There are countless ways to go about organizing your custom or garden shed. So, we’ve narrowed down our top 5 tips for shed organization to help you use your space to the fullest.
1. Start Fresh
Like with any organizational project, it’s beneficial to start your shed organization project off fresh by emptying everything out of the space. While it may be a bit time-consuming, cleaning out your shed before you start organizing will make the organization process itself much easier.
Once you’ve emptied everything out, take inventory of what’s there and determine what really needs to be inside your shed. A general rule of thumb is that if you haven’t used something in a year or more, you probably don’t need to keep it in your shed. Bonus tip: this is the perfect time to donate or sell any unwanted or unused items!
After clearing everything out of your shed and deciding what to keep, it’s not a bad idea to clean your shed and perform some general maintenance. Sweep out the inside, wash the windows, and even clean the siding if you desire.
2. Arrange Items Carefully
Nothing will drive you crazy more than not knowing where a specific tool or piece of equipment is. If your shed is just a place where you toss things with no regard for organization, you might end up spending more time looking for what you need than actually working on the project. This is why it’s extremely beneficial to store certain items in your shed together. Here are a few different ways you could group your tools and equipment:
- Group by season. One helpful method for organizing your shed’s contents is to group everything by season. Put all of the summer tools in one area of your shed, fall equipment in another, and so on. This way, you’ll know just where to find what you're looking for at all times of the year.
- Group by project. A second way to organize the items in your shed is by project. Start off by designating separate areas for gardening tools, lawn equipment, woodworking supplies, or whatever else you store inside your shed. You’ll be thankful that all of your items for a particular project can be found in one place!
- Group by use. Another method for storing your items is to group them by use. Store the items you use most often toward the front of your shed, and the less-used items toward the back. However, be careful not to clutter the back of your shed with things that don’t need to be there!
3. Utilize All the Space (Not Just the Floor!)
While the floor is the most prominent space for storage inside your shed, be sure to not forget about the other areas of your shed, like the walls and door. These often-overlooked places can provide you with a significant amount of additional storage space.
The walls, for example, are the perfect place to store long-handled items like rakes, shovels, and brooms. You can even make a wall rack yourself simply by using a long, thick piece of wood and some basic hardware.
Along with the walls, the door of your shed is another handy place to store items. For instance, something as easy as adding a few hooks and baskets can create ample room for keeping small tools in an easy-to-access spot.
4. Don’t Forget About Shelving
Shelving is one of the most popular ways to provide a good deal of organized storage space. You can choose to build DIY shelving into the wall of the shed, or, if your walls aren’t able to support attaching a shelf directly to it, you can always go out and buy pre-build shelves from most hardware stores.
The DIY option is more time consuming, but it will be guaranteed to fit your exact needs. Plus, since it’ll be used strictly inside your shed, it doesn’t have to be pretty. As long as it does the job and helps to organize your garden shed, it doesn’t matter what the shelving looks like.
5. Increase Your Storage
At the end of the day, sometimes you just need to increase your storage space. If you’ve cleaned out your shed and sorted the items but still feel like you don’t have enough space, it may be a good idea to invest in some additional storage options.
Things like workbenches, lofts, and pegboards can easily be added into your shed’s interior to create tons of extra organized storage space. Check out the additional storage options available at Ohio Shed Solutions today!