What To Do With All Your Extra Car Parts

If you work on your own car, chances are you have car parts scattered everywhere. Some on the garage floor, a few in the shed, a couple in the basement, and maybe even one or two next to the bathroom or kitchen sink. Maybe it’s time to find a good place for them. Maybe it’s time to organize your garage specifically for your car parts and tools. Your garage wasn’t meant to be a second attic — its calling in life is far nobler. A garage has potential to be both workshop and carpark, whether you drive a sports car, a minivan or both. Done right, it instantly affords you an optimized workspace for weekend projects, and you don’t have to give up on storage to achieve these things either. A Place for Everything, Everything in Its Place For starters, get the obvious things out of the way. Keep tools from piling up by using a handy pegboard or by mounting cabinets or tool chests to your wall. You can find old office furniture or unwanted kitchen cabinets that will do the job on the cheap. For longer tools, wall-mounted racks are easier on the eye than, say, a trash can full of shovels. If you need to store small parts, there’s no shortage of abandoned card catalog shelving out there, which can really come in handy for keeping things organized. A metal storage carousel makes a great place to put larger parts, and it’s particularly good for keeping extra tires off the ground and out of the way. Up, up and Away Don’t leave out overhead space either. There are entire overhead storage systems designed specifically for use in your garage. Or you can go the DIY route and devise a custom setup to accommodate your larger items. Try rigging a hoist to raise and lower your items. It’ll be out of the way until you need it, and you don’t have to climb a ladder later. Get to Work You should try to dedicate a least a small portion of the space in your garage to a workbench, as it will make projects much simpler when you’ve got a surface to work on. You might think this isn’t possible if you’re short on space, but there are some excellent folding solutions out there that will mount flush with your wall and allow you to lower the bench at will. In the Zone Not sure where to begin? You can take a lot of the guesswork out of things by breaking your garage down into zones. Separate your tools and equipment for yardwork in one zone and your automotive supplies and tools in another. You’re nearly there. All that’s left now is to pick up a few rolling barstools so you can coolly glide from one project to the next as you proudly survey the fruits of your handiwork in an efficient, well-organized garage. Well done — you deserve a break. Speaking of which, you installed that mini-fridge, right?