One of the biggest problems when trying to decorate your home is seeing through the clutter to the bones of your rooms. Without eliminating the clutter, you will never get a good picture of what the positives and negatives are, and therefore be able to come up with a good decorating plan. This is even more important when decorating on a budget, because every decision counts! However, we all have stuff. I’ve got it, you’ve got it, and we love our stuff! Luckily, most of us have garages so that we can store all that stuff! But we don’t just want to move the clutter from one place to another cluttered place, that never helps. Developing budget DIY garage storage ideas can help you eliminate the clutter from inside, while keeping it all orderly out in the garage.
These DIY ideas are easy, and best of all, inexpensive. Remember three things…
1. Don’t store things you haven’t used in over 6 months, a year for seasonal items. Donate.
2. Don’t store things you use all the time out in the garage…you will get tired of trekking out there in January when it’s 0 degrees to retrieve that pancake griddle!
3. Don’t forget to organize your existing garage items first. You want an orderly area to store all your “stuff” from indoors….. also, if you neglect to neatly organize your tools and other garage type items, when you need them for those DIY projects, they will be MIA! So organize that garage!
DIY Garage Storage Ideas
Pegboard Garage Storage
‘Anyone Can Decorate‘ made this custom garage organizer on a budget, with pegboard and inexpensive shelving. Anyone can do this DIY garage storage idea! Good tutorial, lots of photos.
Family Handyman Garage Storage Ideas
From ‘Family Handyman‘, here are a few good garage storage ideas! Use pie tins cut in half to safely store those circular items you need… This might also be good inside cupboard doors to store tupperware lids!
A tie rack from the discount store is a great way to store wrenches!
Also from ‘Family Handyman‘, follow this tutorial on how to create recycle bin hangers, and get those all important bins off the floor and out of the way!
Work surface cluttered with miscellaneous nails, screws, hardware, whatever? Clean it up and still keep that stuff at your fingertips. Attach a muffin tin under a shelf with a single 1/4-in. x 1-1/2-in. flat head machine screw. The tin pivots out from beneath work surfaces to organize and serve up any little doodad you frequently use. And you store all that little stuff without using up a single square inch of workspace. From Family Handyman.
Use inexpensive Glad storage cups, some glue and some magnetic strips to create this magnetic mini storage.
Budget Garage Shelving
Our next project – ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy Keep Learning‘ shows us how to make garage shelving from reclaimed wood, a great budget project to get everything out of the corners and off the floor!
From ‘Martha‘, this peg rail organizer is easy and inexpensive to make. Easy to understand tutorial.
From ‘Woodworking Tips‘, how to make a tool shelf. This one is really customized, but just uses inexpensive plywood.
Spray Paint Storage
‘Hi Sugarplum‘ has this great idea for organizing spray paint (I take up an entire cupboard for this, great idea!) with an inexpensive shoe organizer.
Garage Makeover Ideas on a Budget
Lastly, from ‘Premeditated Leftovers‘, this DIY garage shelving unit will take care of all the garage storage ideas you need. Step by step drawings in this tutorial. Get to storin’!
These DIY garage storage ideas will have you organized in a weekend! We think you will also love our post on 50 Ideas to Organize Your Home. Be sure to check out our post on Garage Makeover Ideas & Projects and DIY Small Storage Sheds at our sister site, OhMeOhMy!
loved these ideals great job
Great article, Kathy! My husband’s tools and equipment are usually left to mingle in the garage, and I’m left to clean them up. I haven’t found a very effective organization method, but I’ll be sure to remember your three tips when I’m cleaning the garage next. That bin hanger idea looks awesome! How much weight can they hold?
I really needed this for the hubby!!
Why put the magnetic strips on wood why not put it directly on the peg board?
I’m sorry, it’s not our project so we have no idea… Sorry we couldn’t be more help!
Having the strip magnets on a board allows me to reposition the board anywhere. With the magnetic strips on the pegboard it is “stuck” there.
great ideals Thanks.
Nice DIY job. It seems like everyone wants to go heavy duty these days when in reality it’s mostly not needed. Glad to see that your setup is sensible and not way overbuilt. You probably saved significant cost without compromising any real functionality based on the way you use these shelves. Great work!
I particularly like the recycle bin organization idea. Right now we don’t have a good way to organize our recycle bins in the garage and this would work well.
I use all the same rules as you mentioned but i will suggest a couple more.
5) Take a hard look at your floor space. If there is something that can be relocated to a wall or cold storage do so. Floor space is a premium in any garage.
6) Get a 5 gallon pail for ” to be sorted later” . When i clean my benches there is a lot of good misc parts and supplies that get tossed in there till i have time to put them away properly. Occasionally i’ll take an hour or so and put all those little important pieces back where they belong.
Hi Kathy. Love these ideas! I have a unique situation. My husband and I are building our own home. Since we are paying cash for everything, it has been slow going. Here is my dilemma: we do not have the garage completed yet, so he drags his shop tools and projects upstairs to the main living area! Yes, chainsaws have been repaired AND fired up in my living room (my husband is a logger). While he thinks there is nothing wrong with this, I happen to vehemently disagree! I need some ideas that will be functional and decorative. I love anything rustic, vintage or outdoorsy and will add that I am very artistic and not afraid to re purpose. For some reason I just can’t seem to come up with ideas for this space. HELP! If you need pictures, I can send them.
Thank you!
Hi Leslie!
You can go to either TheBudgetDecorator.com and OhMeOhMyBlog.com and just type “rustic” into the search field… you will get tons of good ideas! Good luck, there are so many creative DIY ideas out there!