Is Your Garage Working For You?

When you return home at the end of the day, do you park your car inside a neat and orderly garage or do you arrive to a sea of chaos?  Even worse, are you parking your car in the driveway or on the street because your garage is full of items that you only use a few times a year?  With the high price of automobiles these days – not to mention the increasing number of car break-ins and thefts – don’t let a disorganized, jam-packed garage keep you from protecting your automotive assets.

Start by sorting the clutter.

If the weather is good, it’s recommended to move the contents of the garage outside on the driveway for sorting. This will force you to actually take things off the wall and shelves and think about each and every item. Like most people, you will likely discover lots of things that your had completely forgotten were there. If you haven’t missed them, you likely don’t need them. By eliminating those, you can narrow it down to just what you do need to keep. There are numerous places to donate items in the area. Some things may need to be recycled while others are ready for the trash.

Give the garage a good cleaning and assess what needs to be kept.

As you begin to move things back in to the garage, consider measuring your vehicles and chalking or taping their shape and size on the garage floor, allowing for the doors to open and close. From there, the next step is to go vertical. Add shelving and stack clear plastic bins with lids as needed. Hang tools on pegboards or another system so they are easy to find when needed.

Decide about the largest items first. Can your bikes go on the wall? Can you add overhead storage that would still allow you to park your vehicles in the garage? If some of the items are seasonal, such as kayaks, canoes, paddleboards, etc., it may be worth putting them in self-storage for the six months of the year they are not in use. The same would be true of camping gear and holiday decorations. Why let something you may only use once a year keep you from parking your expensive vehicles in the garage every day?

The final step: Put everything in its place, including the cars.

If you are still left with more things than will fit in the garage, a trip to Montgomery Self Storage may be in order. Check out the inventory for the size of space you will need. Compare the monthly rental fee to what your car payments are and we believe that you will see the value. Our month-to-month rental plans with no long-term commitment help make it an easy choice.