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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

SUPER simple garage organization/tool storage makeover

Our past two garages (that is, both fixer upper house garages) have been totally disastrous and embarrassing. I mean, our townhouse garage wasn't beautiful either, but at least we had three small, organized cabinets of a few tools and paint cans, then room for a car and our full garage gym. Nowadays we have WAY more tools, supplies, yard stuff, and... honestly, unfortunately, books and other random stuff still in boxes... I needed a storage solution! Of course being in the middle of a reno project, I don't have time to devote to making the garage look great--that will probably be our last project! Ha! So, I came up with a SUPER simple, fast solution!


This post is sponsored by Fred Meyer Direct, a new way to shop Fred Meyer home & electronic products--online with shipping to your door.

The tool storage at our 90's fixer upper was basically just a few overflowing baskets on a couple of piles in the garage, and then I packed everything into clear plastic storage tubs with NO organization. It was a very stressful day packing up the last house by myself after work for some reason, and I remember just throwing everything into these 6 plastic boxes just space-efficiently, not grouped. Chaos.

Then we moved everything from our storage unit to the apartment garage then to this house's garage, and then we started painting, so the mess got worse.

I am so tired of not having room in our garage for our car OR gym setup, and literally tripping over tools and paint supplies! So when Fred Meyer reached out to promote Fred Meyer Direct... when I think Fred Meyer, I think (besides food) home office, tools, garden supplies, great basics. (Those 6 plastic boxes we packed our tools in last fall were a Fred Meyer purchase!) I looked all the storage options on Fred Meyer Direct and found the classic clear plastic Sterilite drawers and thought they would be a great garage/tool storage system!


I mean, ideally we'd have a $1,000 tool bench or built-in cabinets. But right now we have a few leftover hooks on the walls and our metal storage shelves for those still-packed boxes of books. So plastic storage drawers obviously can't compare with a full set of brand new kitchen cabinets in your garage for all your tools and craft supplies... but it's a big improvement for us!

I ordered five 2-drawer sets plus several small 3-drawer ones for smaller tools and things like batteries. There is a 15% off coupon on Fred Meyer Direct and there's free shipping! The boxes arrived SO fast--like either the next day or 2 days after I ordered, I was shocked. SO much easier than trekking my 5-month-old to a Fred Meyer store and putting these in my cart then car to get home.

SUPER simple garage organization/tool storage


Here are the tips I used to organize our tools and household storage items in just a couple hours!

1. Create pile/sort like items together so you can see how much you have and how many drawers or what size space you’ll need. (I definitely could have used one more drawer unit for a couple categories.)

Here's some progress! Still random baskets and boxes to trip over.

2. Prioritize drawers from most used items to least, making the most used items easily accessible. I put our extension cords at the bottom cause they're heaviest and I use them way less than I do the glue/tape drawer or light bulb drawer.

I put small items (picture hanging supplies, batteries and chargers...) in the 3-drawer units on top of the bigger drawers, which are at a great height. So easy to access!

3. Start trash and donation piles. Look into places near you/what they take. I put aside tools for our local Habitat for Humanity Restore, cardboard moving boxes to put up on Facebook Marketplace for free, and lots of paper recycling for our weekly collection.

4. Have a friend help you! My sweet friend knew I needed to do this project and offered to help when she came over to catch up and hang out one weekend! Makes it go so much faster.

My goal with this project was to be able to access our tools, plus have room for the gym setup. (You can see the black roll of flooring is not set up yet and the weights are still in piles--but I achieved my goal!) This is SUCH an improvement and for someone who uses tools, tape, and paint brushes as much as I do right now, this was essential!

Thanks to Fred Meyer Direct for sponsoring this post and providing the product for this project. Check out all the home improvement and organization products (plus toys, sporting equipment, and more) on Fred Meyer Direct!

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