Is your garage a useful addition to your home or a hodgepodge of left-over supplies with just enough room for a couple of cars? For some people, the garage is too full to even fit a car inside. It might be time to make your garage cool, even if you don’t have a garage band practicing in it regularly.

Clearing out a garage is much like cleaning out a closet only bigger. Think of it as a four-step process. Don’t plan to finish it all at once. If you can get it done over several weekends you’re in good shape. This is also a time to solicit help from friends and family to make the process easier and faster.

To start, do you have a corner of your garage that looks like thIs photo? We’re not talking about just clutter here – storing paint, solvents and gasoline can be dangerous. Contact your municipality’s local waste disposal department to discover your options for disposing of hazardous waste. Then get this out of your garage as soon as you can.

Next, working with one wall after another, clear out the garage and give or throw away anything that you won’t be using again. Look for ways to store what’s left on walls or even hanging from the ceiling. Think in terms of organizing for easy retrieval and minimal material on the floor.

Take a look at this simple approach to storing tools. With just some pegboard and hooks, you can find everything immediately. To make the process even easier, use a sharpy to define each tool’s position on the wall, so you can see when something is missing and where it belongs when it’s time to put it back.

Larger wall hooks can hold bicycles and bins for sporting equipment. The more you can take off the floor, the better your garage will look.

Finally, once you’ve straightened everything out, consider either painting or resin-coating your garage floor. This will reduce cement dust on your home’s floors as people walk in from the garage. It also makes oil and other spills easy to wipe up. When you’re done, you ‘ll have a garage to make you proud.