Easy Ways to Declutter and Improve Your Garage

This article, Easy Ways to Declutter and Improve Your Garage, is sponsored by Chamberlain. All opinions are 100% my own.

I don’t know about you but slowly and surely our garage turned into a storage unit. It didn’t help that our garage door opener broke as well, which gave us an even bigger excuse to keep piling up the “stuff”. Every month, there was less and less space to walk.  Every time my daughter wanted to ride her bike or scooter she needed help because my husband or I had to lift it out and over her wagon, lawn games, and baby toys. If I was entertaining and needed to grab a party platter, I had to search through old birthday decorations only after climbing over some Christmas decorations. Needless to say, organizing the garage and fixing the garage door opener became a priority. Let me show you the dreaded “before” photo.

Yes. That’s right. That’s a bouncy house that we have had for months… and you thought garages were for cars! Our garage was a mess and we had it. It was time to purge, declutter, get organized, and upgrade. Now that we have made some progress, it wasn’t all that bad. It was a simple case of mind over matter that was resolved with a few easy tasks. So, I thought I’d share with you what we did, along with some easy ways to declutter, improve your garage, and easily install a new and innovative garage door just like we did.

Sort. Purge. Repeat.

The first thing we did was start two piles, trash and donate. It’s amazing how long I held on to some large baby toys that my daughter hadn’t played with in months, if not years. We donated several to our local thrift stores and even gave away a few items to some fiends with younger kids. Do this two or three times, because the first time your emotional attachment to items you haven’t used in years sometimes takes over.

Look for hidden storage gems.

Many of those donated toys were not only in the garage, but under the space in our stairs. My daughter used to be able to fit under there and play. I was able to clear that space out and move all of our Christmas decorations in there and out of the garage. Under the stairs, in the attic, or under guest room beds and closets are great inconspicuous storage spaces. Now we were making progress.

Clever organizers actually work.

Moving some of things in and out of our garage made us realize what a mess our doorway was with all of our cleaning equipment. I purchased two organizers and hung them on the wall. My husband was baffled at how such a simple and inexpensive thing made a huge difference.

Use what you have.

The previous owners had boards mounted on the wall, where they would hang miscellaneous items. There were nails everywhere. It seemed that if they had something to hang, they’d find any nail, and hang it up. My husband took the time to remove all the old nails.

I filled all the holes with wood putty. I also gave them each a fresh coat of paint. You can see the difference in this photo.

We purchased and added new nails and hung up our garden tools, extension cords, and beach chairs.

Upgrade your garage door opener with the best.

We wanted an innovative and reliable garage door opener, so we installed the Chamberlain MyQ. It was a little intimidating at first, but it was a lot easier than I thought, given the detailed instructions that were included. MyQ® smartphone control allows users to monitor and control their garage doors from their smartphones. Both my husband and I were so excited installing this because it gave us peace of mind, keeping us connected to our home. The smartphone control will allow us to:

1. Monitor and control our garage anytime and anywhere.
2. Sends us alerts if anyone is coming or going
3. Knows if we accidentally left the garage door open.

The first thing we did was check the WiFi signal in our garage.

We worked together and followed the detailed step by step instructions for installing our new garage door opener, programming it, and testing out the battery and remotes.

The Smartphone Control was easy to set up as well. In a few simple steps and no extra wiring, we connected the WiFi, registered the product online and downloaded the MyQ Chamberlain App. It was so simple and easy! We have been using the app for a while now and I have to say it’s fantastic. We get notifications when the door is opened or closed with the exact time. We can even use our phones to open the garage door, which my husband LOVES. A few years ago, someone broke into my car and opened the garage door. Now that we have the MyQ app, we don’t have to worry about that happening again because we don’t have to keep an opener in our cars.

In one weekend, we had managed to turn our once storage space into a well-organized, innovative space that we can actually park our car in!