Tidy Your Garage

For most people, the garage is a place to keep a car or two, and maybe to store various odds and ends. You might have dreams about doing more with your garage, though. Instead of a large, un-air-conditioned space with a bare concrete floor, maybe you see a workshop, a home gym, or another potential use besides parking. The possibilities for your garage aren’t quite limitless, but they are vast. Here are some tips on what you could do with your garage, and how to get it ready.

Step 1: Decide How You Want To Use Your Garage

The first step involves dreaming and planning. What do you want your garage to be? A few possible alternatives uses for a garage include:

• Home gym

• Studio for recording, filming, painting, or other artistic endeavors

• Workshop

• Additional storage

Your options will depend, to a large extent, on the size of your garage. If you need your one-car garage for parking your car, you will have to get very creative if you also want to use it as, say, a studio for making art. If your garage could fit two cars, but you only have one, your ideas will have more room to grow.

The Texas climate could also be a factor. Most garages in Texas are hot in the summer and cold in the winter, which could affect plans to create a home gym. You could equip your garage for better climate controls, but that could involve a substantial investment in renovations.

Once you know what you’d like to do, draft a floor plan so you can see where you might need to move or rearrange items, or where you might need to make bigger changes. Your floor plan could include anything from optimized storage space to a soundproof room for recording.

Step 2: Categorize Your Belongings

Next, it’s time to do something that strikes fear in the heart of homeowners across the world: Clean your garage. It’s a daunting job, but it has to happen. If possible, set aside at least a day or two for the job. Recruit family or friends to help if possible.

You’ll want to go through everything and divide it all into several categories:

• Keep in the garage

• Keep somewhere other than the garage

• Sell or donate

• Throw out

Keep things that are useful or sentimental. Those are broad categories on purpose because only you can decide what possessions have sentimental value to you.

The items that you decide to keep might include various materials that you should not store in the garage, such as:

• Paper products: They attract bugs.

• Pet food: Unless you keep it in a sealed container, they also attract bugs.

• Refrigerator or deep freezer: These will crank up your electricity bill in the summer months.

• Paint: Both heat and cold can render paint unusable. Find somewhere to store it inside.

• Propane and other flammable materials: Don't let these get too hot.

Step 3: Prepare Your New Garage

Now you are ready to create your ideal garage. What you will need for this, of course, depends on your plans. Will it need heating and cooling? Will it require new flooring? Better seals around the garage door? After cleaning it out, these are the next considerations. You’ll want to decide on these big-ticket items before installing the details. A blank canvas is easier to perform larger changes on.

Let’s assume that no matter what, you will continue using at least part of your garage for storage. You can make storage much more efficient by investing in storage shelves. Wall-mounted shelves let you get almost everything off of the floor, while sturdy metal or plastic shelves can hold heavier objects. Plastic bins can help you keep various items sorted.

Learn more: Creative Ways to Max Out Garage Storage Space

If you plan on spending a lot of time in your new garage, such as while working or exercising, you might invest in a window or wall A/C unit. These can keep the space reasonably cool when in use, but they can also be rather noisy.

Find Out More

Your dream garage is waiting for you. You may have grand plans for an art studio, a recording studio, a home gym, or a workshop. For any of these dreams, the home mortgage professionals at the Wood Group of Fairway are here to help you achieve them. A renovation loan may be the way forward.

Get in touch with a mortgage professional who can help you find your best mortgage options!