With winter in full swing, you’ve got a chance to catch your breath in relation to the lawn and garden activities. If you’ve had a busy warm season, your storage area – shed, garage, or otherwise – might be a right mess at this time. This is the perfect time to clean up and organize your storage area, and here are some tips on how to do that.
Keep Your Most-Used Tools Near the Door.
When organizing your shed, always position the most-used tools closest to the door, and the least-used tools in the rear of the shed. This means you won’t have to dig for something you use on a weekly basis. If you have a small shed, take the time to swap out seasonal equipment – for instance, my shed is slim but deep, so in the winter, I push the lawn mower to the back and move the snow blower to the front, switching them again in the spring.
Pegboards are your Friend.
The infinitely-adjustable pegboard is the best way to hang tools on the wall. To make it easy to remember what tools go where, draw and outline on the board. If you need to change where tools go, flipping the board over gives a new blank slate. The best feature of a pegboard is the ability to use brackets, hooks, and loops, and be able to change them out easily. For your most-used tools, consider hanging them on the inside of the door, which is often ignored as a storage space.
Sort Your Shelves.
You’ve had cans and bottles on your shelves for months – now is the time to check expiration dates and container levels, and get rid of out-of-date product or containers that are almost completely empty. If you’ve got an almost-empty bag of bird seed, put it in a feeder and throw out the empty bag, even if you’re doubtful of the birds coming. Or just find a smaller container for it – mason jars work great.
Group Your Goods.
Consider placing all project-specific or area-specific tools in one basket, bucket, or pouch. This makes it easy to just grab-and-go when you need to get work done – if you have a basket with gloves, a trowel, sears, and other small gardening goods in it, you can just pop in and grab that to get work done.
Untangle
Hoses and electrical cords can cause major issues when you’re trying to organize a shed. Getting tangled up and mixed into other goods, they can make digging out tools a real pain. Hang them from a wall or coil them in a bucket to keep them tangle-free and out of the way.
If you organize your shed now, you’ll have an easier time getting started once the season comes back around. It may take an hour or so to organize your shed on a weekend in the winter, but it will save you much more than that once you’re back in action in the garden.
