It’s that time of year again. Spring is when we shake off the winter cobwebs and start to plan for summer fun. It’s generally when we most feel like getting our house in order and organising our possessions too.If you’ve been putting off sorting out your garage for ages, this might be the time to grit your teeth and get on with it. You might find that you can make lots more space for your possessions by getting rid of unwanted junk – or even discover a few forgotten gems if you are lucky. With that in mind, we’ve created our top five tips for spring cleaning.
1) Pick the right time
Spring is notoriously fickle, and you could easily find yourself trying to move things in and out of your garage when it’s rainy or windy. Take a long-term view of the weather through a couple of TV channels and/or the Met Office Twitter feed. The key here is flexibility as you may find that the best spring cleaning weather is actually at the end of February (as it was this year), or that you have to wait until May when a bank holiday gives you that extra time window to get the job done.
2) Get some clarity
If you don’t commit fully to spring-cleaning, then you could end up doing a poor job. The best way to size up the task at hand is to completely remove everything from the garage. That way you can see where space is currently being wasted due to poor packing, and really get into every nook and cranny. So, move everything out, clean thoroughly, then plot carefully how you restack it all to make the most of your garage space. This is also a good opportunity to be ruthless about what you keep and discard. Go through each item methodically and see which of the following categories it fits into –keep, sell, discard, recycle, donate.
3) Go deep
Deep cleaning is key as you don’t know when you’ll want to tackle this big job again. If you don’t have the energy or the man-power,consider getting a cleaning company in to take away the pain. Alternatively, just clean a section of the garage where you will be putting any valuable possessions and leave a cobwebbed area for your garden gear. You’ll need proper tools and equipment for a deep clean – a sturdy hoover like a Henry, microfiber cloths and a dusk mask – the latter is a good way of protecting yourself from everything that gets stirred up by the clean.
4) Inspect your garage doors
Is there muck that could be interfering with the smooth opening and closing of your garage doors? Give the doors a clean off with a hose and scrub off any persistent dirt stains with a bucket of washing up liquid and water. For the more intricate parts of your garage door, such as the cables and locks, inspect your manual. If you are unsure about anything, call your garage door provider. Cleaning your garage door frame and windows also gives a good signal to the outside world that your property is well looked after, and therefore deter any unwanted attention.
5) Reassess what you use your garage for
Although you would assume that parking space is the main function of a garage, many garage owners admit that it’s so cluttered that they can’t fit their car anymore. Once you’ve cleared out the garage you might be able to park again – which in turn could save money on your car insurance.
The temptation once you have a lovely clear garage is to fill it back up and make more room in your house – and by all means do this. Just remember that when it comes around to spring cleaning again next year – what you do now could spare your future self a lot of heavy lifting!
