Garage Make-over

This post is really for our dads...they both helped us with this project. It's just much easier to put it on here than try to do this via email.

We have never had an organized garage. We were stubborn enough to have it somewhat clean so that we could park both cars inside, but it has never been organized. When we moved to this new house 2 1/2 years ago, we got an extra 1/2 car space in the garage which was perfect for a work bench and all the various tools we own. We just never got around to it, and a hand-me-down chest freezer was our makeshift tool bench. That being said, Grandpa Winton bought Steve a tool bench for Christmas and it inspired us to finally get completely organized.

I only wish I had before pictures to share.

Before the work bench arrived, Steve installed ELFA shelves all along the back of the garage. It gave us TONS of needed storage space, and looks great. Here it is.


The next area he tackled was next to our trash can. Normally we had a line of dirty cleats, boots and work shoes lined up from my car along the path to the door. It was pretty out of control considering each person had at least 2 pairs of shoes there plus skates. That's 20-30 shoes stacked up and in the way. So, Steve installed drawers next to the trash can. The really nice, deep Elfa drawers. There are also two shelves way above them for our recycle bins. We each have our own drawer for shoes, gloves, hats, skates...whatever. Even Steve and I have a drawer. Check it out.

We even have a spot for firewood now.

The drawers are also labeled...with my new handy-dandy labeler.

This is where our shoes used to be...all along this wall. Looks nice huh? We even got a new rug and have a spot for the ripstick and helmets.

And the pieze de resistance...the work bench. It took about a month to get the actual hardware to put it together. Sears had a product issues, but it looks great, holds all our tools and makes us very happy. Steve took it all one step further and installed a pegboard above it for virtually all of our small tools. Now everything is in easy reach. I bought an organizer for all the little screws, hooks, anchors etc. (hanging on the right)


I even labeled every one of those little tiny drawers.


Thanks Papa for the work bench, and thanks Grampa Kall for the advice with the pegboard. The next time you are in town, you will have no problem finding any tool you need to help us with our next project!! Hee hee.