Garage Spring Cleaning

When the season changes from winter to spring, it’s time to do a little spring cleaning and organize your garage so it’s ready for the warm months. Get those winter decorations up and out of the way once and for all. Put away the snowboarding and winter sports gear, and get the summer fun equipment front and center. Finally, it’s time to clear the remaining leaves and debris out of the garage once the winter storms are over.

Tips to Clean and Organize Your Garage This Spring

The following tips will help you clean out your garage and get it organized for spring and summer.

1. Pull everything out. The best way to clean a garage is to make sure it’s empty. Not only does this make it easier to clean, it allows you to create a mental inventory of what you need and what you don’t need from this point forward.

2. Get rid of stuff. If you haven’t organized your garage in a while, this is a perfect opportunity to go through everything and decide what stays and what goes. Typically, professional organizers recommend getting rid of anything that hasn’t been used in a year or two. If you haven’t used something in two whole years, it’s wasting valuable space. Decide whether it makes more sense to donate, sell or trash it. Read our tips for making space in a cluttered garage for ideas on how to organize what’s left.

3. Give it a good cleaning. With everything out and off the garage floor, you’re ready to clean. Sweep the garage from back to front. Use a shop vac if you have one to get every last bit of dust and debris from the corners and edges. While you’re at is, run the vac or a clean broom along garage door tracks to keep them clean and to prevent jamming. Use your broom to sweep the cobwebs from corners and the upper-reaches. Take the time to wash the windows as well. You’ll be amazed at the difference if you haven’t don’t this in a while. You may even want to hose your garage out and use a push broom to get the floor ultra-clean. Let it dry out completely before putting everything back.

4. Check for evidence of leaks or mold. Now that everything is cleared out of the way, and the surfaces are clean, you may notice signs of a leak from the roof, around the windows, or areas the wall that appear damp, moldy or stained. Inspect the area above and around your water heater if it’s stored in the garage. Any signs of a water leak should be addressed immediately, by a plumber or contractor, to prevent further damage.

5. Clear fall and winter stuff out of the way. Make use of rafter space and ceiling or wall-mounting systems to get fall and winter gear off the floor and out of your way. Ideally, your garage floor will only contain the items you use use on a regular basis for the next few months or so. Anything else is taking up space, which creates unnecessary clutter. Just think – enough stuff cleared out of the way and you may even have the space to create a man cave in a corner or section of the garage.

6. Maintenance your garage door. In most cases, everything required to maintain your garage door can be done by you. This includes things like visually inspecting the door and its tracks, cleaning the tracks (as mentioned in #3), lubricating hinges, springs and bearings with a non-silicone lubricant and listening/watching the garage door for signs of imbalance or inconsistent movement. Read, The 1,2,3s of Maintaining Your Automatic Garage Door, for more detailed instructions on DIY garage door maintenance.


Need a little help with an automatic garage door issue? Contact R&S Garage Doors and schedule a consultation.