21 May Featured Space: Outdoors - Organizing Tools

I am back with another edition of our garage organization project that we finished up on Monday night!  Have I mentioned how excited we are?  We are already seeing loads of benefits, which always makes us wonder, how did it get so bad and why didn't we do something about this sooner?

I am planning on revealing the entire process and some before and after pictures on Friday this week, each post to that point sharing a piece of the three day puzzle, so make sure to stay tuned!

As I mentioned, I broke the garage into specific zones.  Monday I chatted about the auto zone, Tuesday I posted about outdoor toy and sporting good storage, so today I am going to focus on tools. 

And just so everyone can see that even one obsessed with being organized, isn't ALWAYS organized herself, here is a little preview of one of the garage "before" shots, focusing on the previous tool area of the garage....

So last fall my man Bryan built himself a floating workbench out of a melamine board and some 2 x 4's.  We also installed some pegboard and floating small tool organizing drawers.  This weekend, I cleared everything off of the workbench to give it a blank slate for our garage organizing project!

Taking a step back though, to get to the point of tools and small DIY objects such as mini screwdrivers and picture hanging supplies, sorted neatly into the small storage drawers and larger storage bins, was easily completed in a few short hours in front of the DVR full of Desperate Housewives and old HGTV design shows.  I just laid out a big blanket on the floor, and spread out ALL of our miscellaneous tools, screws and supplies.

And before I knew it, I had everything broken out and into their new homes, with lots of room to spare!

Then I just used my amazing little label maker to slap some labels to the fronts of all of the little drawers, giving them the end result of:

And I originally had used some Post-It labels for the larger bin fronts:

But I am a little OCD and not a fan of my own penmanship, so this weekend, the labels got a little bit of an upgrade!

{Yes, I realize I have a spelling impediment, it's funny I spelled Stakes right the first time and botched it on the pretty label... oh goodness!}

I also decided that since I was investing all of my time organizing the garage while the hubs was chilling at a baseball game, I was going to add a little bit of my style to the space!  Plus, although I am not nearly as handy or talented as my man, I still heart a good DIY project, and plan to spend time utilizing the space as well!

So in came an old applesauce jar and some old soup cans, all dressed up and beautified to give some pretty color to the bland white space!

The jar is perfect for holding a whole big box of deck screws, while the cans are working great for holding oddly shaped tools and objects!

The rest of the tools we grab from frequently were hung conveniently from the pegs and all of the big black tool cases were stashed up above in the two cabinets.

The pegboard really gets my heart racing.  I mean, it's SO functional and I never have to dig for a screwdriver or tape measure again!

And to make it easy for us when we are working on hanging things, assembling or working on projects inside and out, we stored away all of the different nails and screws in a portable divided bin, made just for that task specifically.

This ensures that we don't have to to guess when working on a project, and go back and forth to the garage, this just comes with us wherever we go, and heads back to the cabinet when we are finished!

And off to the far right of the space, was gave the table saw it's own special home, placing the base far under the workbench, and setting the saw on top.  This saved on floor space.  And then using some simple screws, I put the extra saw blades on the wall, easy for my hub to look at and pick from for whatever task he has ahead of him!

Giving us the uber organized, colorful, functional, clean, and handy workspace!

So what was once a dark and messy place that made getting anything done, somewhat challenging and frustrating....

Is now a bright and happy zone, screaming to be used over and over again for many more DIY tasks to come!

When all was said and done, I asked my husband what he thought.... and here, in his exact typed out words, is what he thinks of the newly organized space.

"I don't have too many places in our home where my wonderful wife hasn't added her special touch, so when she told me it was garage organizing time, I was a little less than excited!  But if I had a nickle for every time I said no to one of her ideas that she still saw through, I'd be rich...  I did enjoy seeing everything in plain sight with out having to dig in piles, a new concept for me. So over all I am feeling very lucky to have her still after the "space invasion"!"

Hmmm, that's good I think!?  Maybe he is still hung up on the flower soup cans?  But now there is no more reason for him to make piles, because everything has an easy place to go, and I know we are both ecstatic about the benefits our life and projects will gain, because of that!

So what do you think?  Anyone else give a masculine space, a bit of a fresh and pretty update and how did that go over?  These days, us gals can keep up in the DIY department {proven time and time again by Ana and her readers over at Knock off Wood!}, so I am a huge believer that garages can and should be pretty!  Anyone else out there have some creative ideas of cheap and reused items that can be used to create some groovy tool and project accessories storage?  How about any inspiring organized garage spaces to share with all of us, right here on the blog?