Clean Out The Garage – Spring Cleaning Tips & Tricks!

Spring is on its way! What comes to mind when you think spring? (After visions of snow melting, vibrant colours, blue skies and the rich beautiful hues of spring flowers of course!) Yes, with spring comes also... the inevitable ritual of spring cleaning! It is this time you have to finally uncurl from in front of the fireplace and reclaim parts of your home that were neglected over the long cold winter months. Now, when you are ready to start your spring cleaning expedition, let’s ensure that you start with the right place – the garage - since your garage is that one place that gets the most cluttered, fast! And, once you get the hardest part out of the way you will be motivated to clean up the rest of your home and yard. If you are now ready for the challenge, we promise you... with some simple organization ideas, and with the right tools, spring cleaning your garage will be the easiest thing you ever did! Here’s how you go about it... Assess the Mess and De-clutter

• Depending on the size of the garage and the amount of clutter, dedicate a full day or a full weekend for decluttering/organizing your garage. Rope in your family members, relatives or a few close friends. This makes garage spring cleaning fun and also speeds up the whole thing.
• Before starting to clean your garage - gather your supplies. Gather up several large boxes, packing tape and some heavy-duty garbage bags for items that turns out to be garbage.
• Go through every single item in your garage and sort into four piles – Keep, Donate, Sell, Toss. A good tip for judging what items to let go of is to ask yourself one question: Have I used this in the past year? If the answer is no, then it’s time to get rid of it. Do not keep items that you think you may use someday. Wouldn’t you rather have the space those items are taking up…right now?
• Trash or recycle items you’ve decided to toss. Pack up items to be donated and drop them off at the nearest donation center. Set aside items you plan to sell at an upcoming yard sale, online, or local consignment stores. If you are planning to have a yard sale, schedule it now.

Clean From Top To Bottom

• Once you’re done decluttering and sorting through all your items, this is the right time to clean the garage from top to bottom.
• Since there is generally going to be a lot of dirt and dust, you might want to make sure that you are at least wearing a dust mask. Do not be afraid to get dirty. This is not going to be the cleanest of work, but you will be thrilled at your accomplishment once it’s done.
• Once you have everything organized and back in place, it will be a lot easier to keep up with the general cleaning.

Organize what’s left Once all that clutter is out and you are done making it neat, clean and sparkly, it is now time to start organizing. Firstly, figure out how much space your car(s) and/or other vehicles will take and then work with the remaining space by placing items based on their type and use:

• Frequently Used: Keep items that you use frequently, such as shopping bags and pet leashes within easy reach – perhaps on hooks by the door.
• Items Used Together: Create zones for groups of things such as auto care, gardening, and sports equipment so that like items are stored together.
• Bulkier Items: Use the two back corners of the garage to store bulkier items such as a lawn mowers or snow thrower.
• Rarely Used: Place rarely used items, such as holiday decorations or snow tires, on higher shelves of sturdy shelving units or consider installing a ceiling storage system. Just make sure your garage door doesn’t interfere with the ceiling storage.
• Tools and Bicycles: Tools such as shovels and rakes and bicycles are best stored by hanging on the wall.

Note: Consider investing in some plastic bins instead of cardboard boxes as storage containers. This will prevent insects and rodents from taking up residence in your house. Spruce up the flooring! Now to the fun part! What does a clean and organized garage need? Gorgeous garage flooring for a beautiful!. Garage Flooring mats and tiles are ideal for keeping your garage floors clean and newer These Garage Floor Mats will keep the floor clean and newer looking by covering its older, stained and damaged appearance. It catches every speck of dirt, mud, slush and grime that fall off your vehicles and therefore keep dirt from spoiling the garage floor and also prevents it from tracking inside your home. With this one product you get – a new showroom’esque garage, damage protection for your garage floor and damage control for your home! Canada Mats has a wide variety of garage floor mats, garage containment mats, garage floor tiles, motorcycle garage floor mats and G Floor Anti-fatigue Mats to suit every purpose and need. Keep it tidy Alright, now that you have a spanking new, clean, organized and beautiful looking garage - The logical next step is to keep it that way the whole year around. Think about doing a few mini cleaning sessions throughout the year. Even once in six months will be enough to keep everything order. Remember:

• Keep floor space as free as possible.
• Spray for pests from time to time to keep insects at bay.
• Sweep and hose down the floors regularly to get out dirt.

With all this spring cleaning done for this year, when next year’s spring cleaning comes around, you will not have as big of a job! Resources: http://www.unclutter.com/; http://www.garaga.com