| San Antonio Express-News (TX) |
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| Special Section Page 06L |
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| Organizers can help purge garage of junk |
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| Jennifer Hiller EXPRESS-NEWS BUSINESS WRITER |
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| Publication Date : March 16, 2008 |
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If that place where your car is supposed to reside has turned into an enormous closet, or worse, a landfill, you're not alone.
The garage has become a major trouble spot for most homeowners -- the place where you pile things and forget about them, a dumping ground for everything you don't want inside the house.
"People can have the most pristine house, and then you open the garage and you go, 'Oh, is that why you park your car in the driveway?"' said professional organizer Cynthia Cunningham of San Antonio's Absolute Organization. "I call it the cemetery."
But it doesn't have to be that way, she said.
Organizing and improving a garage can be as simple as using some elbow grease to clean and purchasing some clear plastic containers to organize.
"I tell my clients to shop their home first. Shop their garage first. They're surprised at how many bins they have from systems they've bought before," Cunningham said. "You don't have to spend a lot of money."
Or for serious garage enthusiasts, hobbyists who spend a lot of time in the garage or those who want to turn their garage into an extension of their house, professional cabinetry and organization systems can help corral the clutter. Special floor coatings can make the garage easy to mop up and help match the garage to the inside of the house.
Seth Hoegemeyer, part owner of PremierGarage, a San Antonio company that installs custom flooring, cabinetry and rack systems in garages, said the trend of updating garages is just reaching San Antonio, although it has been popular on the West Coast for years.
"It's basically the front door to most people's homes," he said. "We can tie it into the rest of the house. It's an inexpensive way to get another 400 square feet out of your house.
Adding hybrid polymer flooring, cabinets and wall racks in a typical two-car garage costs between $3,000 and $5,000, Hoegemeyer said.
Although people associate such garages with luxury homes, most of Hoegemeyer's clients live in homes that cost between $200,000 and $250,000. "It's a good resale factor. In a buyer's market when they have 10 houses to choose from that fit their criteria, this makes a house stand out."
For homeowners who want to put gym equipment in the garage or who like to keep the garage doors open on the weekends while they putter in the garage or yard, the polymer floors and cabinets can give a home a tidier appearance from the street.
"You can mop the ground," Hoegemeyer said. "It's easy to keep clean."
San Antonio custom builder Todd Glowka has been offering his clients an upgraded garage for about four years.
"It adds a finishing touch," Glowka said. "When people are going to spend a million bucks, the last thing they want to see there is gray concrete. It's always something that I offer to my clients, and probably 75 percent of them take it."
Homeowners and builders already have recognized that, like it or not, the garage doors often take up a huge portion of a home's facade.
Garage door design has gone upscale in an effort to try to match the garage to the rest of the home.
Duane Benton, vice president of "garage things" at Hollywood-Crawford Door Co., a San Antonio garage-door and garage-organization company, also said some homeowners are adding nicer garage doors at a cost of $600 to $700 before putting a house on the market as a way to improve curb appeal.
But one of the most popular improvements is adding a floor coating, which Benton said helps keep dust out of the garage and out of the house.
"Some people are shooting pool in the garage. Instead of the front porch, they're using the garage. That's how they wave at the neighbors," Benton said. "It's in the shade. It can be a semi-outdoor living room."
Home automation systems have reached the garage, and some new garage door openers can do things such as turn on outdoor lighting or lights in the home, Benton said. Some of the newest storage systems include dumbwaiter systems than lift Christmas decorations and other items into the attic.
For those homeowners on tighter budgets, Cunningham recommends cleaning and organizing.
Take everything out of the garage, throw away or donate what you won't use and then figure out what needs to go back inside.
Do this before you spend money on containers, pegboards, racks or shelves. "You want to see what you've got so you can fit it in the containers," she said.
Heavy-duty, clear plastic containers will withstand Texas' temperature extremes and allow you to see what's inside. Cunningham also recommends labeling containers. Metal shelving and pegboards can be an inexpensive way to store things. Metal or plastic bins can hold sports equipment.
While you have everything hauled out of the garage, add a fresh coat of paint to the walls.
"It's a dirty room to begin with, but with fresh paint you'll think twice about what you're going to put back in there," she said.
The bad news: Even if you get organized soon, you'll need to spring-clean the garage again next year.
"People use the garage like a warehouse. We've all done it," Cunningham said. "You need to put effort into it at least once a year. You don't just buy, contain and walk away."
jhiller@express-news.net
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