Garage Storage Ideas : Be More Efficient With Your Space

Garage storage ideas can, for many people, be a way to open up untold quantities of space for easy, inexpensive storage. These days, often enough, the garage fills the role of general purpose dump box – the place where anything you can't find a place for in a cupboard or under the stairs winds up. All too frequently, anything you don't have the time, money or will to fix (but that you consider somehow too valuable to throw away) winds up there, too. In most cases, though, it all adds up to an elegantly stacked but utterly nonsensical mess. For up to 35% of Americans, this mess is obstructive enough to prevent the possibility of actually fitting a second car into their two-car garage. What you'll be glad to know, however, is that, with the application of a few well thought-out garage storage ideas, you can quickly bring order to the mayhem, with all those valuable and not-so-valuable items stacked and set aside in easily accessible cabinets, racks, cupboards and shelving units. The intuitive DIY approach to ridding areas of clutter is often simply to fit a bunch of brackets to the wall, put up some shelving, and stack things away. Now, this should probably be the first of all garage storage ideas you consider, given how easy and relatively inexpensive it is to put together. That said, unless you have a very orderly mind (and, if you've let your garage get into a state resembling that described above, you probably don’t; don't worry, according to a recent Cambridge study, only twelve per cent of people do), you're probably only going to wind up creating another problem - your shelving system may well make things more difficult to find than they were before. This is especially likely to be the case if they're somewhat miscellaneous in nature, and you can't think of an intuitive way to categorize them. This is where transparent plastic wall hangings, which you’ll find at most hardware stores, can be very valuable indeed. They make objects, be they silicone applicators, power tools or spark plugs, blatantly visible, ensuring you'll be able to find them with ease. Another great product you should take a look at is the HandiWall system, offered by Garage Outfitters. Composed of slatted sections of wall, the HandiWall system allows you to easily hang hooks, shelving and various other storage units from its face. The system lets you to rack your tools flat against the wall (so that you can easily pick out the tool you need without ever opening a box) while having nuts, bolts and any other necessities stowed in bins or baskets hung from the wall. It's among the most flexible of garage storage ideas to have made it onto the mass market, and, quite aside from its immense versatility and attractive appearance, it's tough, capable of surviving even under the rugged conditions of an engineering workshop. Another idea that might be unfamiliar to most is that of installing an overhead pulley racking system in your garage. This consists of affixing four pulley-wheels to the ceiling of your garage, and hanging a platform of wood or aluminum from them, allowing you to stow any infrequently used items well and truly out of reach and out of the way. Overhead pulley systems can be found at most large hardware supply stores, and, along with bicycle and golf racks, represent one of the most impressive means of doing away with clutter. Of course, regardless of what it is that you need to pack away, there will always be numerous garage storage ideas that fit the bill. Try searching online and in DIY magazines for a broader view of the concepts that can turn your home in a cleaner, more spacious abode.