organization Archives - Garage Tailors

Take advantage of garage storage space this winter

February 22, 2011 by Rick Scully

Tired of trying to keep all those scarves, mittens and other winter items organized? We hear you. Just because you’ve battled through the first half of winter doesn’t mean you have to battle through the second. With several more weeks to go, it’s worth taking a couple of hours to get organized.

If your hallway closet is overrun with winter coats and snow pants, make room by removing fall and spring items. You won’t be needing those for a while so pack them into airtight containers, and store them in your garage for now. Once you’ve freed up a few inches of rail space in your closet, insert a multi-shelf canvass organizer like this six-shelf hold-all, and allocate one compartment to each family member for hats and gloves, etc.

Looking for other ways to lighten your winter load? If you find yourself washing your entranceway or mudroom floor every day, buy a large, forgiving mat – one that camouflages winter’s debris. Sure, big black mats may not be beautiful, but they’re a whole lot prettier than salt-stained, slushy tiles, and request much less maintenance!

For more ideas and solutions for your home, check out the National Home Show from February 18 to 27, 2011. Come browse products from more than 700 retailers, and get help from celebrity and industry experts, including Garage Tailors Garage at booth 2044. Hope to see you there!

Storage tips for seasonal items

January 3, 2011 by Rick Scully

Happy new year from your friends at Garage Tailors Garage!

Regardless of whether or not better home organization is one of your new year’s resolutions, you might benefit from a few cleanup tips before you put away your holiday decorations. Why? Because approximately 335 days from now you’ll be looking high and low for that red-nosed reindeer tree ornament, and it shouldn’t take you three hours to find.

Tip 1: Before you put your decorations away, take a closer look at the items you chose not to display this year. Why didn’t you put them out? If they aren’t attractive or sentimental, take them to a charity shop so that someone else can enjoy them.

Tip 2: Next year, when you’re looking for the advent calendar your little one wants you to hang up NOW, you’ll wish you’d labelled those storage boxes with more than the word CHRISTMAS! The more specific you can be with your labelling, the quicker you’ll find what you’re after. For example:

Box 1: Tree lights, tree decorations, tree skirt, Christmas stockings

Box 2: Staircase and mantel garlands

Box 3: Card tree, candle holders and other fragile non-hanging ornaments

Tip 3: Christmas decorations (and other seasonal decorations, for that matter) are ideal for garage storage as you reach for them so infrequently. Given how light and easy to handle they tend to be, store them up high in your garage to free up lower storage space for heavier, trickier items.

Out of space in your garage? We can help you make room. Contact us to schedule a free in-home consultation.

Looking for a professional organizer?

November 23, 2010 by Rick Scully

In my last post, I suggested hiring a professional organizer to help get your home in shape in time for the holidays. Since writing that post, I’ve come across a couple of online resources I wanted to share. The first is www.organizersincanada.com. This site is the home of POC – Professional Organizers in Canada. Go there and you’ll be able to search for a local professional based on your own criteria. You’ll also quickly realize you’re not the only one who needs help. There’s good reason this industry is thriving!

If you’re in the Toronto area, you might want to check out Organized Zone Inc. It’s owned and operated by Brenda Bernstein, a professional organizer I had the pleasure of meeting not too long ago. As her tagline clearly states, Brenda does for homes what Garage TailorsGarage does for garages: “We transform cluttered life and space into functional order.”

After we met, I took a look at Brenda’s website and found a number of articles that I thought you might find helpful, including “How to clean out your closet,” “Calling all Shopaholics,” and “Does clutter-free living really exist?” I also noticed she’s offering a pretty good discount on on-site consultations at the moment.

Want home storage solutions or help organizing your office? Try Brenda or one of her industry peers. Want garage storage solutions? Remember, Garage Tailors Garage is still the expert to call!

Get organized before the holiday season hits!

November 9, 2010 by Rick Scully

Our customers are often so pleased with the order we bring to their garages, they’ll ask us if we’re willing to tackle the inside of their homes, too – especially in December, when they find themselves rushing around madly to prepare for holiday guests! Unfortunately, we’re unable to oblige them. There are simply too many garages in need of storage solutions, cabinets and more. Thankfully, though, there are plenty of professional organizers willing to help you transform that make-shift storage room back into a guest room before Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim show up in their Santa hats.

When choosing an organizer, keep in mind that the person you hire will be working very closely with you, your family and your most personal belongings, so it’s important to make sure the fit is a comfortable one. As you shop around, ask these questions:

How long have you been in the business?
What’s your fee structure?
Do you offer any follow-up support?
Are you available for telephone consulting?
Can you provide the contact information for three local references?

Once you’ve found a professional who can answer all of these questions to your satisfaction, I say simplify your life. Let the experts go forth and conquer on your behalf!

Home organization ideas from your garage organization expert

October 12, 2010 by Rick Scully

Congratulations. You survived September! The academic year is now in full swing and you’re back to shuffling the kids between school and extra-curricular activities. While proper garage storage will certainly help you and the family get in and out of the car more efficiently, organization inside your home is essential at this time of year.

Because we know how busy you are, we thought we’d point you to a few online sources so that you can stock up on handy storage bins and other great things from the comfort of your home! Check them out.

The catalogue for the last site (Solutions) is currently under construction but it’s a great store, so bookmark the site for a future visit.

In our next post, we’ll be offering a few tips on how to put some of the goodies you find to good use in your garage. Until then, stay organized!

Do you suffer from Seasonal Garage Anxiety Disorder?

August 10, 2010 by Rick Scully

suspending shelves Labour Day will soon be upon us, which means summer is drawing to an end … but that’s not all. Any day now, thousands of Canadians will be hit with a common ailment that we at Garage TailorsGarage like to call Seasonal Garage Anxiety Disorder.

What are the symptoms? Anxiety. Will the former glory of your garage ever be restored following the care-free months of summer? If you’re like most individuals, there are kids’ bikes, hose pipes, shovels, rakes and planters strewn across your garage floor. I’d even venture to guess that a few of you have a pile of top soil sitting on a blue tarp in the very spot you once parked your car.

All of this is very well, but the seasons are-a-changing. In just a few weeks, the leaves will begin to fall upon the beautiful, waxy finish of your vehicle. If cars could talk, yours would be saying, “I’m worth a lot. Protect me. Please let me reclaim my space!”

Clearing out the garage is a daunting task – we understand – so to make it easier we’ll be sharing a few tips in our next post. Be sure to check them out.

Garage storage system or oversized junk drawer? You choose.

July 6, 2010 by Rick Scully

If you’re like most homeowners, you probably have a junk drawer in your kitchen that houses all the twisty ties, rubber bands and other miscellaneous items you can’t find a better home for.

Chances are you also have a junk drawer that houses sports equipment, gardening gear, tools, bicycles, camping equipment and more. Granted, this junk drawer is much larger than the first. It’s big enough to house a car, in fact. Yes, I’m talking about your garage.

While few would consider tossing an expensive piece of jewellery into a messy kitchen drawer, most of us park our second most expensive asset amid total chaos, and dangerous chaos at that. Poorly stored garden rakes, skis, bikes, and more not only put your car at risk of dings and dents; they put your family at risk of injury.

In our next post, we share how custom garage cabinets helped one family bring order to their over-sized junk drawer. If you’re interested in doing the same, check out our products soon because we’ve decided to cover the HST on the first 25 garage makeovers we book following the release of this post!

Garage Wall Coverings: A Practical and Safe Way to Create Storage

June 15, 2010 by Rick Scully

Slatwalls Garage Organizing In the last post, we left you precariously hanging on the garage wall with a two-by-four, a nail and a pencil outline, waiting to fall on top of a car or a kid.

Not a good place to be.

Because not only is such a garage organizing system dangerous, but it doesn’t take advantage of the wide expanse of possible storage available to you on the garage wall.

And that’s where a slatwall system comes in handy. When you cover your garage wall with a slatwall system, you create an infinite number of storage combinations that use the space effectively – and more importantly – without risk of things crashing down on top of someone.

With a slatwall, you can create organized zones in your garage dedicated to specific tasks. Hang off season bikes up off the floor, suspend toxic substances out of reach of children.

And of course, secure dangerous tools to the wall without fear of them accidentally harming anyone or anything.

Want proof? Go check out our Transformations. You’ll be amazed at the difference.

A Board and a Pencil Are Not A Safe Organizing Solution: Risking Damage to Cars & Kids

June 8, 2010 by Rick Scully

Do the two photos in today’s post look familiar to you? I see it all the time in garage after garage. A board nailed to the wall with outlines of what tools hang where.

And with that most of us would call it garage organization.

Take a look at the first picture again, the one of the whole wall. What’s supporting that tool? A single nail? Someone brushes by it and the whole thing will fall down, possible scratching your car or worse causing some major damage to your kids.

While this garage organization system might work for a few tools in a large garage where few people enter, it doesn’t work in a high-traffic zone that also acts as workshop, garden shed, and sports equipment storage.

So what to do? Check out our next post to find out how installing a modular storage system can turn those little-thought-of walls into valuable and SAFE real estate.

(If you’re impatient of course you can go take a look at what we offer for walls.)

Build a Strong Foundation & Organize from the Ground Up in the Garage

May 22, 2010 by Rick Scully

So, we’ve looked at how if left untreated, the garage floor will develop cracks and corrosion which will encourage you to ignore the space and will demotivate you from maintaining an organized garage.

Plus an untreated, uncovered garage floor is just down right ugly. You’ve worked hard to coordinate the whole house – time to bring the garage into the picture and make it beautiful.

So, what can you do? Easy.

Coat the floor with a polyaspartic garage floor coating.
This better-than-epoxy low VOC option creates a strong seal that resists cracks and corrosion, stops dust from rising and adds a decorative touch to the space. (Low VOCs mean breathing easier in and around the house.)
Lay floating PVC garage flooring tiles.
Tell the world that you take good care of the biggest room in the, with a solution that many of our clients have chosen.

Once you get the floor cleared and covered, you’ll likely find yourself driven to organize and beautify the rest of the space. Stay tuned! We’ve got more tips coming up!

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