I received a call early in the morning few days ago. The customer was frantic and asked if I could please help her. She explained that a propane bottle had fallen from an overcrowded shelf in her garage onto the fender of her brand new Mercedes Benz resulting in an ugly situation. Luckily, the paint wasn’t scratched, and within a short amount time, I had completely repaired the dent so there was no sign it had ever happened.
My customer breathed a sigh of relief and told me she was going to rearrange her garage that weekend. She asked me for suggestions to keep this from happening again. Her shelves were all over-crowded, and sagging badly. There were miscellaneous items on both sides of the garage and not a good use of space. So this is what I suggested:
- Clear out everything and sweep out all of the dirt and dust. This can help with a clear vision of how you want thinks to be organized.
- Good lighting is really nice to have so you see everything and not have that old one-light bulb dungeon garage. So this is a great time up upgrade lighting fixtures to efficient led ones. Most home improvement store have fixtures that will take place of the old ones fairly easily.
- Throw out items you don’t use (this part is key). Go through those old paint cans and see what’s in them. If you don’t need them anymore and there’s still paint in them, check with you local recycling center on where you can safely take them.
- If you have things you haven’t used in a year, toss it or donate it. My kids are growing up and I find things they no longer play with or are sadly now to big for. These items get donated so someone else can get use out of them. You may be surprised how much less stuff you’ll have to store at this point.
Get some good cabinets to put your stuff back in. My personal preference are the cabinets from Gladiator. They have some that are tall and free standing, as well as cabinets that hang on the walls. Walls are a great place to store things that otherwise will consume valuable floor space. By utilizing these, you’ll really make your life easier. Also, if you have any side yard space, I really like the tall storage units from Craftsman. In here I store the things I don’t need all the time but need to keep like paint items, gardening items, and in another one you can have camping items, and holiday items. These are water tight and no critters can move in and make this their new home.
By doing these very simple things, you’ll be less frustrated when searching for an item, and avoid an unfortunate accident happening to your car.
