The garage can be an intimidating place to clean. Messes from the dog, kids, and DIY projects aren’t helping either. But with warmer weather on the horizon, now is the time to take back the garage. Luckily, our seven steps to spring cleaning your garage makes this once overwhelming task a total breeze.
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List Your Priorities
Make a list of how your garage can best serve you and your lifestyle—beyond just a place to keep your vehicle. Think about if you need easy access to bikes for frequent rides, a clean workbench for projects, or extra storage for sports equipment. Prioritizing these needs can help you make decisions on how to organize your space and ensure that you’ll be happy with the result.
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Remove Everything
With your list of priorities established, start by removing everything from the garage and placing it in the driveway. (This is best done on a day when there are no spring showers in the forecast.) As you move items out, begin sorting everything into categories. If you are having difficulties determining the groupings, try thinking about areas of your driveway as different departments of a store. Some common “departments” could include sporting goods, hardware, lawn and garden, pet, and automotive. Each item should have a home its respective section.
In addition to your department categories, you’ll need separate donate, recycle, and throw-away piles for the things you don’t want to hang onto anymore. As you sift through your items, think about the last time you used it. It’s okay to donate that bocce ball set that you haven’t used in two years.
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Deep Clean
Once everything is out of your garage, it’s time to deep clean! We recommend using the same cleaning principles for inside your home. Clean from top to bottom, moving left to right.
Start by clearing any cob-webs from the rafters with a Precision Angle Broom. For the extra tall garages, the Flexible Microfiber Duster extends up to seven feet for those hard-to-reach beams.
Next, work on wiping any shelves, racks, and flat surfaces clean with a WonderFiber Cloth. The WonderFiber Cloth is made from the same great microfiber fabric you expect from the Wonder Mop, so picking up dirt and grime is easy.
For the garage floor, we recommend sweeping with a Libman High-Power Push Broom. Our 18” Multi-Surface Push Broom cleans any surface, such as concrete, brick, wood, stone, and more.
With all the dust and dirt off the floor, it’s time to tackle any unwanted stains. The Libman High-Power Floor Scrub helps get water and dirt out of the deep cracks and rough surfaces, so scrubbing those unwanted stains is easy-peasy.
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Prep The Garage
Sometimes it can be difficult to see past all the clutter and envision the end result, but with an empty and newly cleaned garage, take time to assess opportunities for the space and any new organizational needs. Assign an area of the garage for each category you established on the driveway earlier. Remember to keep your list of priorities top of mind during this step.
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Give Everything A Home
Once you’ve determined an area for each category, begin moving items back into the garage. Do this one category at time, assigning a place for each item and keeping frequently used items easily accessible.
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Donate & Recycle
Once everything is back in the garage, address the remaining items in the donate, recycle, and throw-away piles. If needed, coordinate a donation pick-up with a local charity or take items to a drop-off location. If you have recycling that is picked up regularly, great! Otherwise you may need to take the items to a drop-off location near you.
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Enjoy
Now that your garage is clean and set up for your needs, you can be confident that as the weather warms up you’ll be able to find everything you need! And you can enter the season (and garage) stress-free!