Oh goodness y’all. Our garage has been a sore spot for – cough- several years now. We have tidied it up a bit, added new storage, done lots of Goodwill trips and yet it is still just a wreck.
This year we knew we really wanted to spend some time organizing the garage once and for all. I want a fresh and open garage where I can get to the things I need without fear of 100 other unwanted items raining down on my head.
So this summer I was determined to really clean out the garage and organize it for once and for all. This was a lot of work and it took several weeks to finish. We set aside small blocks of time on weekends and weeknights here and there and just slowly but surely chugged through this entire project.
I can’t even tell you how good it feels to have a light, bright garage now and there is so much space!
I want to preface this by saying that ultimately our garage just needed a thorough cleaning and a de-junking. I have seen lots of garage makeovers that are pretty over the top- adding fancy trims and very expensive flooring, huge storage systems that probably cost thousands of dollars… That wasn’t what were were looking for. In fact, I was hoping to spend $100 or less on this entire project.
So here are some before shots. Please don’t judge too harshly, I swear we are not filthy people normally 😉
I don’t even know where to begin with what was wrong here. This is a large 3 car garage and when we moved in my husband sectioned off the 1 car side with that white wall you can see filled with shovels and such and on the other side is a simple little tool bench. We thought it would keep all the tools and such semi- concealed and then the 2 car side would be nice and empty for just the cars.
So what it did instead was make an already dark space even darker and just made the garage feel so closed in. Plus we had open shelving behind the tool bench so everything was just covered in sawdust all the time. Disgusting.
My husband’s side of the garage was literally what nightmares are made of. Look at our deep shame:
So we started by completely removing that entire dividing section and moved the tool bench and large pegboard to the back side of the garage (where the bikes are in the photo above.) That immediately made a huge difference.
Here I am taking the photo from the same spot and now you can see how open and clean this side looks!
Once the division wall was down we moved almost all the huge stuff out of the garage and did a very through cleaning. We scrubbed the floors and wiped down the walls. I attacked numerous spiderwebs with the shop vac and that alone made another big improvement.
Next we majorly purged. Majorly. As in a first name basis with the guy at Goodwill.
Once we relocated the workbench and pegboard it was this ugly brown color and kind of depressing. I used a little extra paint on hand and gave the workbench a fresh coat of white paint. I also had some paint samples on hand and since there wasn’t enough paint to do the entire pegboard in one color, I thought it would be fun to add some stripes in blue, green and yellow.
I would love to see a garage completely painted a bright color but ultimately it just isn’t realistic for most people. I mean this is a garage 😉 So the stripes were pretty quick- just two coats and about 60 minutes or so of time and a nice bright spot when you walk in.
I used to have these spiceracks from Ikea in my little girl’s room, but we took them down awhile back and I gave them a coat of white paint and secured them to the pegboard. My next Ikea trip I will probably grab two more and those hold my spray paint, which I use all the time.
I hooked our paintbrushes, painter’s tape and just hole punched a few paint chips we have. I noted the place where I used the paint right on it to reference back if needed.
To finish this part of the project my husband bought (6) 22 gallon tubs at Walmart. We organized all the tools and gardening items and such in the bins and I made some quick labels on my Silhouette machine.
We had a second large pegboard that we added to the garage years ago and had never really used. I used to have raincoats and umbrellas and the dog leash and stuff but really it was underused and looked junky with the mismatching items.
So I really needed space for craft and gift wrap supplies and I added a ton of stuff to this pegboard. I moved all my mountains of craft paint, gift wrap, ribbons, washi and more onto the pegboard.
Our dog’s food is right under that so he got a fresh mat, fresh bowls and a label for his food storage container. he deserves it 😉
Next I wanted to utilize as much space as possible in the garage for the things we really do need. So we used scrap wood and a few wooden dowels to create this little rack mounted to the wall to hold garbage bags, paper towels, cleaning spray and some craft paper my kids use to color. I also use it for painting projects and such.
Initially I planned to just buy wall mounted paper towel holders but it actually worked out to be cheaper and more stable to build this system.
Next we added a simple strip of wood right by the laundry room door to put up some hooks. These used to be in the laundry room but they just cluttered up a small space and annoyed me. The hooks hold the children’s backpacks and our library book bag and the dog’s leash.
Our garage door was really gross- I scrubbed it but it still had tons of scuffs and marks and looked like h-e-double hockey sticks so I gave that a coat of green paint. The pegboard was also an ugly blue color so I toned it down with the same green paint.
Next I attacked our storage wall. My husband built this one afternoon when he was fed up with boxes everywhere and our cheap, junky storage racks. This took him a day to make but he just (literally) stuffed anything and everything inside and then closed the doors. 🙂 So not really solving the problem. I actually emptied the entire shelving unit of every single item and made a donate, store and toss pile.
We donated mountains of things and then everything else was neatly organized in the bins we already had. I wound up buying (2) more tubs. Then it was a game of Tetris to get everything back into the racks.
And this isn’t pinterest perfect by any means but I tried to get all the awkward stuff like the Bissell and the huge Christmas tree box, wreaths, luggage etc… Oh and the kids “helped” by adhering the labels to the storage bins so those are a little wonky but they make me smile remembering the intense concentration trying to get those letters onto the tubs.
Next we added a strip of wood to the side wall and just some large screws and hooked up all the brooms, mops, shovels and so on. Cheap and simple and functional.
We did the same with our children’s bikes and scooters. Nothing fancy here but it gets everything into a spot and off the floor.
Our cornhole game is also mounted on the wall to get it out of the way and then you can see the lawn chairs also mounted on the side of the storage unit. We use those a few times a week for soccer practice so they need to be readily available.
I emptied every single one of those tubs you see above in the storage unit and completely organized them and then just printed out labels from my Silhouette. Since we wound up purging so much stuff, we were able to get rid of a whopping 4 storage racks!
And this isn’t the prettiest picture ever but again- the stuff in the garage isn’t pretty typically. So one storage rack (we used to have three here) with a few more bins, our bikes, the children’s little tent, an ugly built in thing-y for our pool and some of the larger tools like the air compressor and propane tanks and such.
Our bikes used to be mounted up with hooks but it was such a pain to get them down and they were heavy- so we just left them on the ground for easy access. And the tent is mounted up with little screws so it is easy to pull down and doesn’t get all dirty.
Since we suddenly had so much space in the garage, we mounted this little soccer net for the girls to practice kicking this season.
Budget Breakdown:
- Woof Dog Mat $12.00
- (2) Turquoise Dog Bowls $7.00 each
- (6) Large Blue storage tubs $7.96 each
- Wooden dowels for wrapping paper (6) $1.29 each
- Green paint for the door and pegboard (one quart) $16.00
- (2) extra storage tubs $4.96 and $7.96
Total Cost: $110.42
Not bad right? And once again- here is the garage view from the driveway-
So much space!
I hope this motivates you to tackle your garage! If you have some great ideas that worked in your own space, please feel free to share in the comments below!
And here are a few other projects you might enjoy:
Beth says
looks amazing!! way to go!!
dodi says
It looks fantastic! Thanks for some great ideas! Have to call you modern day Martha Stewart!
Charlene says
Hi Dodi! Martha would be about 100 times better but thank you so much. Considering we spent $100 total, I’d say not too bad 🙂
Charlene says
Thank you so much Beth!
Rachel says
Wow!!! Totally Pinterest worthy for starters. Looks so clean and fresh. Your before pics are cleaner than my garage on any day!
Amy says
Where did you get the baskets that are holding your ribbon on the pegboard? They are what I’ve been looking for!
Charlene says
Hi Amy- you might be able to find something like this at the Dollar store. I actually used to have this gift wrap holder thing I bought years ago- it looked like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Storage-Dynamics-5-Foot-Covered-Basket/dp/B00077JFWA/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&keywords=over%20the%20door%20gift%20wrap%20holder&linkCode=ur2&qid=1438268343&sr=8-4&tag=myfrugadve-20&linkId=JO4B4TMFSOVDVIHV
There really wasn’t room for it in the pantry where I had it and things were always falling off so I took it apart and that was what I used. The baskets have big sections between the metal pieces and so I lined it with scrapbook paper to prevent the ribbon from slipping through the slats. I hope that makes sense 🙂
Charlene says
Ha ha! Maybe the sunshine makes it look brighter but it was pretty hideous before! Thanks so much Rachel!