How we Organized our Garage

Monday, June 7, 2010

garage makeover

I really love an organized garage!!!  I love the idea of everything having it’s own “spot”.  Our garage is one area of our house that we have been neglecting until now.

After we were done cleaning and painting our garage, I realized that I forgot to take pictures, Uhhhh!  What kind of blogger am I, lol?  Then I remembered that I took some pictures last year, Whew!!!

Here are the befores….

Here is the side of my garage.  It is actually our extra 1/2 garage.  Now, I really wish that we just went with the 3rd garage.  Oh well, that just means we need to stay organized!  That wood bench was something that my husband made to fit in our last garage.  The rest of that space is usually LOADED with bikes, toys, and junk!

 

That is the stuff that is usually stuffed into the 1/2 garage.

 

  This is the other side of our garage.  You can see that we have one wall organizer on the wall and a huge, ugly, ‘69 chevelle hood.  I HATE that thing!!!!  I guess, when I married my husband, I married all of his crap stuff too. ( Don’t worry, I see craig’s list in it’s future really soon!)

  Here is a shelf of ugly junk!  Oh, don’t forget to notice the tape on the walls and the randomly spray painted garage floor.

  Here is more junk.  Again, notice the walls and floor!

 

  Another view.  I think you get the idea…unorganized, ugly and dirty!

Now, get ready for some pre-befores.  (before we brought most of the junk back in)  

We painted the walls and ceiling  Alpaca (flat paint) by Benjamin Moore.  That is the same color as my kitchen, family room, foyer and hallway…..and almost the same color as our exterior.  (Which is cool because when our garage door is open now, it blends in with the the house and looks good.)  We also painted our floor with the tan colored, epoxy floor paint with the sprinkles.  

I love how it looks now!!!!  (Again, this is BEFORE the junk)

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I had my sweetie cut down the workbench and paint it black.  We also got these shelves used for only  $15 each!!  Yes, they are black and I can close the doors in hide stuff!!!!

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Here is a close up of the bench.

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We even put in a radio!!! YAY!!!!!!!  I love music and now we can listen to it even when we are in the front yard.

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We also hung up this little organizer.

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We anchored this power strip the the wall so we have more outlets.  (It’s great for baby monitors.)

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Here is a quick peek into our new shelves.  This shelf is for “our” stuff.  (Just so you know, that red container in empty and new.  I know that you should not keep gas enclosed.  This is our spare.)

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This is the “kids” shelf.  Now that we are organized, I have more room to get more stuff, lol!

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We added these cabinets for spray paint and other weed killers to keep away from the kids.  The shelves are California Closet shelves that we found brand new in the box at the Goodwill.  They were only $20 each!

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We added another wall organizer for our tools.

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We also hung hooks for our horses and chairs.

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We installed this rack to our ceiling for garage sale purposes.  I just add twine to drop the bar down and it holds all of our clothes to sell.  (I have at least one sale a year.)

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We also added this electrical cord thing to our ceiling.  I was originally so mad at my husband when he bought this because it was $30 and I thought that it was a total waste of money.  But now,  I LOVE it!!!!  I makes vacuuming out the van, pressure washing the house or plugging in their jumpy way easier.  Plus,  I don’t have to wind up the cord,  I just have to pull on it.

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   I had this shelf in the before pictures, but I have to tell you that I love it too!  I got it at a garage sale for $15 and it was already black.  I was soooo happy when I found this because I was just asking my hubby to build me something just like this.  Anyway, it fits here perfectly and holds shoes, gloves and whatever else I want.  (I love having empty space to fill.)

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So here is the garage with all the stuff back in. 

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I know that is looks shoved in this picture but it’s not in real life.  Next to our black shelves, we have our black tool chest and next to that we have all of out other stuff.  Since it is summer now, we use  most of this stuff daily.   But in the winter, EVERYTHING is going on the walls.   You can see that we already hung up our ladders (except that silver one, we are going to hang that soon,) the wheel barrow, spreader, weed wacker and a bike.   Also, I should mention that we have more kids stuff in the back yard right now, including a cozy coupe.

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I LOVE keeping my garbage and recycling bins next to my door.  It makes recycling especially easy (and you all know how I feel about that!)  I keep my recycling can right next to my door, which is right next to my kitchen, so I can just throw things in there anytime I need to.

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Just another view.

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We also added a rug to collect dirt and so that we can wipe our feet on it.

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Before and After

garage makeover

Before (a close up)

After (a close up)

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That was a lot of work but I LOVE how it turned out!!!!  Yes, I have more ideas to improve this, but I am happy for now!  I am just glad that we did what we did!

How do you like it?

Do paint your garage?

Do you organize you garage?

I hope that you have a great week!!!!

Bonnie :)

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