How To Organize Tools In Garage

Invest In Door And Window Locks

Break-ins often happen when the garage door is left open and the door to the house is unlocked. Always secure the entry door with a deadbolt and keep garage windows locked.

Put in a garage-door lock that bolts the door to the sidewalls, and use it when youre away for an extended period. And always close the garage dooreven if youre mowing the lawn outback.

Tips To Keep Your Tools Organized

• Make your organizational system easy to maintain. A complicated system will be forsaken as soon as you get busy.
• Plan to spend 15 minutes each week returning tools to their spots. Even with the best of intentions, sometimes life gets busy and tools dont get returned to their designated place. So plan to spend a few minutes each week to reorganize your work area.
• Use easy-to-access bins. These can be placed on shelves or underneath your workbench or table.
• Use clothes racks to organize tools. For instance, wenches fit perfectly on tie and belt racks and are easy to store and find.
• Foam balls can be used to store paint brushes, tool bits, pencils, and awls.

Store Like Items With Like

Take care to store similar items with similar items in your garage. Its best to think in terms of major groupings, such as lawn tools with lawn tools, home maintenance essentials with home improvement essentials, baseball sports equipment with baseball sports equipment, and the like. This way, youll know exactly where to look for a lawn rake, a baseball bat, or a handful of trash bags.

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Why You Should Organize A Garage Full Of Tools

Organizing garage tools is very important. It is a good way to prevent loss of your tools. When the garage is organized, you can know the location of everything in the garage. Keeping a garage organized is also necessary for the durability of your tools.

Garage tools are prone to rust and damage. Keeping your tools correctly will prevent damage that is caused by excessive moisture in the garage. It is also possible to reduce accidents in the garage since you can look out the sharp garage tools. You will also enjoy working in a garage that is organized and beautiful.

Use Pallets To Organize Lawn Tools

One way to make the most of your garage space is to use pallets to organize your lawn tools. Pallets are sturdy and easy to find, and they can be repurposed into all kinds of storage solutions.

For example, you can use pallets to create shelves for rakes, shovels, and other bulky items. You can also use them to build a hanging system for garden hoses or extension cords.

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Carefully Plan Future Purchases

If youre considering purchasing a large item for the home to be stored in the garage, ask yourself, Do I have ample storage for this item? Avoid assuming you have the space, otherwise youll end up exactly back where you began! Visit the garage for an honest assessment of storage availability and capacity. Measure space dimensions, scrutinize storage options, and consider how your new purchase is going to affect your current garage setup.

If youre short on space, you may want to think twice about purchasing the item at the present moment. If your heart is still set on purchasing the item in question, and youre short on space, strongly consider removing items you no longer use or have use for in your garage. Youll be finally free of those unused items and youll have the space you need for your new purchase.

Unique Tool Organizing Ideas

The Spruce / Ana Cadena

There isn’t a magic formula for how to organize tools. Tool organization can be a very personal project because it depends on your specific space and needs. Are you a woodworker, a home renovator, or a weekend hobbyist? You might need small storage solutions, or you may need to scale up for accessible power tool placement. No matter your niche, every handy homeowner has tools that need sorting, and there are several clever ways to get the job done.

Here are 10 tool organization tips to help you tidy up your workshop.

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Inventory All Of Your Tools

In order to properly organize your tools, as well as other items, you will need to take inventory of everything, as suggested by the pros at Connecticut Closets & Garages in How to Organize A Messy Garage. Going back to tools, keep track of all hand tools, power tools, and larger items like powerwashers, leaf blowers, and edgers. Once you know how many you have of each item, you can begin planning how and where everything will be stored.

Use Electrical Boxes For Storage

One of the issues I always seem to have when Im building things is that I always misplace my tape measure and pencil. Even though I own at least 5 of them, I can never find a tape measure when I need it.

The solution is the next one of my tool storage ideas.

Install electrical boxes beside all of the places where you are usually measuring things. Then place a tape measure and pencil in each one.

Electrical boxes are really inexpensive and are the perfect size for most tape measures. I put one on the side of the workbench, one beside my miter saw, and one attached to my table saw.

As it turns out, the really inexpensive electrical boxes have 2 nails that are exactly the width of pegboard holes.

So you can hang them from your pegboard to store all kinds of tools that dont have easy to hang shapes.

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Hang Pegboards For Wall Organization

Photo via @sinline503

Using pegboards is an easy way to incorporate hanging storage in your garage for lightweight and smaller items. This garage storage solution is great for massive storage walls, keeping tools over a workbench, or adding a coat and bag rack next to your door. Customize and arrange your tools to your liking on a pegboard by including specialty hooks, shelves, baskets, and more.

Group Your Tools Into Three Categories

The first step should be sorting the tools. Sorting the tools in terms of size and functionality will help you to know the best way to group your tools. Organizing your garage tools starts by grouping them accordingly for easy access. Grouping your tools can also help with safety in the garage, especially when you have kids and pets around. Before you start a tool organization, put them into these three categories

• Seasonal tools the first category should be tools that you do not use often. For instance, your snow shovel and lawn mower are seasonal tools that you only need after several months. Put them in a separate category away from easy access.
• Small tools we also have small tools in the garage. These are tools that are likely to get lost due to their small size, and they should be kept in a safe place to protect them from loss.
• Power tools these tools that are dangerous and you need to lock them in case you have kids or pets around. You can also keep them next to the source of power or charging system for easy access.

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Reason #3 Efficient Use Of Space

The last but not least important reason, is space consideration. No matter how big or small your workshop is, well thought out organization and storage of your tools is necessary.

Ive covered this topic in more of a macro wide overview way in one of my other posts on garage organization. But the same concepts hold true on the micro level as well, as it applies to tool organization and storage.

One of the key take-aways is that vertical space is your friend. So for example, you might store your primary tools right on your level for easy access. Perhaps lesser used items could be stored higher.

Or as another example, if you look at Adam Savages tool stand , youll notice the vertical nature of it, and how the footprint on the floor of that device is relatively small. If you were to store those tools with more conventional methods, the footprint could be a lot bigger.

If you dont have a lot of space, dont let that be an excuse. Lack of space should give you even more motivation to organize and store your tools in the best way you can.

Action Plan:For general garage organization and decluttering ideas and tips, be sure to check out my other post on how to organize your garage.

Also check out the Adam Savage video below, if nothing else, just for inspiration and learning that there are ways you can customize your tool organization and storage to suit your unique needs based entirely on how you do things. It can be a very personal thing.

Add Wire Shelving Along Walls

Photo via @shoplegacyplace

If youre looking for budget-friendly garage organization ideas, consider using wire shelves instead of cabinets in your garage! This garage organization tip is great for storing a variety of itemsfrom gardening supplies to seasonal decor. Wire shelving units provide the strength of metal shelves, but without the bulkiness. Regardless of whether you choose wire shelves or metal shelves for your garage, be sure theres enough clearance underneath them to make sweeping your garage floor easier.

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Build Simple Guides For Cutting Small Parts

Both of these crosscut guides are simple: All you need to do is glue a 1-3/8-in.-wide strip of plywood or MDF to a wider strip. Set the work-piece on the guide, clamp on a rafter square and run your saw along the square to get straight, precise cuts. This works for plain cuts or 45-degree bevels. Its best to have two widths and two sizes of rafter squares for different size parts.

Try A Corner Tool Rack

A corner tool rack is a great way to make the most of your space and keep your tools within easy reach. These racks come in a variety of sizes and styles, so you can find one that fits your needs.

Most feature multiple shelves and hooks, which provide plenty of storage space for everything from power tools to gardening supplies. In addition, corner tool racks are designed to fit into the corner of your garage, so they wont take up valuable floor space.

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Crowded Garage Or Shed

Helpful supplies: Storage bins, baskets and shelves, tool chest, hooks and/or racks

Sort and StowGroup storage items into general categories such as hardware and tools, household items, gardening, sports, and holiday decorations. Put smaller items in sturdy labeled boxes or bins and store them on wall shelving such as Ulines, which comes in multiple configurations .

Organize by SizeIf youre a DIYer with lots of hand tools, a classic tool chest on wheels with multiple drawers lets you store them efficiently and have a work surface, says Prince, founder of Cary Prince Organizing. Or install a pegboard on a wall and hang tools from hooks. Get larger tools like shovels, rakes, and brooms off the floor with hooks or install a tool rack, such as the Walmann Wall Mounted Tool Organizer , along a side wall.

Park All Your WheelsDesignate a parking space for heavy items, such as snow blowers and lawn mowers. Suspend bikes from joists, or use floor stands or wall racks like the Wallmaster Bike Rack . Things like sleds, skis, and surfboards are light enough to hang from a side wall with other sporting gear.

Opaque Bins Help Hide Unsightly Items

Opaque bins or clear bins? I dont know that Ive ever met a bin that I didnt like, but I felt pretty strongly about using opaque bins in the garage.

Unlike the basement, we see the garage a decent amount. We walk through it every time we enter and exit the house. When Donnie is doing yard work or we are playing outside, the garage door will often be up, and neighbors can easily see in.

And if several people, including myself, are going to have to look at my stuff on a daily basis, I want it to look tidy. Opaque bins are great for hiding all of our necessary-but-not-pretty items and making them look organized! Hence, why I felt it was so important to use them in the garage.

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Hang Cleaning Supplies To Save On Closet Space

This final tip in my list of garage storage ideas may not work for everyone, depending on the layout of your house. But it has worked well for us.

I had been keeping all of my mops, brooms, and cleaning items in our mudroom closet. But they were always falling over and getting in the way.

Hanging them on a pegboard freed up space in our closet. And it made them easier to access since we no longer have to dig around coats to get to them.

That door you see peeking into the left of the picture leads to our mudroom. This means that we only have to take about three extra steps to get to our supplies. This setup has been great for us!

If you had a bit of open wall in an inconspicuous place, this setup could certainly work in the main part of the house as well.

Garage Storage Ideas Shop the Post

If youd like to see more posts about our garage organization project, head here:

Choose A Pegboard For Mounting

Pegboards are made of different materials. Wood is the most common choice. Pegboards are also available in acrylic, plastic and metal materials.

One thing to consider before installing a pegboard is the weight of your tools. The holes of a standard sized 3/16 in. wood pegboard can hold about 100 pounds. Thats strong enough to accommodate hand power tools, shovels, rakes, hammers and most work supplies on hooks and shelves.

Before organizing your tools, you need to get the pegboard up on the wall. Youll need a helper to do this for the best results.

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Get The Wheelbarrow Out Of The Way With A Simple Cleat

This was one of our simpler garage storage ideas, but it made a big impact! The wheelbarrow was another piece of equipment that we needed to own for occasional use but that was kind of a bear to store.

We did some research and found this simple cleat that allows us to store it up out of the way, and we can easily get it down when we need to use it.

The lip of the wheelbarrow just rests in the cleat, and then the handles sit against the wall, securing it so that it wont fall down.

To get it down, we push the wheelbarrow straight up out of the cleat and then lower it down.

Look Into Ceiling Storage Solutions

Depending on the size, shape, and layout of your garage, you may be a candidate for ceiling storage. Ceiling storage can be used to house fishing rods, sports equipment, camping equipment, and the like. Do some online research online into ceiling storage options and consider storage kits and setups at your neighborhood home improvement center.

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Organize Screws And Nails By Size

I already had bins that I was using for this kind of thingso the organization system was in place. The problem that I had was that I never put the leftover screws from my projects into the bins!

Most of the time, trying to figure out what size the screws were so that I got them into the correct bin wasnt going to happen at the end of a project.

So Im hoping that upping my organization game with these 3 tips will help:

1. Label the front of every bin with what is in it. I used an inexpensive label machine* to make these. Although if you have neater handwriting than mine, masking tape and a pen would work fine, too!

2. Use velcro dots* to attach a screw to the front of each bin that is the correct sizethat way you can easily compare the size of the screw you are putting away to the one on the front of the bin without having to open each bin.

3. Hang a screw gauge* close to the screw bins. That way you can accurately measure the size of any screw or bolt that you come across and put it in the right place.

Install And Use A Slatwall Organizer

Creating a tools station in the corner of your garage is a good approach, but it doesnt offer enough organization options. Thats why we recommend installing a Slatwall system if you need to look more organized and off the floor.

A Slatwall system is more or less similar to a pegboard panel, only that it is more versatile and can accommodate large tools such as shovels, leaf blowers, and rock rakes without straining for space.

This tools organizer features horizontal grooves to which you can attach a hook, which you can then use to keep the tools in proper storage.

Proslat 88102 Heavy Duty PVC Slatwall Garage Organizer

With a Slatwall such as the Proslat 88102 Heavy Duty PVC Organizer, you can transform your entire garage from a messy into a cozy space by limiting the number of tools lying on the floor and blocking your way in and out.

Proslat 88102 is 97 inches long, 7.5 inches wide, and 4 inches deep. That translates into an area of 32 square feet, which is enough surface area to organize your lawn tools.

We recommend the Proslat 88102 because, in addition to being easy to install over drywall into studs, it also features interlocking panels that you can install either as an entire section or as a track.

Youll love Slatwall systems because they are strong and durable. Not to mention that they can carry quite a large number of tools that would be otherwise lying on the floor.

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