Are you a packrat? Do you find yourself unable to throw anything away? Moreover, do you find yourself being able to rationalize why you just can’t – and shouldn’t, for that matter – throw anything away, no matter how useless, old, or broken beyond repair an item is? Are every nook and cranny of your home filled with random item upon random item – in other words, are you living in a home that’s playing host to a mountain full of “stuff”?

Everyone’s a packrat, in one way or another. There are just some belongings that a person can’t seem to part with, no matter how irrational the reason is. People from all walks of life have a compulsion to keep things, to collect – it’s just that some people have a whole lot more stuff than the average Joe. But instead of trying to – pun intended – pack away this aspect of a packrat, this compulsion to “keep everything” or to “not throw anything away”, why not help the packrat organize the stuff he wants to keep?

It wouldn’t be advisable to put on display a bunch of random trinkets of things inside a home, especially with the minimalist, contemporary style that’s so popular these days. So why not consider the option of garage storage?

Making one’s garage double as a storage area is an ideal option – the garage is easily accessible, but it’s not within the home, so it’s hidden from view. Most important of all, a garage has something that perhaps other parts of a home don’t –a lot of free space that can potentially be used for storage.

Wall-to-wall storage for a garage is easily available, and there’s bound to be products that would fit perfectly with any garage size. But if you find this traditional method of making room in your garage for storage to be too costly and too big of a commitment, here’s another option for you – use an assortment of medical containers and ingredient bins as your storage shelves.

Not yet convinced? Here are a few reasons why these objects are ideal items for storage.

1. They provide a lot of storage. These containers are usually big, with lots of room in them, so they can be stuffed with a lot of items, greatly reducing clutter.
2. They’re inexpensive. Purchase a few containers or bins at a time, consequently organizing your belongings little by little, depending on how much money you have and how much time you can allot for it.
3. They are not unsightly to the eyes. They usually have simple and very basic designs, to help achieve a minimalist look.

Here are some other tips on how to better store your possessions in your garage:

1. Create a packing system. Divide belongings into categories, for instance “toys”, “clothings”, “travel souvenirs”, and put similar items together
2. Label, label, label! In order to make looking for a particular item easier, be sure to label containers and bins, so it won’t be difficult to locate where specific items may be.
3. Edit, as difficult as it may seem. It may be the most difficult step towards becoming more organized, and as impossible as it may seem to a packrat, at least attempt to sort through your belongings to see if there is anything that you can do away with – the rest, you can pack into storage.