How do I organise a garage?

Garages fill up because they're the default destination for anything without a home. Organising one is therefore two jobs: a genuine reduction in what's stored, and a system where every remaining thing has a specific place off the floor. Skip the first and the second fails within a year.

What you'll need

• Wall shelving or heavy-duty racking
• Wall hooks and a track or pegboard system
• Clear stackable boxes and labels
• Bin bags and boxes for sorting
• Someone to help lift (optional)

Step by step

1. Pick a dry day and empty the garage completely onto the drive.Partial sorts don't work — you can't see what you have until it's all out, and you'll shuffle rather than decide.
2. Sort into four piles: keep, sell, donate, dispose.Be honest about the 'might be useful' pile. Most of it has been might-be-useful for years.
3. Dispose of chemicals, paint and oil properly at a recycling centre.Never pour them down a drain. Most councils take household hazardous waste free.
4. Sweep, and fix anything structural while the space is empty — leaks, lighting, damp.You will never have a better opportunity than an empty garage.
5. Zone the space: frequent-use near the door, seasonal at the back, heavy things low.Frequency of use is the organising principle that survives contact with reality.
6. Install wall shelving and hooks, fixing into the structure not just the plaster.Garage walls are often block — use appropriate fixings and check the shelf ratings.
7. Hang long tools, ladders, hoses and bikes on walls or from the ceiling.Anything on the floor multiplies. Anything on a wall stays where it is.
8. Store the rest in labelled clear boxes, with the label on the end that faces out.Clear boxes plus labels beats either alone. Unlabelled opaque boxes are how garages fill up again.
9. Keep one clear zone with nothing stored in it.The working space. Without one, the garage becomes storage only and the projects move indoors.

Tips

• Overhead racks above the car bonnet area are usually wasted space and are ideal for seasonal, lightweight, rarely-needed items.
• Photograph the finished layout. It's surprisingly effective at making people put things back.
• Store paint and anything water-based somewhere that won't freeze — an unheated garage in winter ruins emulsion.
• A rule that nothing enters the garage without a designated place is what stops the whole thing regressing.

Common mistakes

• Sorting in place — You end up moving things around rather than deciding about them.
• Buying storage before sorting — You size the system to the clutter instead of to what you're actually keeping.
• Leaving things on the floor — Floor storage spreads, blocks access and gets damp.
• Overloading wall shelving — Garage walls and cheap brackets have real limits. Check ratings and fix into the structure.

Questions people ask