Organize Your Garage by Looking Up

Most garages have a good bit of open space near the ceiling that can be used to organize and store items. Let's take a look at two ways to take advantage of this space.

Hook It

Anything in your garage that can be hung on hooks can be stored in the ceiling area. This includes bikes, kayaks, backpacks, golf club bags – all lend themselves to being hung on a hook hanging down from the ceiling of the garage. The key is to use large plastic covered hooks so the item you are hanging isn't damaged. To maximize the space savings, try to store large items in this manner as doing so should open up plenty of floor space.

Planks

What if you need to store items such as boxes that don't lend themselves to being hung from a hook? Many garages are built with open ceiling spaces. If you look up and see horizontal beams in your garage, you have an open space ceiling.

A smart homeowner can turn the horizontal beams in the ceiling into a storage platform. To do this, measure the space available on the horizontal beams where wood can be laid. Next, have one inch thick wood cut to your measured dimensions. Place and nail down the wood planks. You can now use one or two ladders to lift boxes and other items up to be stored on the planks.

Before you go nuts with this strategy, keep in mind that total weight of everything being stored. Six to eight reasonably sized boxes should not be a problem, but you probably want to avoid putting a safe up there. The last thing you need is for the planks to collapse and drop everything onto your car. That is going to be an embarrassing insurance claim.

The best approach to organizing garages often involves identifying how to take advantage of unused space. Head out to your garage and see if either of these two approaches will help you free up space.

If you don’t have much time to work on a project like this, The Maids of Medway in Massachusetts can help get the job done, as well as provide home cleaning services to give you more free time.