If your apartment garage is overflowing with clutter, try these tips for organizing your garage space.  By analyzing which items you need to store and how frequently you use them, you can create a garage organization system that fits with your lifestyle and frees up space for your car.

Automotive supplies and tools
You should think vertical when it comes to fitting auto supplies and tools into your garage organization plan.  Use shelving to house toolboxes and store loose items like saws, hammers, and funnels on pegboard with hooks.  You can even stow small items like nails and screws by attaching baby food jar lids to the underside of a shelf.  Place the small items in the glass jars, and then screw the jars into the lids.

Potentially dangerous chemical items like paint or car soap call for a lockable storage cabinet — either wall-mountable or freestanding.  These items need to be out of the reach of curious children and pets.

Sports equipment
When it comes to storing sports equipment in your apartment garage, consider how often you use it.  You probably don’t need regular access to your snowboard, but keeping a bike helmet handy is a good idea.  Hang seasonal items like the snowboard high since you don’t need to get at them very often.  The bike helmet, on the other hand, should be easily accessible and lower to the ground.

Consider getting a ventilated storage bin for items like the helmet that get heavy use.  These items often get sweaty, and allowing them to breathe in a ventilated box will prolong their lifespan.

No matter how often you use your sporting goods, keep them off of the floor.  It can be very tempting to prop sports equipment like bikes or tennis rackets up against the wall, but doing so usually results in damage.  The minute someone slams a car door too hard or opens a door too fast, items that are propped against a wall fall over or get dinged.  Protect your stuff and stay organized by storing it on racks or hooks (available at sports retailers).  And for bikes, a pulley system works well for keeping multiple bicycles off the floor and out of the way of the car.

Holiday decorations
Holiday decorations only come out for a few weeks a year, but they can be bulky and take up a lot of valuable apartment garage real estate.  The best thing to do with these seasonal items is to organize them by holiday and then put them into a shelving system.

Get different colored storage bins for your holiday decorations — use colors that match the holidays — and label them.  Keep all the Christmas or Hanukah stuff in one box and keep all of the Halloween stuff in another.  Don’t mix holidays:  keeping your things separate will encourage you to stay organized.

Store your holiday bins out of the way.  If you have room along your garage walls for shelves, reserve the highest shelves for these seasonal boxes since you don’t need to get at them often.  If you’re low on wall space next to your car, you can maximize your garage space with special storage racks that attach securely to the ceiling and allow you to take advantage of the space over your car hood or on top of the car roof.

Freeing up space
Still not sure where you’re going to store everything in your apartment garage?  Try freeing up space by looking at how far you pull your car into the garage.  Professional organizers say that most people tend to pull their cars too far into the garage, limiting the amount of usable storage space.  Get yourself some parking blocks and use them to signal when you’re safely inside the garage.  You’ll likely free up a lot of valuable storage space at the back of your garage.