If you face a mountain of ‘stuff’ when you open your garage door then it’s time to declutter. The garage is a place where a lot of your possessions end up - all the stuff that you don’t want to deal with and want out of the house. An expert has some tips
If you face a mountain of ‘stuff’ whenever you open your garage door then it’s time to declutter writes Deb Tapp.
Expert Mandy Crozier, who declutters and styles home for a living through her business Changing Rooms, is commonly called in to help homeowners with this arduous chore.
‘‘The garage is a place where a lot of your possessions end up, broken items, things that aren’t used anymore, all the stuff that you don’t want to deal with and want out of the house.
‘‘It winds up being an easy dumping ground, and it’s totally forgotten about, sometimes for years!
‘‘Then you find you have an absolutely overcrowded mess and can’t get the car in anymore, or if you can, it’s hard to open the car doors.’’
While decluttering overwhelms a lot of people, Mandy says it’s a task that has an upside.
‘‘You can actually open the garage door again without facing mountains of stuff, you can get your car in and open doors without hitting anything and you know where everything is after years of rummaging around for what you’re looking for.’’
To get to that stage requires time and dedication though, and there is only one way to do it.
Mandy calls it the four-box method.
‘‘You have four boxes or piles, one says donate/sell, one says rubbish, one says keep and one says store.
It’s the perfect method for those who feel overwhelmed by the decluttering process because it forces a decision, item by item.
‘‘Rather than look at the whole garage and think ‘oh my goodness, I don’t even know where to start’, you do it slowly and methodically, bit by bit.’’
Rubbish should include any unneeded or unwanted items that are not worth donating or selling, and any damaged or broken items that are not worth someone buying or repairing.
The donate box should prompt homeowners to think about the uses someone else might get from the item versus the use it gets, or doesn’t get, buried in the garage.
‘‘You may no longer have a need for an item, but someone else will – keep an eye out for school galas, or consider garage sales, TradeMe, Facebook or charities like the Salvation Army, Vinnies and hospice.’’
The keep box should be the smallest category, items that must be used on a regular basis.
The storage box should contain items that can’t be parted with but aren’t needed on a regular basis.
Items that do need to be stored should be boxed up or placed in plastic containers with lids and labelled.
‘‘You might have your mother’s china or your dad’s collection of books that you don’t want to get rid of but they need to be kept clean and accessible.
‘‘Or you might have photo albums and other memories of your family or your children – no-one wants to get rid of those,’’ says Mandy.
‘‘Those kinds of things are best in plastic storage containers with lids, labelled and stacked tidily rather than left sitting on dusty open shelves.’’
The decluttering process is best done on a fine day, when everything can be brought out of the garage and onto the driveway or footpath to be sorted.
‘‘Once everything is outside you can give the garage a good sweep and clean, then start sorting, put things into piles and only put what you want to keep back.’’
Mandy urges homeowner to create zones within the garage.
‘‘All your gardening tools should be in one space, vertical hanging is a really good idea.
‘‘Also bikes and sports equipment can be grouped together and hung rather than shoved up against a wall and knocked when you open the car door.’’
Ladders can be hung on hooks as well, and they don’t have to be fancy hooks, they can be simply large nails.
‘‘Having things off the floor and on shelves or in cupboards creates a lot of space and having everything organised into zones means you can see what you’ve got - you won’t go out and buy something because you haven’t been able to find it,’ says Mandy.
‘‘You can group your car care things together on a shelf in another area and, most importantly, if you’ve got garden chemicals either put them up high or lock them away.’’
Used paint tins and old tyres are often unintentionally stockpiled in garages.
Most paint companies will recycle paint cans.
‘‘It’s quite amazing how many things just get left and forgotten in the garage,’’ says Mandy.
Speaking from her own experience, she recalls her garage cleanout before moving house.
‘‘My husband, way before I met him, had these car ramps, and when we moved house on several occasions, they kept moving with us.
‘‘Our son, when he was young, had one of those blue shell plastic paddling pools which was still in our garage long after he moved out of home.
‘‘Stuff just stays in there for so long you forget about it and it all morphs into something quite messy.’’
For those struggling to declutter their garage themselves, Mandy recommends bringing in family or friends to help.
‘‘It can be a big job for elderly parents, for example, so it’s really nice to get the family involved for a day to deal to the garage.
‘‘If you’ve got kids, get them all involved - you can have a bit of fun with it along the way, especially when you come across their old toys and books.
‘‘You can even have a bit of a laugh when you discover that birthday or Christmas present you bought each other sitting idle in the garage, that sports gear or exercise equipment that’s never been used, or that fishing rod that’s never been taken out.’’
The beauty of the process, says Mandy, is that someone’s trash is another person’s treasure.
‘‘There are always people out there who need our unwanted and unused possessions.’’