Hello! It’s time to get going on another month of The Household Organization Diet! This month we’ll be moving on to the dreaded garage {and in case you’re wondering, yes, I totally missed last month!}. Honestly, this is the hardest space for me to keep cleaned and organized on an ongoing basis. It tends to be one of my favorite “dumping grounds” for anything that I don’t know what to do with and the clutter can pile up quickly! Anyone else?
The July Household Organization Diet – How to Organize the Garage
Garage organization usually takes a little more planning than a lot of the other spaces in your home. Begin by setting aside a designated chunk of time to work on the space and try to include as many members of the family as possible. You don’t want to have to delay making decisions about what items will stay and what items will go, so you want to have everyone present that has any input into this.
A weekend definitely works best so you can give yourself enough time to actually complete the project, but sometimes you just have to find the time wherever you can. If you’re doing smaller blocks of time, pick smaller projects or areas to work on. It’s also a lot easier if the weather is dry so you can use your yard or driveway to sort out what you need and what you don’t.
To really be able to declutter and purge, you ideally need to take EVERYTHING out of the space. This gives you a true picture of everything that you have {and don’t need!} and is really needed to clean the garage well. You can often find some interesting surprises lurking behind all of that stuff!
If tackling the whole space is just too overwhelming for you {or you can’t find a big enough chunk of time), you can do it in sections. It does tend to get a little bit complicated when it comes to re-organizing everything though, so you may have to do some juggling around in the end. In any case, JUST GET STARTED! Anything that you do will be better than nothing!
The Household Organization Diet Plan
If you’re not familiar with The Household Organization Diet, it’s basically a year-long plan to work on decluttering, deep cleaning, and organizing every space in your home. Each month we work on a different room. Some spaces may need a lot of time and others will be easier. Just work at your own pace, do what you can, and feel free to adapt the plan to make it work for you. The key is to just get started!
At the beginning of each month, I post a free set of printables for the month including a task list, a blank task list for you to add your own tasks, a calendar, and a notes sheet. I recommend that you print these out and put them in a binder for frequent reference. You might even want to print two copies of the task sheet so you can hang one up on the fridge or other visible area of your home. You can read a little more below about how to use them.
I also always post some helpful tutorials and tips to help you complete each of your tasks. Be sure to pin or bookmark this post so you can read these over before you get started. I’ll be updating them throughout the month with any changes I’ve made and will be sure to let you know when I’m working on anything new. Please leave me a comment or email me if you have specific questions or ideas that you would find helpful to complete the tasks and keep you on track. I love to hear from you!
The July To Do List
Here are the tasks that I’ll be tackling in our garage this month. Be sure to give everything a GOOD CLEANING as you empty out the space. You can print out the list as shown below or print out a blank one and customize your own to do list.
DOWNLOAD THE GARAGE ORGANIZATION TASKS HERE
DOWNLOAD THE BLANK GARAGE TASKS HERE
July Calendar
I always like to schedule in my tasks for the month to give myself some accountability. Make your {realistic!} monthly plan and stick to it! Some people like to do a little each day and others like to block off a longer time period once per week {or even do it all in one long day!}. Do whatever works best for your time schedule and personality. Just WRITE IT DOWN!
DOWNLOAD THE JULY 2019 CALENDAR
July Notes
I use this section, to write down little jobs or projects that I would like to do in the space as well as any particular items that I would like to buy {either for now or in the future}. You might want to print out two sheets – one for things that you would like to do this month and a second sheet for future projects.
DOWNLOAD THE JULY NOTES
Garage Organization Ideas
Are you ready to get going? Check out these posts for a ton of ideas to get you started on your space. If you’re still stuck, let me know. You can find our initial garage makeover here and all of my garage organization tips. You won’t believe the before and afters!
If you need some garage organization inspiration, check out some of my favorite Garage Inspiration Ideas from around the internet. There are so many easy DIY’s that can quickly transform your space.
Make the most of your vertical space and learn how to build a pegboard wall. It can be used for so many items – from garden equipment and cleaning supplies to power tools and crafting supplies.
You can see how we used ours to keep our kids’ sports equipment organized. This Pegboard Sports Equipment Organization has worked great for us and has been one of the easiest spots to keep organized.
This Pallet Sports Equipment Storage was another super simple DIY that has been perfect for storing all of our hockey sticks and baseball bats. It would be great for gardening tools too.
Painting our garage floor made a HUGE difference in the look of our garage and was quite simple to do. Learn How to Paint a Garage Floor with this step by step tutorial.
What do I do with all of my stuff that I no longer want?
I’m a big fan of just donating everything that you don’t need so you can get it out of the house as quickly and effortlessly as possible. If you have some larger ticket items though that you would like to sell or are considering doing a garage sale, read this post – To Sell or Not to Sell. You want to make sure that it’s worth your time!
The Home Decluttering Diet Book
Let me know if you have any questions or need any further ideas! If you like this plan, be sure to grab my book, The Home Decluttering Diet, for more organization tips and tricks. It’s so nice to have everything in one place!
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The Household Organization Diet
This post is part of The Household Organization Diet. If you need some organization inspiration, check out THIS POST to learn more about the plan and THIS POST for all of the 2019 updates.
The post is updated on the first of every month with the new plan so don’t forget to bookmark it! You CAN get that house cleaned and organized once and for all! To see all of the previous posts click the Get Organized tab at the top of the blog and go to The Household Organization Diet. I also have all of the posts pinned to my Household Organization Diet Pinterest Board. If you like the plan, you can order my book, The Home Decluttering Diet, for full room-by-room decluttering and organization guides, DIY organization projects, and lots of extra tips and tricks! Start at any time and make sure you are following along so you don’t miss out…
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Happy Organizing!
The post Garage Organization and Cleaning {July HOD} appeared first on Clean and Scentsible.
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