If you’re like most folks, your garage is packed to the brim with cardboard boxes, old sporting equipment, dead moths, and dust. What was once an empty space with endless possibilities is now a 300 square-foot dumpster for all of your unwanted furniture and home goods—a space that is more embarrassing than useful.
Imagine what you could do with your garage if it weren’t filled to the brim with stuff—imagine a better garage for you and your loved ones.
That’s why we’re all here today. In this blog, the Laurel junk removal experts at Spartan Junk Removal will guide you through some possibilities for your garage that can add usable square footage to your home and make your garage the envy of the neighborhood.
A Bar
Let’s begin where the night ends… at the bar. Not a bar downtown or at the new gentrified shopping center up the road—the bar in your garage. It’s a bar-age, if you will, and it doesn’t have to close down at 2 a.m. like your favorite watering holes. It opens a bit earlier, too—you know, for all of those 10 a.m. (okay, 9 a.m.) mimosas and bloodys.
For those with smaller, detached garages, a bar with some added seating could be an excellent use of space. You could even add a small kitchenette with a few burners so you can whip up some snacks, too. Get creative with lighting (a cool neon sign would give your bar an authentic feel), and get plenty of comfy chairs, and your garage will be the talk of the town for years to come.
A Man Cave
If you’ve watched shows like Garage Mahal, you know that the “man cave” is a go-to option for garage spaces. For better or for worse, the garage has become a token “man space”—it’s where dads often to go to fix cars, fix broken household components with power tools, and make pinewood derby cars. However, some men have no need a workshop like this—all they need is a place to drink crispy cans of suds and watch football games.
This is the purpose of a man cave. It’s a place to watch sporting events, lounge around, eat nachos and other fatty, meaty, cheesy concoctions, and fall asleep around 2:30 in a recliner without a care in the world. We can see ourselves now, plopping down on the couch, opening a pizza box, getting comfortable and…. Zzzzzzzzz.
We must be very clear: a man cave, despite its name, is not just for men. This TV-watching space is also great for family movie nights, viewing parties of The Bachelor, and just about any other activity that involves lounging on a couch in your sweatpants and staring at the big screen.
A Home Gym
Having a home gym is the dream of many fitness enthusiasts, and for good reason—it must be amazing to have your own private workout space where you pick your own music, fly from station to station without a wait, and don’t have to wipe the butt sweat of a 65-year old man off of the bench press bench.
There are a few logistical things to keep in mind when turning your garage into a gym—you’ll need to cover your hard concrete floor with a rubber gym floor covering to prevent floor damage from weights as well as minimize the risk for personal injury during activities, to start. You’ll also need to add a few fans to keep cool and some insulation to keep quiet—loud workout jams or dropped weights in your tinny garage could lead to some not-so-happy neighbors. After all, we all know that neighbor who has the non-emergency police on speed dial.
An Organizational Hub
Sometimes, you just can’t get away from all the stuff in your garage. Maybe you have seven kids who all own kid-sized kayaks, or maybe you run a business out of your home that involves plenty of shipping and receiving. Whatever the case, your garage can come in very handy for home organization.
Large shelves with stackable boxes and containers will provide you with all the storage you need for camping gear, sporting goods, landscaping equipment, and anything else that must be stowed away for future use. Label these bins for more detailed organization, and enjoy long-lasting storage benefits.
Most people have to use their garage for storage in some way—would you rather have loose piles of boxes that you have to climb over to access, or a tidy and organized space where all of your gear is at your fingertips?
A Playroom
Your kids can be pretty loud—especially when they’re playing around in your home. Playing is necessary for the cognitive development of your children, but it can also put your personal property at risk, like when kids in movies break lamps with footballs or knock priceless Hummels off the shelf while wrestling. “The dog did it,” they say.
Fortunately, a garage serves as an excellent playroom where kids can go wild without doing any damage to your property. Kids can get messy with paints, run around with sporting equipment, and explore their creative side with toys—the possibilities are endless! They can even pop open the garage door and take the action outside (with your parental supervision, of course).
The best part? Your kids can go wild and make a mess in your garage while your home stays neat and tidy. No more stepping on Legos in the living room (ouch!) or banana-peeling on a Hot Wheel in the kitchen—your house will look great while your kids have their own space to have a good time.
A Game Room
A game room is essentially a playroom that welcomes adults as much as kids—a place where people of all ages can come together and have some fun. Some of us prefer to dance around the ping pong table without a care in the world, while others would rather test their mental fortitude and gamesmanship in a game of pool. Then there are the rowdy, borderline belligerent foosball players. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that if you foos, you lose.
Turning your garage into a game room is a great way to bring the family together—you can play cards or board games, throw some darts, or anything else that your family finds to be fun. Let the games begin!
An Indoor Patio
Outdoor patios are alright—but an indoor patio is something special. Somewhere between a cabana and a hotel lounge, an indoor patio is a great place to relax and enjoy the outdoors without really being outdoors. For this garage renovation, you’ll need to add some windows (or even another garage door on the back of your garage) to give your space more of an airy, outdoor feel. Then, you can add comfortable furniture, mood lighting and even a free-standing fireplace to complete the look. Some people even put hot tubs in their indoor patio spaces—a bold move that could lead to a lot of fun in your garage for years to come.
Music Studio
You don’t want your angsty teenager and all of his angsty friends to start their new black metal band in your basement, do you? The sounds of their down-tuned guitars and ghostly screams through a $100 PA system will shake your entire home and leave you with as many nightmares as migraines.
For cripes’ sake—they call it a “garage band” for a reason. Basically all kids start their musical journeys in a garage band of some sort, and many of those kids become adults that are musically talented and creatively fulfilled. So why not get your aspiring musician started on the right foot?
Adding soundproofing materials and insulation to your space is a great place to start—you know, to dull the strange sounds and out-of-tune guitars and to keep your neighbors a little less peeved. Next, make sure they have enough outlets to plug in all of their gear safely, and give them a few tables and chairs where they can set up their computers or relax while they record sounds and experiment with musical styles. Throw a mini-fridge into the mix, and you’ve laid the groundwork for a full-fledged studio! Don’t worry, the creative musician kids will do the rest.
A Next-Level Workshop
For the handiest of us, a workshop is a must. Having a place to toy around with hot rods and motorcycles, fix kitchen appliances, and build stuff in an essential part of many households—so if you’re going to do it, you better do it right. The best workshops have solid electrical infrastructure to handle power tools and the like, as well as enough space to lay things out, park a car, or do some serious building. Tool storage is also essential—wall-mounted pegboards and plenty of customizable drawers will keep everything where it needs to be. Finally, a workshop table will be the place where all great projects begin—so find something sturdy and spacious for all of those smaller workshop projects.
A Specialized Hobby Room
For all the hobbyists out there, this is where things get fun. Are you an avid cyclist? An amateur radio broadcaster? A collector of toys and machines? If you have a hobby, you need a hobby room in your garage.
The beauty of garages is that messes really don’t matter—you can toss paint or motor oil all over the place, spread out wood and tools, set up thousands of dollars of photography or videography gear, or store your dirty BBQ smoker and grilling supplies. Whatever your hobby is, you can retrofit your garage to suit it—and if your hobbies change over time, your garage change, too. The garage has always been, and will forever be, the best hobby room—take advantage of this amazing activity space.
A Place to Park Your Car
We’ve talked about quite a few ways to make the most of your garage space. You could turn it into an entertainment space, a space for relaxation, a space for hard work and exercise, a space for storage, or even a space that houses the indoor portion of your indoor/outdoor water park. The possibilities are as endless as your budget and your creativity.
However, there’s one more way you can use your garage, and it might be hard to put your finger on at first. Imagine a place where you, the homeowner, can make your beloved car feel at a home—a place where your car can be safe and secure. A place where your car feels at home. Imagine a garage where, instead of parking your junk, you can park your car.
Sounds crazy, right? Who actually parks their car in their garage these days? Not too many people have this luxury, but you can be one of these people. Never scrape your windshield ever again, or worry about criminals breaking into your vehicle in the middle of the night. Never spend any time outside during your day—go straight from your house to your garage to your office parking garage and back again. When your garage is free of junk, parking your car is truly within your reach.
But you can’t park in your garage unless you get rid of all of your junk. That’s where Spartan Junk Removal can help. Let us take care of your garage junk with expert rubbish removal and friendly, helpful service—we take care of mattresses, hot tubs, and anything elser you consider to be junk. All it takes is one call to free up space in your garage and start your new life as a hobbyist, a garage entertainer, a creative genius, or just a guy who actually parks his car in the garage. Schedule an estimate with us today!