This $10 Closet Organized Transformed My Garage Storage

Teachers have the most innovative storage and organizing solutions. I’m lucky enough to live next door to a retired fourth grade teacher, and I learn something from her every time we’re together. My most recent discovery? A simple, inexpensive, completely genius garage storage solution: a plastic shoe organizer for storing all those hard-to-store items that clutter baskets and shelves in most garages, and can’t ever be found when you actually need them.

For just $10, a plastic shoe organizer can turn an unused vertical space in your garage, a notoriously difficult space to keep in order, into a functional space that serves your household.

My friend used Command hooks to hang her plastic shoe organizer on her garage wall. Since we have a small storage closet in our garage, I hung our organizer from the back of the door, facing into the garage. Then, I got to work putting the odds and ends that never really had a good home in its pockets.

And presto chango! Now I have a place for small things I need for cleaning, gardening, and other household tasks.

My shoe organizer holds our gardening gloves (one pair per pocket), small pruning shears and other gardening tools; hooks, cleaning brushes, repair markers for scratches on wood; our container of compressed air; glass cleaning rags, and more.

Because the pockets are clear, we can see exactly what we have so we can grab it in seconds. But I still include labels on the pockets so everyone knows where to put things away — which is key to maintaining any organizational system.

This post originally ran on Apartment Therapy. See it there: This $10 Closet Organizer Is Also a Genius Garage Storage Solution