Conquering Clutter with Better Garage Storage Systems

Inefficient garage storage systems are behind the vast majority of space and clutter issues faced by people across the world today. Used properly, the garage, an area that nobody needs to be aesthetically pleasing, can become the ultimate storage area, one capable of holding all the utilitarian items with no place in the rest of your home. This is possible without creating a difficult or complicated system – indeed, ideal garage storage systems make all the essential items of household maintenance accessible at a moment’s notice, easily visible to the eye even of someone who doesn’t know your garage with the intimacy that a family member might possess. Overhead storage systems of the kind manufactured by Hyloft are probably the cream of the proverbial crop when it comes to maximally efficient methods to clear up your garage’s floor. The best overhead garage storage systems attach to the struts that lie in the roof or between floors in the majority of homes, giving them a strength equivalent to the floor on the second level of your house. From their attachment points at the struts or joists, the supporting nylon or steel cabling will run to a rectangular platform (they range in size from that of a door to that of a car), which can then be then be raised or lowered by means of a pulley system. Such pulley systems, when you learn how to use them, allow a child of age 10 to manipulate a load of three or four hundred pounds, raising or lowering it in a few seconds if he or she needs to store or retrieve something from it. The platforms can be raised as high or as low as the load you place on them requires – most can go to within a foot of the ceiling, if need be. Of course, regardless of their efficiency, as garage storage systems overhead units are just hanging shelf space, and aren’t going be appropriate for objects not easily packed into boxes. And while Hyloft do offer hooks for hanging bicycles from the platforms, these are unlikely to get the bikes high enough for most peoples’ purposes. This will without question be the case if you’re driving a Land Rover or other variety of SUV. So what to do, then, if even using the space overhead doesn’t work? There’s no need to despair – all you need to do is install garage storage systems that utilize space around your vehicle more efficiently. Installing shelving space is great, but it’s self limiting – shelving units usually have shelves spaced an even distance apart, a space that’s usually too slight to accommodate things like lawnmowers or wheelbarrows. Not so the new GearRax garage storage systems from MonsterRax. Essentially racking planks that run for lengths of between eight and sixteen feet, these twelve-inch high, half-inch thick racks, which are spaced out by about an inch or two from floor to ceiling, are capable of handing an incredible amount of weight. This is primarily due to their ability to spread weight out over a broad area, placing equal amounts of stress on all the studs by which the system attaches to walls (the same system works for plain masonry, plaster and prefabricated structures). The result? You can hang just about anything, from barbells and weight plates to chainsaws, lawnmowers and scuba gear, from your wall, keeping things up and out of the way but easily visible and available at a moment’s notice.