Organize Garage

If your potential buyer doesn't have a garage in their present home, a spacious garage will be very important. If a prospective buyer has a garage currently, then they will want more space than they have now.

Another important thing to remember about garages is that no one wants to inherit someone elses problem spaces. If you've been neglecting the maintenance and upkeep of your garage, then you should spend some time now and upgrade the space with a good cleaning and organizing regimen.

How much stuff have you crammed into your garage? The answer is probably "everything that I wanted to get out of the rest of the house".

• The only way to really declutter and clean a garage is to remove everything that isn't nailed down and start from scratch. This allows you to paint (if necessary) and see what exactly you have in the garage that needs to be packed up or organized.
• Start by stacking similar items in piles in the driveway. You can have one pile for garden items, one for car maintenance items, one for sports equipment, etc.
• When you are finished removing everything from the garage and all items are stacked in categories, you can then cull out items you won't be using for the next month or so and pack these away for your move. If you can find off-site storage for these items, that's preferable. This gives you a head start on packing for your move and makes it easier to find things later because everything is organized by type.

A clean garage not only impresses buyers, but it also sends a signal to the prospective buyer that the home is well-maintained and cared for. Who else but someone who has taken good care of their home would go to such great lengths to present a clean, organized and decluttered garage?

• Cleaning a garage is best started at the top and work down. If there are cob webs, take a long handled broom and get these off the ceilings and corners. You can take the same broom and sweep the walls from the top down to remove any loose dirtand debris.
• Take a shop-type-vacuum and vacuum the garage shelves. If there are cabinets in the garage, make sure you vacuum the tops of the cabinets and the insides, too.
• Vacuum the garage floor and make sure you get all the leaves, dust, dirt and debris out of the corners.
• If the garage floor has oil and other fluid spots and wet spots, you will need to absorb these puddles before you can sweep the oil away. You can use sand or specially made compounds for absorbing oil and fluid spills. These are available at any home improvement store. Leave the compound on the garage floor fora while until all the liquid is absorbed. Sweep the compoundand dispose of properly. Many communities have special procedures for collecting this kind of waste.
• When the floor is free of chemical spills, you can clean the garage floor with TSP (tri-sodiumphosphate). Make sure the corners and baseboards are cleaned as well.
• Don't forget to clean the light fixtures, garage door tracks, doors and windows in the garage.

Organized garages present a "no problems here" picture to buyers.

• Garages need shelving to store the used buckets of paint, garden implements and car paraphernalia that accumulate here. If your garage does not have built-in storage, we recommend buying assemble-it-yourself shelving you can find at a home improvement store. Our favorite is plastic shelving that you can find at Lowe's.
• Choose one of the stacks of items you have arranged in your driveway and put these items on one section of shelves. Organize each shelf like you did the pantry - like items together - with the smallest items on the highest shelves and the heaviest items on the bottom shelves.
• Go stack by stack until the driveway is empty and the garage shelves are arranged so they look about 1/3 full.
• Take heed not to put too much shelving in the garage.You want to have ample space to park the car(s) and still be able to open car doors easily. You don't want to line every wall with shelves. This will only reclutter the space.
• If floor space is at a premium, you can hang shelves on the wall just in front of the hoods of the car(s). This is out of the way space that won't affect floor space and will help the space look uncluttered.

Staging the garage is next. It's one of the easier rooms to stage because it's easy to depersonalize and the function of the space has already been defined!

Go to Staging a Garage -- our checklist (home staging)for a garage space. Return to Step 2. Clean, Organize and Declutter or our home page from Organize Garage.