The garage: This is one area
of the house that is relentlessly avoided. It is a place where you throw equipment and tools into piles,
where bikes and boxes are tangled in heaps of plastic and metal, and where your smelly garbage hibernates
until pickup day.
Dread builds up once spring rolls around, when your children are begging for their scooters and your barren
garden is screaming, “Make me beautiful again!” Even though you may not know where to start, getting around
to organizing your garage is a huge and essential task to take on.
Aaron Cash of Garage Living says that with toys, patio furniture and gardening tools, the men are not the
number one contributors to the growing clutter as they’re made out to be. “I think people have that
impression but the truth is, a lot of our customers are women,” says Cash. “[Garages] have become a family
storage area.”
Garage Living is Toronto’s largest and most experienced garage organization and flooring company. They
specialize in creating your dream garage and have done so for more than 3,000 satisfied clients.
Because of so many things that you store in the garage, like bikes, wheel barrels and camping equipment, it
becomes a messy and often dirty place. Cash says the main motivation for his clients to finally organize
their garages is because they had enough of living in a dirty space. “It’s both an outside and inside place,”
says Cash. “They want to keep it clean, keep it organized and not be filled with dirt.”
The biggest obstacle is that homeowners may feel overwhelmed. Cash suggests that clients go into the
consultation with a good understanding of the items they plan on storing and what they want the space to look
like. The consultants then create a plan, and pick out the products.
An essential storage system, if you have the ceiling height in the garage, is overhead storage. “All spaces
are different so it depends, but high storage is a must,” says Cash. Overhead storage frees up floor spaces
and utilizes areas that wouldn’t otherwise be used.
Cash says wall organizers are extremely important as well. “They get things off the floor and you have
the ability to see things rather than have them in a pile.” A VersaTrac Panel is designed for tough garage
conditions and they firmly support hooks, baskets and shelves. They’re available in grey, white and
taupe colours.
“It’s not a fixed system,” says Cash. Anyone can add and rearrange hooks or take away storage shelves
from the panels. “You can make use of the wall space and make changes as you need.”
Another key element in a garage: flooring. According to Cash, “Flooring is definitely the number one product
people are interested in.” It’s more of an enhancement product that changes the garage floor from a dirty
outdoor space to a clean indoor space. “It allows you to keep the garage as clean as any other room in your
home,” says Cash.
Garage Living has the largest showroom in Canada and largest selection of products, with thousands of
completed installations to date. They transform your garage into a functional, organized and valuable room in
your home within one to two days. •
