It’s a New Year, but if you’re still dealing with the same old problems with your garage, you’re probably wishing you’d tackled a few of those garage renovation projects last year. Before this year flies by as quickly as the last, here are five reasons to get a jumpstart on those projects now.

#1: You Can’t Get Your Car in the Garage

You have a shiny, new vehicle with all the toys. Unfortunately, there’s no room for your car or truck in the garage. The limited space in your garage is overrun with bicycles, sporting goods, broken furniture, lawn equipment, gardening tools and seasonal items.

Every morning you get up half an hour earlier and trudge out in the frigid temperatures to clean ice and snow off your vehicle. If you don’t, you’re forced to choose between rushing to work in dangerous winter driving conditions and arriving late to work.

Solution:  You know it’s time to clean up your garage’s act, but you’re not quite sure where to begin. Consider making the big garage cleanup a fun family project. Store items neatly around the perimeter of the garage. Install a slatwall organization system with corresponding hooks, shelves and baskets to maximize vertical storage space. By freeing up floor space, you can park inside the garage and pamper your new vehicle or extend the life of an older one. 

#2: You Can’t Find Anything in Your Garage

Your family has dubbed your garage the Bermuda Triangle because anything you store there seems to disappear. Finding your golf clubs and tennis rackets or the children’s hockey sticks and softball equipment is a chore. You own duplicate ratchet sets and gardening tools because it was easier to buy new ones than spend an entire afternoon hunting down the old ones.

Solution: Remove everything from your garage and create dedicated task zones. Group automotive supplies, garden supplies, tools and other similar items. Maximize storage in each zone with the corresponding baskets, hooks and shelves of a good wall organization system. Toss broken items and sell or giveaway duplicates. Everything will be easier to find, so you’ll spend less time on garage scavenger hunts during frosty winter weather.

#3: You Prefer to Store Your Belongings Out of Sight

Not everyone wants their items on display. You might prefer the clean, sleek look of hidden storage. Or perhaps you need to keep toxic household and automotive chemicals out of the reach of curious hands and paws.

Solution: Modular or custom garage cabinets provide safe, lockable storage space fitted perfectly to the length of the wall of the garage. Want to keep your items out of sight? Garage cabinets provide hidden storage. They can even be configured to hide plumbing or a central vacuum cleaner. Perhaps you only need to secure a few items, like valuable automotive tools or toxic household cleaners and antifreeze. A combination of open and closed garage storage is a perfect solution. 

#4: Seasonal Items Have Taken Over Your Garage

Your approach to the holidays is go big or go home. But the other eleven months of the year you find yourself sharing space in the garage with Old St. Nick, Rudolph and a 20-foot tall inflatable snow man. Then there’s the seasonal sports equipment—kayaks, pool floats and winter sleds—to contend with, leaving little or no room for your vehicles.

Solution: Overhead storage racks transform dead space into viable storage for seasonal and oversized items. Strong metal storage racks or sturdy, made-to-measure wooden shelves take advantage of ceiling height and create additional space for items seldom used, like holiday decorations and seasonal sporting goods. Most overhead storage racks can be easily accessed with a step ladder. However, for ultimate accessibility, motorized overhead storage provides push-button access.

#5: Your Garage Floor is Cracked and Stained

Grease, oil, rust and a host of mystery stains mar the look of your garage floor. Even when it’s clean, it doesn’t quite look it. If your garage is older, there may be some chipping and cracking that occurred during settling of the concrete floor. You’ve scrubbed the floor repeatedly with minimal results.

Solution: Polyaspartic flooring improves the look of your garage floor. Applied in a single day, this flooring system is vastly superior to paint and comes with a 10-year warranty. Polyaspartic flooring is textured. It has a multidimensional look similar to granite and is available in a host of attractive colors, like Chocolate, Mountain Road, Moonlight and Sandy Beach. The texture provides added grip, reducing the hazard of slipping during rainy and snowy weather.

If parking in your garage or finding essential tools has become a struggle or you don’t like the look or layout of your garage, there are a number of garage renovation solutions. Slatwall, cabinets or overhead platforms can deliver the form and function you want in your garage. Don’t get caught in the same position next year. Pull out your to-do list and contact a garage renovation specialist by early spring to plan your garage renovation project.