It’s practically a tradition to throw items you don’t want out into the garage. Creating garage ceiling storage will help bring order to the garage and leave more room for your cars! If your beautiful new garage door is all that’s standing between the outside world and your clutter, you can stop hiding it from the world. These tips from the experts at Coastal Garage Doors show you how to use some affordable products to finally get your garage organized and back to being useful again.
1. Hang a Cargo Net
Sports and recreational equipment are some of the hardest items to store. Their large, bulky shapes and sizes keep them from fitting on shelves or into drawers. Hang a cargo net from the ceiling to get them out of the way and close together. It’s also a great way to store other oddly shaped and large items like holiday decorations.
2. Install a Ceiling Storage Lift
If you need a storage option that’s a little more user-friendly, consider installing a ceiling storage lift. Place things like storage bins with your seasonal clothes, the summer cooler, or yard tools inside the lift. The lift does the rest of the work for you.
3. Position a Ceiling-Mounted Pulley
This tool uses leverage to help you pull heavy items like a bicycle up towards the ceiling. It’s not as effortless as the storage lift, but it does take the pressure off your back.
4. Add J-Style Hooks
J-Style hooks are among the simplest tools you can use. They also are some of the most versatile. Put them up where you want to hang your bicycle, ladders, landscaping tools, and a whole lot more.
5. …and Some Garage Hooks
Coated garage hooks will take care of nearly anything the J-style hooks can’t handle. They screw-in to wood beams or rafters to hold all kinds of things in place. Use the load recommendations on the package to determine what size you need.
6. Install Ceiling-Mounted Shelves
These shelves look a lot like the lift, but they hold your belongings in one place. You can adjust the height between the shelf and the ceiling, depending on what you want to store there. That makes it convenient to fit multiple shelves to the design of your garage. It’s a great place to put that camping gear you only use once every year or the giant panda your parents gave their only grandchild.
7. Implement Canvas Storage Bags
Storing things in trash bags or cardboard boxes is a fairly common practice. These items are readily available and easy to use. But they don’t protect what’s inside from impacts, moisture, bugs, or other pests. Canvas storage bags are made to protect things like your vintage seasonal decorations from these dangers. They come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and configurations for a whole host of uses!
8. Install an Attic Ladder
Once you get everything stored in the upper area of your garage, you’ll need a way to access it. A pull-down ladder is easy to access when you need it. It’s a lot simpler than getting the regular ladder down and putting it back up every time you need to retrieve something. It’s also a lot safer than propping a ladder on anything in the middle of the floor. Just tug the cord to pull it down. Fold it up and back out of the way once you’re done. A fold-up attic ladder is also a necessity for garages that have an attic. Make sure your trusses are rated for the added weight. If you access your storage area a lot, you might consider installing a new automated ladder. It costs a lot more, but it might be worth the price.
9. Hang a Sling
A sling is great for larger items like canoes or skies. They are beautiful in their simplicity and work great to keep large items from taking up your floor space.
10. Add Drop Shelves
All you need is some 2-way adjustable hooks and some 2.4s to create dropped-shelving. These shelves aren’t designed to hold your heaviest things. Limit their use to those collective items that weigh fifty pounds or less.
11. Use Attic-Decking Panels
Attic-decking panels make a great surface for storage, but you shouldn’t take the installation on as a DIY project. The strength of the surface is dependent on the strength of your rafters.
12. Consider Tubular Storage
If you have a lot of boards, dowels, or PVC pipe lying around, tubular storage is the ideal solution. Large tubes fit between the ceiling rafters where you can slide the contents in and out of the tube.
Of course, the easiest way to organize your garage is to get rid of as much of the clutter as possible. Devote a day to going through everything and deciding what can go. Throw out broken or damaged items that are no longer useful. Donate any clothes that you can’t still wear to charity. Only keep those items that bring you pleasure or serve an important purpose. Everything else needs to go!
Now you know what you need to store in your garage. Choose some of the tools listed here to help get everything out of the way. Put those that you use less frequently to the back of your storage space. Keep those you use more often to the front where you can get them easily.
Consider keeping a legend of where you put everything as you work. Remembering what you did with everything will be harder to remember as time passes. Laminate the legend and place it on back of the garage door. This will help anyone in the family find what they’re looking for without searching through everything in the garage.
Now that you have a place for everything and everything in its place, you can focus on other things. For instance, consider working on the landscape on the other side of the garage door. Create a beautiful setting that looks as great on the inside as it does on the outside.
San Diego Garage Door Company
Contact Coastal Garage Doors for all of your garage door needs. We offer a wide range of garage door services in San Diego including garage door repairs and new door installation. Ask us about our same-day service and our 100% satisfaction guarantee.