How do you keep a clean or organize your garage?

[Mark Nickoson]

BP community, I need some advice kind of help!  I've been into RE investing for 10 years now.  My wife and I have three rentals and our own home.  I manage all four properties.  With all of the properties I've also begun accumulating tools to help me get the jobs done.  So my 2-car garage has a plumbing toolbox, an electrical toolbox, a toolbox with new receptacle covers both white and cream and the foam inserts, I've got the contractor boxes of receptacles, spare garage door rollers, copper plumbing parts, PVC and plastic plumbing parts, 3 boxes of painting supplies, clamps, drills, saws of all kinds, and on and on.  Plus, there are the normal things that come with having a young family such as bicycles, skate boards, baseball bats and gloves, footballs, etc.  I'm running out of room.

I already built an extra 100 square foot shed, but that filled up with extra roofing, concrete supplies, and ladders.  The other shed is devoted to the lawn equipment.  Mowers, string trimmers, chainsaw and some camping equipment.

Does anyone have any advice on how to manage the tools of the trade and reduce the clutter?  I go through things every once in a while and clean out the boxes of junk that come from cleaning out a property.  I use my stuff, but it is starting to take over. 

[Jim K.]

@Mark Nickoson

This is a business, and you have to take care of your moneymakers.

There are a couple tricks we use.

The first is gasket-lined tool boxes. Husky has a big mobile gasket-lined job box -- I have four of them. That's where I keep my power tools, usually in Harbor Freight bags for the stuff that didn't come with its own bag or case. The great thing about these boxes is that you can buy dessicant boxes to keep in them. I've also spent money on the big gasket-lined (Stanley, then Bostitch, now sold under the Craftsman label) toolboxes for hand tools with little dessicant packets in them.

 We have gasket lined bins as well. Ziploc sells them. These are useful for low-use various building supplies that can be affected by moisture, stuff like drywall tape (especially the composite tapes), fasteners (that weren't sold in the big buckets), various hardware (still in clamshell packaging wherever possible), any sort of rubber or vinyl hose, etc.

Larger supplies (rolls of tubing and electrical wire) go in garbage bags.

Sheet good like OSB, plywood, cement board, and drywall are a real pain. You keep that stuff dead dry indoors in above grade, climate controlled storage or you're screwed in western PA.

We do almost always have a rehab going that houses most of the tools and equipment, especially the larger ones that aren't in job boxes or the bins I mentioned. There are certain things you need to do on that rehab to make sure you don't get robbed, of course. I've written about our SimpliSafe system and our Night Owl DVR camera system. We also lock up and chain down those job bins and boxes with padlocks and floor/radiator chains at end-of-day -- anything to make a snatch-and-grab more difficult.

Don't save concrete mix. If you save expensive tile mortar, save it indoors with the bag inside a tied off garbage bag under climate-controlled conditions. Don't save methyl chloride paint stripper. Don't save shellac. Don't buy huge amounts of pretty much any solvent-based coating to get some kind of savings and expect to store it in any sort of open or closed container.

For saving MODEST amounts of solvent-based coatings, on the other hand: one of the better tricks we use is a tool called a a FoodSaver widemouth mason jar attachment hooked up to a brake bleeder/vacuum pump and an assortment of pint-sized and quart-sized widemouth canning jars with 2-part lids. You fill the jars up to the brim (drop glass marbles in them if you don't have enough), establish the vacuum with the brake bleeder, screw on the rim lid. If you do get stuck with a gallon or more of really good stuff in a large container that you've mostly emptied (like a quart of something left in a gallon bucket) that you can't use immediately, this technique will get indefinite storage out of it if done right. Ball also sells widemouth half-gallon canning jars that are sadly hard to find and very expensive.