes with those drawer mats so items don’t scoot around when you open and close the drawers. **All of the black containers here are from the dollar store. Oh, and it has USB ports and outlets on the side for chargers or tools.
Gah. I love it so! I cannot believe after DIYing for 20+ years that I’ve never had anything like this. I feel so grown up and legit! 😄 Some of the options have all drawers, but I wanted something with a cabinet for my compressor and deeper drawers for the drills and saws.
I went through and sorted all of the little stuff like screws and nails and doodads. I had them all in that organizer you can see under the DIY workbench above, but it was always getting sawdust inside and some of them were stuffed full.
I wanted containers I could easily bring inside when needed as well. I shared these awesome (and super cheap!) small organizers for hardware here:
They are a game changer!
When I got that workbench put together, I held off on putting my saw up there because I kept using the top to work on projects. Huh. Imagine that! I’ve worked on the floor or the kitchen island for all this time. It was wonderful to be able to work and have my tools right there.
SO my last addition to this space was a rolling work bench just for my saw. It’s lighter, smaller and easier to roll than the big one, but is the perfect size for my saw: 
You can crank the height up or down, which is awesome when using a saw. Mine has always been up too high and I would get shoulder or arm pain when I used it too much. The length also works well.
I can roll it outside easily and the wheels lock so it won’t go anywhere as I cut. The garage has already stayed SO much cleaner because of it!
I so wish I had taken more before pics of the whole space, but you can see some peeks of it in the photos above. It is really night and day!:
You know I had to add a fun little DIY project to this space with the TDC letters. 😉 They are just big cardboard letters and I covered the front with black and gold wrapping paper:
All of the larger items in here are the Husky brand from Home Depot (cabinet, rolling work table and rolling work bench). Thankfully I got all of them during a great sale, but I would buy them again in a heartbeat! They are perfect for our storage needs.
Here are some of my thoughts and tips when it comes to garage decluttering and organization:
- I used the Konmari method (as I do every time I go through items) when going through everything in this space. Especially when it came to my tools — do I really LOVE or USE each item?
- I moved paint supplies to the basement storage room with the paint. That way I’m not gathering items from two different spots every time I paint something.
- Some of the items we had in the garage moved to the new mud room storage I shared last week. Extra light bulbs, extension cords, command hooks, batteries, etc., went there instead. It’s stuff we reach for more often, so it makes more sense for them to be inside.
- I thought a lot about placement and how we use things — the storage cabinet is now closer to the garage door since most of the items in there are used while we’re outside. Lawn equipment went under the windows where the wood storage used to be so they’ll be easier to access.
- I dusted or cleaned nearly every surface and item in the garage as I went through everything. Some of my tools hadn’t been cleaned for years! I cleaned the tops of surfaces, window sills, cobwebs…all of it. I’ll probably do this once a year from now on.
If you are tackling your garage this spring I hope my ideas help you! If you have any tips for organizing the garage, I’d love to hear them!
You can find many of the items I used to organize our garage here:
Label maker for bins
Plastic storage bins for cabinets
Perfect small storage bins for hardware
Garden/project stool (I use this ALL the time and love it!) https://amzn.to/30EVVHv
LED garage lights (These make a HUGE difference in a garage/work space! SO much brighter.)
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