Up first…

The Ball Claw Basketball
Cost: Under $10
From: Target
Average Review: 5 Stars (Highest Possible Rating)

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Not sure what I like more: using the BALL CLAW to CLAW MY BASKETBALL, or just obnoxiously rhyming BALL AND CLAW as many times in one possible sentence reviewing the THE BALL CLAW BASKETBALL. Ok, I believe this is a stall. If ya’ll want me to get on the ball and review the claw, I guess I will indulge…

(Sorry.)

This thing is pretty self explanatory. It clamps onto your basketball so you don’t lose it in the garage. A nice – and clever – tool for garage storage when it comes to sports gear. And cheap too, costing about $8.99 currently at Target and other home department stores.

Included with the ball claw is the materials needed to mount it to any surface. Once that’s done, this makes for a totally stable basketball storage.

And for what it’s worth, they also make the same style product for the soccer ball, football, and volley ball. I guess baseballs were too small to bother with!

Suncast Golf Organizer
Cost: $80
From: Target
Average Review: 3 Out of 5 Stars

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This is a very usable golf organizer. It provides a generous amount of storage space for your golf gear, holding 2 large golf bags, with shelves on the side for all other golf gear, balls, tees, rain gear, and golf accessories that you don’t need inside the bag.

I’ve not assembled this personally, but have been told it’s “relatively easy to assemble” and is also “very sturdy”.

Basically, a good golf rack for the garage to hold all your misc. golf gear, including 2 packed golf bags that you can simply grab and then…go!

Rubbermaid Sports Station Storage Unit
Cost: $29.99
From: Target
Average Review: 4 out of 5 Stars

This is the type of sports rack I imagine people will get the most use out of for the price. At only $30, this is the perfect type of sports rack for putting in the garage and getting your kids to use to put all their gear and balls into.

The bottom of this “sports station storage unit” is a big mesh net, allowing you to both easily store and then SEE what’s inside it for easy retrieval. This is a good feature, as who wants to store their soccer balls and footballs inside something that you can’t see them anymore? Kids like to see their toys!

But the real magic of this unit is the upper portion of this sports rack. Take a look at the second photo here that I wanted to show you so you can see what I mean. It’s designed to securely hold all sorts of misc. sports gear in such a way that it really holds it in place, keeping it their, secure and stable. This is an awesome sports rack and I think you’d do well to buy this one over any other sports rack under $50 for the features it gives you.

It was also fun to read that one owner, in reviewing this item, stated their 7 year old put it together in all of 5 minutes. Now isn’t that the perfect sports rack? Not only will it get your kids to organize their sports toys, but your kids can even put it together themselves!

Please let us know your experience with any of these items, good or bad. How did it work for your sports gear? Would you recommend these sports racks to your family and friends? Why or why not?

Please leave your comments below. Thanks!

1. Leaving the bike in the yard.
2 Shoving the bike behind the mattress which is shoved behind the broken bookshelf which is shoved behind…
3. Just throwing the bike in the garage and letting nature take it course.

Sorry folks. Just kidding. If you’re here, you probably know what it means to not store your bike the right way already!

So let’s get down to business and take a look at some cool bike racks and bike stands for the garage!

The Ceiling Bike Lift
Cost: $20-25
From: Target
Weight Capacity: 50 Pounds
Average Review: 4 Out of 5 Stars

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There’s lots of variations of this idea, but here is a ceiling bike lift that costs between $20 and $25 at Target (currently $21.24 if you click here), meaning you won’t break the bank with theis cheap ceiling bike lift.

But will you break your bike? No, not unless you fill this to over capacity. Otherwise you will be fine! This bike lift is designed to safely hold a bike up to 50 pounds.It’s simple to install, taking only a few minutes to get it up and running and hoisting your bike overhead.
The ceiling bike lift featured here comes with a one year warranty from the manufacturer.

Gravity Bike Stand
Cost:$50
From: Target
Capacity: Holds Two Bikes
Average Rating: 4 Out of 5 Stars

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This is a very cool looking gravity bike stand. I love the gravity idea – it’s very clever and makes good use of space, and uh – the force of gravity?

Seriously though, what’s great about these gravity bike stands is how easy they are to set up and how compactly they hold two bikes. There are no screws, no fasteners, and no bolts involved in setting this up.

Also note this model has adjustable arms so you can properly hold your style or size of bike with this gravity bike stand.

Somke of the reviews point out things we all love to hear when it comes to a bike stand: “it was incredibly easy to assemble” , “it was extremely simple to put together”, “took 5 minutes to put together”, “is very stable”, and my favorite line, “this stand holds two bikes and you don’t have to drill anything into the wall.” Exactly!

Delta Design Single Bike Rack
Cost: $10-15
From: Target
Weight Capacity: 40 Pounds
Average Review: 4 Out of 5 Stars

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Here we have the bike stand concept at it’s most basic level. This inexpensive solution for storing a bike cost a little more than $10 and requires either a self-adhesive mount or screw mounted option (recommended – it only takes a minute and will make the bike rack far more secure) to set up. There are hardly any pieces and this stand will be up and running in no time.

This model has a wall guard so you won’t leave tire marks on the wall. Not as big a deal in the garage, but many find this type of single bike stand convenient to use in the bedroom or living room for storing their bike closer at hand (or in an apartment or dorm for that matter.)

Delta Design 4 Bike Rack
Cost: $89.99
From: Target
Capacity: 4 Bikes!
Weight Capacity: 140 Pounds
Average Review: 4.5 Stars (the highest here)

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Last up in our batch of reviews, we have a heavy duty bike rack for the garage. This sucker can hold up to 4 bikes weighing a total of 140 pounds. What’s great about this unit is that you get the ability to store that many bikes and that much weight without having to mess with mounting the arms or any parts into the walls or ceiling. Yes, this is a freestanding 4 bike rack! The arms are all independent from one another and adjustable, allowing you to correctly position them into place to hold your bike, no matter what the style.

The only downside of such a sturdy, space saving garage bike rack is that because it holds two bikes on the bottom and then two bikes on the top, the top bikes are somewhat hard to get on and off the shelf for shorter people.

However, that is really the only negative complaint I’ve heard about the Delta Design 4 Bike Rack. For under $100, it’s a real good stand for so many bikes, without the hassle of any crazy installation methods or tools!

Have you used any of these bike racks? Do you have any opinions on bike racks and bike stands in general? If so, let us know by leaving your comments below. Thanks!

When deciding on a shelf, in a broad view, we have two types: the type of shelf that stands on its own in the garage, and the kind of garage shelves that must be installed or mounted into the wall or ceiling. From here we can break it down into the materials used, such as stand alone shelving units constructed of metal and wood, versus ceiling or wall mounted shelves, which are usually made of metal since it’s metal parts are cheaper and easier to secure and install.

Let’s go through these types one by one.

Stand Alone Garage Shelving

Stand alone garage shelves are the type of shelves most of us are familiar with. These types of shelves don’t really differ all that much from bookshelves or other kinds of storage shelves in general. What sets them a part when it comes to garage storage is that they are more often than not constructed of metal. This is due to the fact that metal withstands the conditions of a garage better than wood. Other than metal, you will also find plastic as a common construction material for these types of shelves. It’s cheap and stable enough for light items, but definitely not good for heavy tools or equipment.

Here are some examples of garage shelving that rests on the floor; i.e. there’s nothing to mount or install into the wall.

Heavy Duty Plastic 5 Shelf Storage Unit
Cost: $80
From: Target
Weight Capacity: 150 Pounds
Dimensions: 74 Inches Height X 36 Inches Width 24 inches Depth
Materials: Constructed of Plastic

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Here we have a basic 5 shelf heavy duty garage shelving unit that Target sells for only $80. It has a total weight capacity of 150 pounds. It does require assemble but this assembly requires no other tools or parts not included in this products shipping.

Whitmore’s 5-Tier Supreme Steel Shelving System

Cost: $80
From: Target
Weight Capacity: 350 Pounds
Materials: Constructed of Heavy Duty Black Epoxy Steel
Dimensions: 72 Inches Height X 36 Inches Width X 14 Inches Depth

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The difference between this one and the last? The cost is the same, but here you get a black steel shelf with 350 pounds capacity, an increase of 200 pounds over the plastic shelves above.
Interesting, this shelf has a weaker depth that the plastic shelves, but still offer a much higher weight capacity. So if you need more room, the plastic shelves would be better, but if you need heavy duty weight capacity, 350 pounds is likely going to be more than enough for you.

Sterilite 4 Shelf Cabinet
Cost: $70
From: Target
Weight Capacity: 40 Pounds
Materials: Heavy Duty Plastic

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Now here we have a great shelf at a reasonable price considering it is equipped with 4 shelves, has two doors, and is lockable by adding a padlock to the doors themselves. The biggest drawback of a shelf like this is the meager weight capacity of only 40 pounds. You wouldn’t be usin this to store any heavy duty equipment. But it would be great for storing chemicals, paints, and other hazardous materials so common in the garage.

Side Note: This is one of the most popular garage shelving units at Target.com. There are nearly 50 reviews, which rated it overall 4.5 stars out of 5 stars. Assembly is required but it’s great to see many people stating it took them less than 10 minutes to assemble the entire shelving unit. That’s the kind of products we want to see!

Devant 4 Tier Corner Mesh Shelf
Cost: $40
From: Target
Materials: Metal

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For the stand alone garage shelves, let’s round things out and end this article on with a very cool little mesh shelving unit from Devant.

This item is designed to perfectly compliment and make use of the corners of your garage, an area of space often not properly maximized for storage. This shelf would be good for commonly accessed things of light weight, such as small tools, cans, and whatnot. It’s about a foot deep and a foot wide and stands roughly 4 feet high. This isn’t going to store your chainsaw, but it will store your extra extension cords and other random items that do need a home!

For $40, this isn’t a bad at all. Especially if the corners of your garage aren’t being put to good use.

Since this article is getting fairly long, I’ve decided to divide it up into two parts. In this section we looked at stand alone shelving units and gave an overview of 4 different types, covering both metal and plastic shelves, including corner shelving units.

In our next article we will do the same for mounted shelves, including both ceiling and wall mounted garage storage shelving products.

Have any thoughts about the items reviewed above? Please leave us your comment below. Thanks!

The term garage storage refers to any type of storage used in the garage, be it shelves, plastic storage bins, lockable ceiling mounted compartments, or storage work benches. But when we refer to garage storage systems, this modifier infers we are looking at how the storage components fit together as a whole, not just as individual parts. Simple, right?

To this end, garage storage systems are designed as an overall storage solution for your garage, not just a place to store old books or tools, but a place to store everything that belongs in the garage.

And that is actually a key component of what it means to design working garage storage systems. I’ll say it again: a place to store everything that belongs in the garage. Or to say it another way, everything that is stored in the garage needs to have a specific place it is to be stored. This is not so much as garage storage system principle as it is a principle of storage and organization in general. When every object has a place to go, then clutter is non-existent. Clutter and junk only exist in the garage (and elsewhere in the home, such as the closet), when there’s no place to put it.

This means when sizing up your garage storage options, we first need to identify what sort of objects are going to be put in the garage. For most people, we’d want to cross reference a list that might look like this:

• The Family Car (maybe)
• Lawnmower and gas container
• Tools for maintaining the lawn and the yard, such as rakes, trimmers
• Lawncare chemicals and bottles
• Painting tools, paint buckets, spray paints
• Sports Equipment and Sport Gear
• Bikes and Bicycle Stands and Racks
• Hobby items and tools, such as wood working equipment or arts and crafts equipment
• New Car Parts and related items such as oil containers, old oil, oil rags
• Broken or Old Car Parts
• Old Toys
• Extra Clothes
• Magazines and Books
• Storage Boxes – Cardboard (no!) or Plastic (better)
• Extra Household Furniture
• Old Mattresses, Captains Bed, or Bed Frames
• Extra Or Broken Book Shelves and Cabinets
• …And Lots of Other Random Stuff.

Before jumping into the game of buying storage items and trying to stack things away, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and effort by first:

1. Cleaning Out Your Garage.
This means sweeping the floor and throwing out trash and other stuff that’s obviously junk.

2. Getting Rid of As Much As Possible.
Hold a yard sale, give stuff away, throw it up on Craigslist, and if you must – just trash it. But don’t hold on to anything you don’t use. Have you touched it in the last year? Why are you keeping it then?

3. Now Assess How To Store What’s Left!

At this point when we get to assess what’s left and how to store it is when you should look into what specific garage storage system items you’d like to spend your money on. Once you know what’s actually going into garage storage, it’s much easier to seek out relevant storage items. Map out either mentally or on paper how you might store your items and where you would store them if you had the necessary shelves. Cross reference this with your storage budget and then with the cost of the actual items. Once you’ve got this figured out, it’s only a matter of buying and install the necessary storage items and placing your belongings into them. At that point you’ll have a working garage storage system.

There are a lot of different items that can end up being stored in the garage. Here’s a look at some specific products designed for misc. but specific items, such as skis, baseball bats, golf bags, fishing poles, and ball racks for various sports balls.

Ski Racks offer an inexpensive and elegant solution towards storing one or more pairs of skis. This will help keep the skis clean, safe, secure, and accessible and also keep them from disorganizing the garage by having them simply lying around or backed into a corner. Ski racks are available starting at $15-20, and most models don’t go beyond any more than $50 or $60 dollars. Considering how much is spent on a good pair of skis, it would be prudent to store them in a nice and safe way, especially when it doesn’t cost much to do so!

Baseball Bat Racks do exactly as you would imagine – it’s a rack specifically for storing….baseball bats! The FastTrack Baseball Rack by Rubbermaid stores up to four bats, two baseballs, and two baseball gloves. This items wall mounts to rails and costs a whopping $10. The only catch with this is that the item mounts to FastTrack rails, also made by Rubbermaid, and these rails are sold separately. The good news is they are versatile and can be used with other items, such as the next one we’ll look at – a fishing rack also made the same company.

Fishing Racks will keep your fishing rods and gear organized and off the floor. Rubbermaid dominates the market with their name brand, quality, and decently priced racks – such as the RubberMaid fast track Fishng Rack. This fishing rack will store up to 3 poles and will keep the lines sorted. Similar to the baseball bat racks above, RubberMaid offerse this fising rack as a mountable rack to its Fast Track rails, which again, are sold separately.

Ball Racks are see-through racks, usually circular and vertical in shape, which are designed to store different types of sports balls. Rubbermaid offers a 42 inch ball rack which is mounted either on pre-existing Fast Track rails (sold separately) or mounted into wall studs. The 42 inch ball rack by Rubbermaid is see through, made of metal, and allows for storing basketballs, volleyballs, footballs, soccer balls. The total weight allowed is a decent 50 pounds.

As you can see, there’s just about everything out there made into a rack or an organizer for the easy storage of your stuff. The one exception is that retractable swimming pool cover. But I’m sure a pool cover organizer rack is on its way! In the meantime though, I suggest you try and hide it underneath the pool deck during the summer instead of shoving it in the garage and making a mess.

The iconic American garage has a a way of collecting all your extra  stuff. It’s almost as if that is actually what the architects had in mind when they designed the garage; not a place to put your car, but a place to store a second refrigerator, install bike racks, shelving, old books, gardening and landscaping equipment, a broken heated dog bed, and anything and everything else you might want to keep but don’t need in the house.

Unfortunately, despite the best intentions, this often leads to a familiar situation: a garage full of….junk! Well, maybe not exactly junk, but when it’s all thrown together with no rhyme of reason, it certainly starts looking like a bunch of junk, even if smack dab in the middle of that junk is something valuable like an old CZ Eternity Ring from your first marriage.

Anyhow:

So where do we get started when we are trying to set up a garage storage system for all these items?

At the Garage Storage Systems Guide, we will advise one thing to you before all else: take an inventory of everything in your garage first, and divide it into two pile – a pile of items you use and a pile of items you don’t use. This a kinder way of saying we are going to keep the first pile and sell, donate, or trash everything in the second pile? (And on that point, why not consider having an online garage sale? I mean do you really need to keep those moving blankets you bought when you first moved into the house 10 years ago?)

This serves a dual purpose for preparing for a real garage storage system. First you’ll find you have a lot more space to work with if you get rid of everything you don’t actually need, and secondly, it’ll be much easier to organize that items you will keep when you don’t have as many items in general. (Added bonus: you might walk away with a couple hundred dollars after selling those unused items. That money can go a long way in purchasing some garage shelving and storage units, but more on this later.)

After taking an inventory of what we will keep, we then need to come up with a plan to organize it. What sort of storage units would serve best? For bikes, we can install bike rakes. For loose items, shelving units. For landscaping items, closet shelves or steel shelving units work well, as well as a place to hang watering hoses and other watering equipment. Ceiling racks and top shelf units work wonders for keeping items off the floor – what do you have that you would like to move out of the way?

And let’s not forget how helpful simple things like plastic storage bins can be in grouping up loose items, not to mention they are a great form of cheap storage!

Once an inventory is made in this way, you can start looking at garage shelving and storage items and make an educated purchase, organize your storage, and then…hey, maybe you can fit your car back in the garage.

If you can only do one thing and one thing only in your quest to organize that crazy mess in the garage storage space, purchasing a good sized garage storage shelf is the best thing you can do for the time, money, and effort required. The absence of a shelf almost guarantees that your garage will be messy – how exactly could these items be organized without anywhere to put them?

Luckily, there are a lot of options on the table when it comes to garage shelving units. It’s simple enough to go to any big box store such as Target, Walmart, Lowes, or Home Depot and purchase a 5 shelf rack for little money.

On the low end you can easily find cheaper wooden (and probably not solid wood) and metal wire and metal mesh shelves for sale which  can hold a lot of items but not be able to take a lot of weight of wear and tear. This type of shelf is best for simple items like pottery and landscaping equipment, childrens toys, extra solar powered garden lights waiting to be put to good use, extra or old clothes, all items which often make it into the garage!

If it’s possible, in the long run it is worth spending $50-100 for a solid shelf that can hold a lot of weight. This will give you a versatile and lifetime shelving unit to place pretty much anything you want inside, including heavy tools, concrete, dirt, and so on. Those purchasing lightly designed shelves will create a safety hazard if heavy objects are placed on those shelves – and many are suprised to find out just how much stuff they can fit on the shelves, as long as the shelves can take the weight.

There are also some perks available with many  shelving units – such as covered doors over the shelves. For those seeking to lose the eyesore of having a lot of stuff, even if it is on a shelfand organized, look for these closed units to keep things looking clean and tidy.

The biggest perk of them all offered by garage storage racks is the option of using wall and ceiling mounted racks. This will naturally cost a little bit more but of course the trade off is that garage floor space will be cleared up and can be used for other purposes – or, even better, no purpose at all and will remain clean and clear!

Sports gear items such as baseball bats, helmets, footballs, soccer balls, golf clubs – these types of items can clearly create clutter in a garage if they are loose and have no “place to go”.

The good news is that loose sports gear can easily be organized with a few simple items. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular options for organizing storage gear in the garage with what’s called a sports rack.

Rubbermaid offers a large storage box (which they call a Sports Gear Storage Station), with a solid top and a netted bottom and sides, for easy access to various items inside and the ability to place items securely on top. The Rubbermaid Sports Storage Station offers a decent amount of space at 36 inches by 36 inches by 18 inches. It also contains molded plastic in which common sports items will neatly fit into. It requires no special tools to assemble and runs $30-50 US.

The Sports Great Storage Station by Rubbermaid is recommended for those who have a lot of misc. sports gear they need to organize. This is also a popular item for kids sports gear as the molded plastic helps kids store the items properly and the see-through mesh makes storing balls and other smaller items easy, as well as making them easily findable.

For the adults who play golf, items such as Golf Racks and Golf Organizers work wonders for keeping clubs and associated items organized and clean. On the bargain end, a simple wall mounted golf rack will allow a golf bag with clubs, balls, etc to hang from the wall, keeping it off the garage floor and making it easily accessible. More elaborate items qualify as Gold Organizers and offer space for one or more players to store the bags, clubs, balls, cleaning materials, golf shoes, and other associated items. Golf Organizers usually offer a large space to secure the bag and clubs and then a series of shelves and racks for smaller items. Many are solidly made and can be considered a nice piece of furniture in their own right. Accordingly, the price tag reflects this and start at $100 to $200.

In the same vein as Rubbermaids  ports Gear Storage Solution, another great option for organizing sports gear in the garage is using a specially designed bench that opens up and allows for gear to be storage inside. Sports Benches create a space that children can easily access, store, and retrieve their sports items. Additionally, it doubles as a bench to sit on. The biggest hurdle with a storage item like this is the tendency to place other items on top of it, which then makes the items inside inaccessible. For an item that costs only $20-30, limited utiltiy can be expected!

Let’s take a quick look at the different types of bike racks and stands out there and what the benefits are of each type..

Ceiling Mounted Bike Racks

Ceiling mounted racks are the ultimate solution towards creating extra space in the garage! Suggested for kids and adults bikes who only use the bike in the summer or outside of that, use there bikes sparingly. Most ceiling mounted racks are used to secure the bike long-term, as opposed to a place you put the bike up with when you’re done using it for the day and will then get it back out tomorrow. This is not a child friendly option – having an adult secure the bike in and out place is necessary.

Recommended for those who don’t use their bikes often yet don’t want to get rid of them and also want to organize their garage storage space.

Wall / Side Mounted Bike Racks

Racks that are mounted into the wall are a great option for keeping the bike organized and secure, and directly off the garage floor, while also keeping it easily accessible for kids and adults, a function which some ceiling mounted racks (literally) put out of reach.

Wall mounted rack models work differently, allowing for a bike to hang on the wall directly or by pushing a rack out from the wall in which to secure the bike. Bikes can be placed vertically or horizontally depending on the rack style.

Bike Stands (that sit on the floor)

Let’s break down bike stands into two different types.

2 Tier / Double Up Rack – An option for storing two bikes in the floor space of one by stacking one bike on top of one another. Different models offer a variety of designs, including the aptly titled gravity stand.

Simple Bike Rack – An option for keeping the bikes on the floor, side by side, similar to the bike racks used in public cities. Simple and elegant if there is adequate space in the garage to keep item on the garage floor. Often a good solution in combination with long-term storage racks (ceiling racks) to use in the summer when bikes are getting in and out of the garage a lot.