Is your garage so cluttered that it stores everything but your car? Do you wish you could walk into your garage and immediately find the tool or item you need? Cleaning out your garage does not have to be an overwhelming experience! Just follow the 4 steps below to clean out your garage.
4 Steps to Clean Out Your Garage
Step 1: Pull everything out
Select a nice, sunny day or weekend to complete this project. The best way to clean out your garage is to pull everything out onto the driveway or yard sorting it into piles as you go. Group like items together such as tools, holiday decorations, lawn equipment, gardening supplies, and sporting equipment. By pulling everything out, you can see exactly what you have been keeping in your garage. If it takes more than one day, cover your items with a tarp to protect them overnight.
Step 2: Sort the items: keep, discard, donate or sell
Label four boxes as keep, discard, donate and sell. Review each item in your groupings and place into one of the four boxes. After you have gone through all the items in one section, move on to the next grouping. Once everything has been purged, go back through all the sections one more time and purge again. Make sure you are only keeping things you need or use.
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Questions to ask yourself as you are sorting through the items:
- Have I used this in the last 6 months?
- Is it in good working condition?
- If I got rid of it, could I easily and cheaply (under $20) replace it if I needed one?
- Could someone else get more use out of this item?
- Is this item in good enough condition to sell?
Step 3: Deep clean the space
Before moving all of your “keep” items back into the garage, you will want to give it a good scrubbing. Grab your cleaning supplies, gloves and a mask (to protect you from all the dust particles) and start cleaning from the top of the garage and work your way down. Dust the ceiling, shelves, and cabinets. Wash the walls, clean light fixtures, clean windows, and mop the floor.
Helpful hint: kitty litter works great for soaking up oil stains.
While the inside of the garage is drying, dust and rinse off any dusty items that you are keeping before putting them back into your clean garage.
Need more help with cleaning? Grab the FREE Spring Cleaning Packet below. It has cleaning ideas and tips and the forms you need to schedule out your tasks!
Step 4: Organize
Now the fun part! Organizing your garage! Use bins, plastic containers, shelves, peg boards, and ceiling hooks to store your items. Make good use of the wall space and vertical space in your garage. Hang your tools and equipment on peg boards. Ceiling hooks are great for bikes and other large items. Shelves help you utilize the wall space in your garage as well. Keep your floor open and clean for your car or larger items. Place like items together so you can easily find what you are looking for.
Helpful hint: be sure to use containers with lids to prevent dust and critters (like mice and snakes!) from getting into your boxes.
Enjoy your clean garage
Now it’s time to enjoy all of your hard work. Keep your garage clean by routinely purging out unused, unwanted items. Be sure to return any items you use back to its proper location so you can always find what you are looking for. Follow these 4 steps to clean out your garage and be able to use the space to store items that are frequently used and important to you.
