Garage De-cluttering and Safety Tips

A cluttered garage wastes space and also creates significant safety risks. This article gives you tips for organizing your garage to make the best use of available space, and it also gives tips for helping to keep your garage safe.

Garage De-Cluttering Tips
One of the unique features of most garages is that they have very high ceilings. This creates the opportunity to create storage areas by installing shelving, hooks, hoists, etc. that allow you to take advantage of this free space up high in your garage.

If you are attaching shelving, hooks, hoists, etc. to the walls or ceiling of your garage, you will want to be sure that you are attaching them securely enough to the studs in the walls or the joists in the ceiling. If you are not sure exactly how to do this, then you should contact a professional to install these items for you. The last thing you want is for the items you are storing to come crashing down on members of your family or onto your car.

Even installing a simple pegboard can give you plenty of space to hang items for easy access, and it gets them off the floor or helps keep them from getting buried in boxes or drawers (see types, costs, and reviews of pegboards).

Garage Safety Tips
Here are some safety tips for storing items in your garage:

• Make sure that any fuel is stored only in approved containers, and these are properly sealed (helpful accessory: approved fuel cans).
• If you must keep flammable materials in your garage, then be sure that they are as far away as possible from any sources of ignition. But if you can, flammable materials should be stored in a locked outdoor shed.
• Keep hazardous chemicals separated. For example, if bleach and ammonia are mixed, they can form deadly chlorine gas.
• Store any dangerous chemicals (anti-freeze, pesticides, paint thinners, etc.), dangerous equipment, or sharp tools in locked cabinets that cannot be accessed by children.
• Never store any oily rags in your garage, as they can spontaneously combust into flames.
• Keep spill control materials on hand, such as cat litter, sawdust, or oil clean-up dust.