Organize Your Garage for Safety

	A clean, well-organized garage is a safe garage for adults, kids, and pets. Here are nine easy ways you can make your garage a safer place for you and your family:

1. Always supervise children while they are in a garage. This will eliminate many problems that could arise. Keeping everything organized will make it easier to watch your children, and they'll be less likely to get into unsafe tools or chemicals.
2. There are usually many dangerous tools and chemicals in a garage, so containing those in a garage organizer when children could possibly be around is also very important. Try using a locked cabinet garage organizer that is mounted on the wall.
3. Store dangerous products in their original packaging to ensure that no one, including you, your children (or a neighbor, or a babysitter) can confuse a dangerous product with a safe one.
4. Put away power tools as soon as you are finished using them. Keep sharp objects up high and in closed containers to make it much harder for your child to find that jar of nails that you were using earlier.
5. Cover all electrical outlets with plastic plugs, and find the attachments that fit over the ends of your power tools so they can't be plugged in.
6. Distract the child's attention by storing bouncing balls and other safe children's toys on lower open shelves.
7. Clean up spills right away because you never know what children will be inclined to put into their mouths, or even play in before they come back inside and reach for the cookie jar. Spills can also be a slip hazard, or unsafe for pets.
8. Store ladders in a horizontal position so they can't be climbed by little ones, and shelve lengths of rope in a garage organizer, rather than hang them from hooks.
9. Bolt floor shelving to the wall, so that when children are tempted to climb them, the heavy shelves won't fall on top of them.

Staying organized in the garage is important because of the multitude of dangerous products that we store there. Be sure to find proper homes for chemical substances like lawn fertilizer and motor oil, all of your power tools, fastening hardware, garden tools, rope, spare car parts, and more. Knowing where everything is will protect you from accidentally hurting yourself or others. And, as a bonus, an organized garage will help you finish your to-do list in less time.