Need Innovative Storage Ideas

[kfvintx]

Been lurking awhile and now I need some help...

Background - recently moved into new house with 3 car garage (2 wide and on side 2 deep). One of the three is dedicated to small business of plantation shutter manufacturing and other misc. woodworking projects. Would like to keep one area open for general working and piddling around stuff.

Sooooo, where is the problem you ask.... I need to somehow fit 3 motorcycles, 6 bicycles, 1 bicycle child trailer (connects to bike allowing child to sit inside while dad suffers... uhhhhhh, I mean, enjoys extra exercise), 3 battery operated kid's ride-on toys (take up lots of floor space) and the normal lawn equipment.

4 of 6 bikes are for kids so mounting on the wall or hooks is not really feasible for easy usage for them. They only ride the battery ride-on toys when we are outside with them so thinking of maybe a lift system for them on pulley system to raise them off the floor.... maybe? We have 9' finished ceiling as well.

So I come to seek the advice of the gurus.... what innovative storage ideas are out there?


(BTW, adding on is not considered "innovative storage idea").

 

[JMURiz]

Do you want to put cars in the garage as well, or just that stuff?

 

[kfvintx]

Cars in the garage??? Why would I do that???

As nice as it would be I don't have plans to park car in garage. Neither my full size truck nor girlfriend's full size SUV really fit.

She's fine parking on driveway so I get full use of 3 car garage..... as for the other 3400 square feet of the house -- not so much

 

[Wingnut65]

So, you actually have a one-car sized shop and a two-car storage room?

You can start off with masking tape on the floor to create dedicated parking space areas for the Power Wheel, Bikes and Motorcycles, just to see how much space they actually take up. If everything is packed tightly, there may be adequate floor space for some of the necessities in a garage, like a beverage container (aka Fridge)! And, if the space doesn't work, pick up the tape and put it down on the other side of the room.

Cutting out paper shapes to lay out a space plan can work, but its not as much fun as working in the garage.

 

[familytruckster]

You can start off with masking tape on the floor to create dedicated parking space

If you stripe the parking spaces on a diagonal you can fit more cars in your parking lot... ahem garage.

 

[Praxis]

Delurking, because the bike issue is something I've been looking at for a while with 4 kids in the house. And while I'm very grudgingly OK with storing them outside while they're young, I hate to see them get rusted up and they're going to have to go inside at some point.

This probably isn't what you want short term (because of the hook issue), but the best high-density storage I've seen is something like this. It looks easily done on the cheap (though "on the cheap" isn't necessarily what I always see an emphasis here) with a pipe and closet-rod type of hangers and hooks/rollers. I could see kids hanging up bikes on this if there were lower hooks, which seems like just a trivial extension of the higher ones.

There's lots of stuff out there for a couple of bikes, maybe 4, but not as much for higher numbers.

 

[shannonw]

Outside of building a bike shed close by I've come up blank with the kids bikes and stuff. I have 2 adult bikes, 2 kids bikes, 2 trailers, 1 jogger stroller, i don't know *how* many other types strollers there are. I'd kill for a 3 car garage =) I have a 2 car and hope to maybe put a car in there one day =)

Though i'm close, i've built probably 100+sq feet of soffit storage around the perimeter of the garage, just took some space from another room for storage, water heater,etc. But the kids stuff i can't come up with anything..

I did think for carriers/trailers i was thinking on building a free standing square shelf so they occupy 1/2 the floor space 1 on top of other.

But I'm probably going to put a bike rack for day use, then build a shed or side shed one down the side of the house, let the kids get the bikes and stuff from there and i'll of course have to put them back =P

Then i'll probably give up trying to put a car in the garage and build a car port and keep the car there. I don't really like the hassle of opening/shutting garage doors anyways,etc just like it covered.