The challenge
Sarah* was recently widowed and mother to 9-year old boy and 5-year old twin girls. Sarah and I had working together to organise numerous interior spaces within her beautiful family home for 4 months prior to Sarah asking to book additional sessions to organise her garage. Sarah had not been using the garage to park her car as the garage was narrow and the floor was covered with a collection of gardening tools, power tools, home maintenance supplies, along with items from within the home which had been stored in the garage for long term storage. Although Sarah was no longer using the tools, as she hired a handyman and gardener to help out around the house. Her son was beginning to show a keen interest and was spending a lot of time in the garage and Sarah wanted to ensure that the space was safe for her son to be in. Sarah wasn’t emotionally ready to go through all of her husband’s tools and work gear which were stored in the garage herself, but understood how important that this was for her son to maintain this connection with his father.
The solution
After removing any damaged items and out of date garden chemicals, I sorted all of the paints, tools and gardening and home maintenance items into categories. Using the existing shelving and furniture in the garage, I organised and labelled the items in clear baskets on shelving a way in which her son (and any other person wishing to use the garage) could view all the tools, whilst being safely stored. I installed a peg board to organise all of the hand tools and to keep items off the floor and installed StorEase Smart Panels on the side walls of the garage to store the larger gardening tools, including her broom, pick, shovel, whipper snipper, leaf blower and electrical cords. I also installed a freestanding bike rack to support Sarah’s children’s 3 bikes.
The results
Sarah was very happy with the functionality of the garage and relieved that the her late husbands tools were organised without her needing to be involved in the process personally. Since organising the space, her son has been spending a lot more time in the garage and with guidance was beginning to learn how to use the tools. Sarah was happy to be able park her car in the garage which she hadn’t done in quite some time.
-
- After: a vast clear space ready to fit a family car
-
- Before: overcrowded garage preventing the family from using their garage to store their car
-
- After: use of existing storage and new baskets and a pegboard to store and organise the gardening supplies, hand and power tools
-
- Before: ample storage, yet majority of items were stored on the floor and blocking access to the garage
-
- Before: an underutilized storage shelf
-
- After: organisation of painting and home maintenance supplies
-
- After: installation of bike rack to store bikes and make it easier for the family to store their bikes
-
- Before: the way the bikes had been stored at the back of the garage surrounded by tools made it near impossible for the children to ride their bikes
-
- After: a highly organised and highly functional tool storage area.
-
- Before: an underutilized storage shelf blocked by various gardening and workshop tools
-
- After: a highly organised tool storage bench
-
- After: organisation of Christmas decorations found loose in the garage
* Permission has been granted by the client to share their story. Names have been changed to respect their privacy. The Organising Bee will never share photos or client information without permission from the client.
