For most people who have a car that is their five-figure investment, they really cannot do anything without their vehicles.
Such cars cannot be left outside by their owners, who fear that some damage could happen to the vehicles.
In such a situation, the only way to protect their 100k investment is to keep it in a garage where the car will be safe from all elements and people.
Keeping the vehicle in the garage will also keep it cleaner and prolong the time you get to keep the car functioning.
If you are looking for some tips on how you can keep your garage looking excellent and spacious for your vehicle, you are reading the right article.
In this article, I will show you some tips on maximizing your garage space for your 100k investment vehicle.
How To Clean Your Garage Out
Professionals in the organizing industry have estimated that about only 30% of people have their vehicles in their garages.
This is because there is usually a lot of stuff in the garage, so the vehicles cannot fit in them properly.
The garage ideas shown in this article will surely help you maximize the garage space for your car so that you can keep it in comfortably without fear of damage or scratches.
Let us now take a look at these ideas below. You will get rid of anything you do not need that is taking space inside the garage.
You should set aside a day or two for the job, and this would probably be on the weekends when you are not working. You get your family to join in to do the job much quicker.
You should make sure to go through everything inside the garage. Now sort all the things into piles of three. You can label it as ”keep, for donation, and sell.”
Things That You Should Not keep In The Garage
There are some things that you should not store inside your garage if you value the safety of your home. Below are some things that you should not keep inside your garage.
Paint
The extreme cold or heat can ruin the paint storage, and paint cans should be more temperate and not inside the garage.
Propane Tanks
A spark can ignite fumes and cause a fire, burning your 100k investment in the process.
You should always keep propane tanks outside the house if you do not get your house and car burnt to a crisp.
Paper Goods
Paper items inside the garage are like magnets for roaches and many other bugs that will ultimately crown your garage.
Instead, you can move the paper goods to the pantry, and they are better kept there.
Refrigerators
Using a refrigerator inside the garage is quite a drain on energy in an area that is not air-conditioned. So it would help if you did not keep the fridge inside the garage, and do not do that.
Pet Food
The garage is not the place to store food for your lovely pets. Animals like possums and others will sniff the pet food out and get inside it.
You should keep the pet food inside a sealed container if you still prefer to keep it inside the garage.
Items That Can Be Stored Inside The Garage
Since most people store their lawnmowers inside the garage, you should also have a fire extinguisher inside there to be fully prepared for any event.
The fire extinguisher should be in an accessible spot.
It would help if you also thought about installing a carbon mono oxide detector in the garage. Let us now look at the tips on how to organize your garage.
How To Organize Your Garage
Floor Plan For The Garage
You can start by drafting a floor plan for the garage, and this can be obtained free from most manufacturers of garage organizing systems.
You can use their services while researching how to store the gear inside the garage.
Before you purchase anything, take the dimension of your garage and then note the size and location of the windows, receptacles, and the space taken by your vehicle.
Now, you can use the following rules to assign the things to their rightful places.
- You should place items like gardening tools and lawn chemicals near each other
- You should place bulky items such as the lawnmower in the corners of the garage. Doing this will make it get knocked over or bumped into your car when you are bringing it into the garage.
- Place the items usually used near the garage door to be taken out quickly. Such items include bicycles.
- You can then put the things you do not need in the parts of the garage that you cannot reach easily.
Don’tDon’t Allow Anything To Be Brought To The Garage Floor
You should always make sure to keep things off the garage floor whenever you can.
This will allow you to free up space so that your car will not hit anything while coming into the garage.
If you have some ready-made shelving units, they should be ones that can be raised on legs so that you can clean the floor beneath them easily.
Open Shelves Are Better Than Closed Cabinets
Shelves are not that expensive, and you can access them easily since you do not need any more clearance before you can swing their doors open.
However, when you use cabinets that come with doors, they make your garage disorganized.
Use shelves over cabinets or if you will use cabinets, use them sparingly.
Using Overhead Space Wisely
The ceiling of your garage is a great place where you can hang flat things.
These should be things that you do not use every day. Examples of these can be ladders and some gear like hunting gear that you use only once in a while.
You should make sure that any shelf that you hang on the ceiling should not interfere with the garage door operations.
There should also be enough clearance so that it does not scrape the roof of your vehicle when you bring it in or take it out.
Air Leaks Between House And Garage
Before you install the organizers inside the garage, you should first check the walls in the garage between the house for gaps.
You should also check the ceiling to see if there is a room above the garage. There may be some spots in the wall where the hot and cold air alongside the moisture in them could seep through.
Make sure to seal those spots when you find them with larger caulk.
Door And Window Locks
Break-ins can happen when the garage door does not have any effective lock to keep intruders out.
Always make sure that you secure the entry door with a good lock. It would be best if you equally locked the windows as well.
You can use a garage door lock, and these can bolt the door to the sidewalls when locked. They are perfect if you know you will be away for a long time.
Always make sure to keep the garage door locked if you are doing anything outside f the house.
Using An Epoxy Floor Coating
The concrete floor of your garage will be looking much better after you have organized the whole place and cleaned everything up.
Using an antiskid floor coating will prevent oil stains and easily clean when you mob it, just like the kitchen countertop.
The color chips and paint can also disguise anything that does not belong there. You can get an all-inclusive kit like Quikrete’s Garage Floor Epoxy Kit on Amazon for as low as $60.
As usual, the key to gaining successful work is diligent work.
Sealing The Threshold
Rain and many other elements could find their way into the garage under the bottom of the garage door if the door is not sitting tight on the floor.
You can make a snug fit by attaching a rubberized strip to the part of the floor where the door lands.
Threshold seals can be purchased for about $70 and should get the job done.
Upgrade The Lighting And Other Electrical Systems
Just having a small bulb over each car inside the garage will certainly not do.
You will need to upgrade the lighting inside the garage. You can use 4-foot fluorescent fixtures with electronic ballasts.
These give flicker-free lighting, and they work better in cold temperatures. You should space the fluorescent light about 4 feet apart from each other, and there should be enough of them to allow you to see everything clearly inside the garage when it’sit’s night.
It would be best to consider swapping the Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters (GFCIs). These will cut the power supply whenever there is a shortage in the system.
The Proper Way To Drive Into The Garage
To ensure that your vehicles always fit correctly inside the garage, follow the tips below.
Ignore the motion sensors telling you how far you can pull the car into the garage.
All you have to do is to hang a tennis ball on a string from the garage ceiling, and it should be long enough to tap at the windshield once you reach the correct spot.
The space should be enough for you to walk between the garage wall and the vehicle.
You can protect your vehicle’s finish by attaching some pieces of scrap on the garage walls at the places where your door may hit when you are getting in or out of the car.
The center aisle between two cars should be left as wide as possible so that you can roll things like trash bins and others through it.
If the vehicle is a minivan, you should pack it into the garage with the sliding doors of the cars facing the middle.
You should then park your sedan vehicle next to the minivan, allowing easy access to both cars.
Keeping The Place Clean All The Time
The garage should be kept clean all the time for as long as possible. Here are some things you can do to make sure that the garage is kept clean at all times.
During the spring and summer seasons, you can keep insects out of the garage by using a pesticide made from natural ingredients. One such pesticide is Bugzilla, and you can get about 32 ounces for about $20 from their website, bugzillapesticide.com
You can also keep a bag of kitty litter around for absorbing oil and grease spills. A broom and dustpan or a handheld vacuum near the workbench in the garage are pretty ideal for getting rid of rubbish quickly.
it would help if you hosed down the floor of the garage at regular intervals
Every year, you should take some time to look through your belongings and either sell, donate or throw some stuff that is not needed anymore away.
Getting A workbench
You can also build a small workbench in the garage to get some jobs done during the day.
The workbench should be a fold-down model. You can get the Ideal Wall-Mount Workbench from amazon for about $300.
This workbench has quite a sturdy surface, and you can tuck it out of the way when you are not using it.
Conclusion
So with these tips, you can transform your garage into a spacious and wonderful place where you can even hang out when the house feels a bit hot.
The tips laid out in this article will help you to get the best out of your garage, exactly the way you should.
If this article has been helpful to you, please make sure to check out more of such articles on our website.
