Between everything else I have going on and working with my organization clients, I’ve been tackling trouble areas in my home. I’m proof that even though time may be limited, if you have a plan / list and break it down into small jobs – you will get it done. And feel a whole lot better along the way.

I’ve mentioned my garage has been a big issue. I started with one very important wall and am working my way around this 3-car garage…taking one wall at a time. This weekend? I created a very simple utility wall.

This wall is just around the corner from my new garage mudroom. And it wasn’t pretty to begin with…

The previous homeowner created this hanging system by nail-gunning base moulding to the wall and adding hooks…

Good idea and am sure it worked for them, but it wasn’t working for me. The wall is so huge and you know I’m a vertical space girl. For me, all I used their system for was hanging the ironing board and extra shopping bags…

But the bags stuck out so far into the walkway heading to the door to the yard…

And you can see there is a ton of wasted space above and below it….

The wall was begging for a better system and I was on it! Down came the moulding and hooks, which was easy to do by unscrewing the hooks and using a crow bar / hammer to remove the moulding…

 

 

 

With it down, I patched the holes and gave the entire wall and fresh coat of paint…

 

I love a blank slate!…

To create my utility wall, I grabbed a few utility tracks and components from The Container Store. Installing the utility track is SO easy. I used 2 tracks on this wall – one at the top…

And one just below the wall outlets…

Once your tracks are up, all you need to do is add the components of your choosing…

And then hang your items. Done!…

The beauty in this system is that I can change out the components in the event my items hanging here change. And they will, knowing me. For example, I have more extension cords to hang, but they are in use right now. I’ll add more hooks for those in the near future. I am also working in another corner of the garage for the yard tools and other items I want out of reach from the kids. If anything doesn’t fit over there, it will come over here. And I can do that easily because this system is easy to change! But for now, everything is up…

I’m also making much better use of the entire wall space. AND no one will knock their hands on something as they walk past to get to the yard…

Very low profile with a very big impact!

The hooks don’t protrude far out either…

I could not be more thrilled with this system or the fact this wall / another home improvement project is off my list. Took about an hour to assemble this system…and that’s because I was obsessing over where things should hang. For you, the lesser OCD types, could be 30 minutes!

Before…

After…

Go DIY / organize something and have a great day!