Wall Storage Ideas for Your Garage

Mike Beard • Sep 27, 2021

There’s no mistaking it, today’s homeowners tend to have a lot of stuff. This is why in many homes, the garage has become a storage space in addition to the place where you park your car. More than anything, you need to maximize the storage potential and that often means using the wall space in your garage.

While there are certainly plenty of wall storage ideas for your custom garage, they tend to fall into four distinct categories:

Hide It Away
Hang It Up
Repurpose With a Purpose
Get Crafty

Keep reading for some simple tips on how to maximize the storage space in your garage that will have you climbing the walls – literally NOT figuratively.

Hide It Away

For homeowners looking for a stylish yet simple storage solution, your best bet is to have cabinets installed. This will allow you to tuck everything away – out of sight – ensuring your garage space stays neat and organized. As an added bonus, many sets are quite attractive and can be found in a wide range of colors.

You could also repurpose kitchen cabinets after a renovation. Either way, cabinets, and drawers give you the flexibility to store tools, cleaning supplies, garden products, sports equipment, and much more behind closed doors. An added feature is that they keep dangerous chemicals and materials out of reach of children and away from pets.

Stackable, plastic storage bins are another great option for storing your stuff and keeping it protected from the elements. You can use these containers to separate supplies and gear by use.

The Family Handyman suggests using different colored bins for each activity to make finding what you need more convenient. Label each container if you want to be uber-organized. Clear bins are another way to go. You can easily see what’s inside at a quick glance.

Hang It Up

Another option for garage wall storage is to hang items, opening up more precious floor space. This also protects your things should you have any water intrusion. Slatwall panels could be the perfect solution for your garage storage woes. They're durable, affordable, and attractive. Because they are narrower than cabinets, Slatwall systems are a great alternative, especially if you park large cars or SUVs in your garage.

Hooks can be a homeowner’s best friend when it comes to garage storage. Just a Girl and Her Blog is a strong supporter of using hooks to hang bulky items such as goalie nets, lawn chairs, or ladders. There are even hooks designed specifically to hang bicycles on the wall.

The home design and remodeling experts at HGTV are also proponents of using hooks to help you with garage wall storage. They suggest using plastic or metal chains to corral coiled extension cords and garden hoses. Just loop the chains through the coils and put the hooks through the chain links.

Another helpful hack is to hang a bucket by its handle on a hook. It can be used to hold golf balls or tennis balls or even stash all of your car wash supplies in one place. Then you just need to grab the bucket and go when it’s time to soap up your car.

Buckets might work well for smaller balls, but what do you do about soccer balls or basketballs? The simplest solution is to store large balls in draw-string mesh bags. These can easily be hung from wall hooks and taken down when it’s time to play.

Repurpose With a Purpose

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to create effective storage solutions. Some are as simple as repurposing products meant for other things. For example, you can use the cardboard tubes commonly used when pouring concrete footers for storing long items such as rakes and brooms, as well as fishing poles or hockey sticks. All you need to do is attach these sturdy tubes to your garage wall studs; plumbing straps are an easy way to secure the tubes.

A magnetic strip, like the kind chefs use to keep their knives easily accessible in the kitchen, can be used in the garage to store paintbrushes and hand tools like screwdrivers and wrenches. To store smaller items like screws and nails, clean out an old soup can, fill it up, and stick it to a magnetic strip.

Get Crafty

PVC pipes are a great way to store shovels, brooms, and other long-handled tools and keep them from toppling over. Home Stories A to Z’s suggestion can be copied by attaching short pieces of PVC pipe to wooden boards nailed into the garage studs. Place one near the floor and the other about three feet up the wall. Then you just need to slip the handle through the pipe and your possessions are safely secured, yet easy to reach.

A quick and easy DIY storage project that doesn’t require any power tools is to glue clothes pins to a small scrap piece of wood that you hang on the wall. This is a great place to hang gardening gloves or baseball hats that you wear when doing yardwork.

Conclusion

Although garages offer an enormous amount of square footage, most of that space is taken up by your car. So when it comes to maximizing your garage storage situation, you want to take advantage of the valuable wall space. Whether you choose to purchase storage solutions, repurpose something you already have, or build something brand new, there are endless options available based on your family's needs.