My sweet husband's 25th birthday was on Monday, and I decided to surprise him by redoing the garage! I gave myself a 12 hour time frame, and less than $200 to complete this job. Those 12 hours even included going to Costco and Walmart for supplies. My husband told me "this is the best birthday gift I've ever gotten" so that's a win in my book.
Supplies
We originally had plastic shelves that we had acquired from family or buy sell trade pages. These were decent, but Daniel had his eye on some really nice steel shelves from Costco. These shelves were originally about $70 each, but they were on sale for $55, which made my budget go even further.
The real problem with our garage was that we had no organization system. It was just whatever we had used recently was on the outside of the shelves, and it ended up just being piles of junk. So I bought 6 black tubs for $4 each. I almost made the mistake of not looking at the shelves dimensions, and buying too large of tubs, so make sure you check dimensions.
Another issue was that we have so many large tools (ie. shovels, weed wacker, drill) that we use often, but always end up in the way in the garage. The solution was a $15 track system that can hold multiple tools easily, and can be added to as Daniel's tool selection grows.
The last solution was super simple. A magnet strip for behind his work bench. This seems so obvious, but for some reason we had never gotten one! Seriously invest in a $5 magnet strip to save your sanity.
Step by Step
1. Clean Out
I spent about 2 hours cleaning out the garage. If your garage is clean (ours wasn't) then this might take you a lot less time. I threw away a lot of junk, and found a lot of tools and supplies that I didn't even know we had! The clean out gave me a chance to completely clear of our old plastic shelves so I could post them on our neighborhoods buy/sell/trade page to make a little money.
2. Organize
While I cleaned out I organized all of our stuff into 6 different tubs. Based on our garage contents I made a tub for paint, tools, yard, crafts, and 2 tubs for other. Basically anything that didn't fit into the 4 main categories went into other, like our washers and car cleaning supplies. I also made some cute tags with tape and my printer. I'll probably make better ones later on, but for now these will get the job done!
3. Shelves
Metal shelves are heavy... I think I underestimated how heavy they would be. Luckily someone loaded them onto my cart and into my car for me, but as I was driving away I realized I didn't have anyone to help me unload them because it's a surprise for my husband who would usually be the one helping me. So it took a lot of maneuvering to get them out of my car and into the garage. That was only have the struggle. It took about 2 hours to put them together, but it was pretty simple once I understood how to put them together. Also, our sprinkler system controls are behind the shelves, so I had to go back and adjust the shelves to make it accessible.
4. Put it all back together
At this point my garage was looking worse than it did when I started, which is always discouraging. It took about an hour to put everything back together. I put all the newly organized tubs on the bottom shelf for easy access, then things like paint and other heavy items on the next shelf. On the very top self I put all the things we pretty much never use, like our tennis rackets and washer pits.
5. Finishing Touches
Finally, I put up the track system and magnet strip to arrange all the items that always get in the way! These were two super simple solutions to really annoying organization issues. I also reorganized Daniel's work table, and relocated it to the same side of the garage as the shelves.
I really can't believe how happy Daniel was with this present! He is so practical, and this is just what a practical man wants. I am so glad that instead of just putting new shelves in the garage, I tackled the actual problem which was a lack of organization. As we acquire more garage stuff I can easily add more tubs for storage. Really this project was more about surprising Daniel than organizing the garage, but both were achieved!
kelsey
