Here in the Valley, the garage does a lot of jobs. With no basements and not much closet space, it becomes the storage room, the workshop, the bike rack and the place where holiday decorations go to hide for eleven months. Somewhere along the way, the car ends up in the driveway, baking in the sun.
The fix usually isn't a bigger garage. It's using the space you already have, and the biggest empty space in almost every garage is right over your head. Here's a simple plan to clear out the clutter and put the ceiling to work.
Step 1: Empty it one wall at a time
Don't drag everything onto the driveway at once. That's how a Saturday project turns into a week of boxes on the lawn. Pick one wall, pull it out, and sort as you go into four piles:
- Keep: things you've used in the last 12 months, or need every season.
- Donate: things that work but you don't use anymore.
- Sell: only if you'll actually list it this week. If it isn't listed in seven days, it moves to donate.
- Toss: broken items, dried-out paint and old chemicals. Paint, solvents, pool chemicals and batteries shouldn't go in the trash, so check your city's household hazardous waste drop-off before you haul them.
When a wall is done, sweep it before anything goes back. Once the garage is empty, take a good look at the walls and ceiling. This is the best time to measure.
Step 2: Give everything an address
A garage stays organized when every item has a home. The rule is simple: the less often you use something, the higher it goes. The floor is the most valuable space in the garage, so it should hold the car, not boxes.
- The floor: cars, and nothing else.
- Walls, at arm's reach: the things you grab every week, like yard tools, sports gear, the dog leash and the tools you actually use. A heavy-duty wall shelf keeps bins up off the floor.
- Above the garage door: holiday décor, camping bins and out-of-season clothes, on a Tote Slide™ so each bin slides out on its own.
- Overhead, over the hood of the car: bulky, seasonal and rarely used things on a ceiling rack or a Storage Elevator™.
- Bikes: up on a Bike Slide™, so a family's worth of bikes takes up zero floor space.
Step 3: Look up. The ceiling is your biggest empty space
Most people organize a garage sideways: shelves on the walls, bins in the corners. But there's often 2 to 4 feet of open space between the top of the car and the ceiling, running the full length of the garage. That's room for dozens of totes that are currently sitting on the floor.
There are two ways to use it, and the right one depends on how often you'll get into your stuff:
- Fixed ceiling racks like the Heavy-Duty Pro hang a steel platform 20" to 40" below the ceiling. The 4'×8' holds up to 1,000 lb. It's the most storage per dollar, and the best fit for things you put up once and leave, but getting things down means a ladder.
- Storage Elevators™ sit at the ceiling and lower all the way down with a cordless drill. You load them at waist height and raise them back up. No ladder, no carrying 30 lb of Christmas lights over your head. They're the better choice for anything you swap out every season.
For planning, CeilingSAM sizes its Storage Elevators™ around the common 27-gallon tote: about 8 totes on a 4'×4', 12 on a 4'×6', and 16 on a 4'×8'. One full-size platform can clear a whole corner of floor.
Step 4: Use one kind of tote, and label the end
Skip the cardboard boxes. They collapse when stacked, attract bugs and fall apart over a few Arizona summers. Buy one size of heavy-duty plastic tote with a snap-down lid, all at once, so they stack and line up. Label the end that faces you, not the lid, so you can read it from the floor.
Step 5: Know what shouldn't go up high in an Arizona garage
Heat rises, and in July the air up near the ceiling is the hottest part of the garage. Overhead storage is perfect for décor, camping gear, sports equipment and seasonal clothes. It's the wrong place for anything that melts, warps or doesn't like heat:
- Candles, crayons and anything wax
- Photos, important papers and keepsakes that can't be replaced
- Electronics and spare batteries
- Paint, aerosol cans and chemicals
- Wine, canned food and anything you plan to eat or drink
Keep those inside the house, and let the garage ceiling hold the things that can take the heat.
Step 6: Measure before you buy
Overhead storage has to clear everything that moves or stands underneath it. Before choosing a system, measure:
- Ceiling height at the spot you want to use. It can vary across the garage.
- Your tallest vehicle, including roof racks, and how high the liftgate or trunk opens.
- The garage door in the open position, plus its tracks, springs and the opener rail.
- Lights, attic hatches and anything else you need to keep reaching.
The space above the hood of a parked car, near the back wall, is usually the best spot for a big platform. The garage door and opener don't reach that far, and the hood sits lower than the roofline.
Step 7: Keep it that way
Once everything has a home, keeping it organized takes about ten minutes a month. Put strays back where they belong, rotate the seasonal totes, and if something new comes in without a home, decide right then where it lives, or whether it stays at all.
Let us handle the heavy lifting
Overhead storage has to be anchored into the ceiling joists or trusses, never just drywall. It also has to be laid out around your door, opener, lights and cars. That's where we come in. AZ Garage Storage is an official install partner for CeilingSAM™, the American-made garage storage company whose founding family pioneered overhead garage storage in 1998. We measure your garage, find the framing, recommend the right mix of systems, and install and level everything for you.
Request a free garage assessment or call or text 480-264-0012. We install across the Phoenix metro, from Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler to Phoenix and Scottsdale.