According to a 2015 homeowner study, one in four Americans say they don’t have room to park their cars in their garage due to the amounts of clutter and storage they keep inside. If you’re one of these overwhelmed homeowners, you may be feeling frustrated with the lack of space in your garage. After all, your car isn’t exactly a cheap investment. You should shelter it where it’s meant to be sheltered: your garage.

Why the Garage?

Have you ever wondered how to extend car battery life, or how to extend the life of your car? Parking it in the garage may be the answer to a vehicle that lasts longer and performs better. By parking your car in the driveway or on the road, you’re exposing its exterior and risking damage from natural calamities, animals and rodents, and other cars. If you keep your vehicle in the garage when it isn’t in use, not only will you be protecting it from a myriad of threats, but you’ll also be preserving its condition.

Rain, hail, wind, snow, and sleet are natural weapons against your car’s paint job and will cost you a lot more in car washes than you’d be spending if you were to park it in a garage. In some cases, you might need to hire specialists similar to the ones at hail repair Austin to have the car repaired. Even direct sunlight has the power to harm the sleek look of your vehicle.

In addition to preserving the car’s exterior, parking it in the garage will safeguard its interior workings, as well. Extreme temperatures take a heavier toll on vehicles than most drivers realize, causing fluid and oil to destabilize and wreak havoc on your engine and other essential (and expensive) parts of the car.

Bottom line? Cleaning out the garage and organizing its contents may be a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the long run when your car is unscathed and performing at its best. Use these organization tips and garage design ideas to make the project easier and more effective.

Garage Organization Tips

Before you can assemble an effective storage solution for all of your stuff, you’ll need to purge the clutter and get organized. Set aside a weekend (or maybe two) to tackle this task and use the tips below to simplify the process.

• Clean your garage as much as you can before organizing by removing trash and debris.
• Take out everything you don’t plan on keeping and get rid of it before you try to organize what remains.
• Organize remaining items into categorized piles and start thinking about how you want to store each category.
• Donate the items you don’t use anymore. The less clutter you have, the easier and faster it will be to organize it all.

Garage Design Ideas

Once you’ve purged your garage of excess clutter, removed the trash, and divided your remaining items into categorized piles, it’s time to design a place to keep everything. It can be easy to get carried away with organization systems and end up losing your stuff in a mountain of plastic bins and lock boxes, consider organization systems that work together to keep your stuff organized and in place. A garage storage system provides you with an array of drawers, cabinets, and shelving to store everything in a way that makes it easily accessible. These storage solutions are ideal for tools, food storage, and other collections that are taking up too much space in your home.

For the larger, more general items that don’t require such meticulous storage placement, consider lining your walls with garage cabinets for compact, vertical storage that will store your things and still leave room for your vehicles. Once you’ve got the larger pieces out of the way, add sports racks, wire shelving, and overhead bins to keep everything else organized and easily accessible.

Now that you know how to effectively declutter and organize your garage, you’re ready to take your space to the next level and create the garage of your dreams.