Looking for ways to clean up your garden shed mess? We've got the best projects for organizing your shed and finally finding the right place for all those hard-to-store items.
21 Shed Organization Ideas and Projects You Should Know
Install a Large Tool Hanger By the Door
Specifically, a broom and mop holder can be incredibly useful when mounted by the shed door. You can use it to hold your rakes, shovels and many other long-handle types of garden tools within an arm’s reach. Plus, there’s no need to drill holes in all of your handles. Why not make it easy on yourself?
Use a Magnetic Bar for Smaller Tools
Peg boards and other traditional methods of organizing tools still work, but we suggest upgrading to a magnetic tool bar. They make it much easier to replace tools once you are done, and you don’t have to worry as much about placement or hanging. Plus, they are very easy to install almost anywhere in your shed!
Have a Garden Hod Ready to Go
A garden hod is a work basket with a simple handle. They are ideal for cutting and rinsing vegetables from your garden, or carrying new plants and bulbs along with the tools you need for the project. Basically, it’s a handy garden tote for whatever project you have in mind. Make space for a hod right inside your shed, and prep it with the tools and items you will be using for your next project.
Put Your Old Containers to Work Again
Do you have old planters or baskets that no longer hold plants? Storing them is a good idea, but why not both store them and put them to work? Use these planters to hold common shed goods, such as extra mulch or potting soil, birdseed, fertilizer, packets of garden seeds and more.
Set Up a Calendar Space
Calendars are becoming increasingly popular for sheds for a couple of reasons. First, large, durable calendars with enough room to make notes on are a great way to plan out your landscaping projects or just weekly/monthly tasks that you want to remember.
Second, it’s a great way to list out the proper planting/cultivating/harvesting times for all the plants that you want to grow throughout the year, which can be challenging to keep straight. With a big enough annual calendar, you can even tape seed packets to the appropriate dates for planting to save more time.
Add Small Shelves for Additional Items
A few hanging shelves can be an excellent addition to your shed for organizing small items. You can use these small shelves for many purposes such as storing gloves, keys and other items that don’t really fit anywhere else. Above the work surface is an excellent spot for these catch-all shelves for more storage shed organization.
Pallets Can Be Your Friend
Pallets usually come along with large landscaping projects, and if you have a big yard you may have an annoying annual influx of pallets that have to be broken down and thrown away. But you can make use of a couple of pallets in your tool storage shed by standing them on end against a wall and storing long-handled garden tools and other awkward items behind them.
Build a Fold-Down Table for Plant Prep
In a perfect world, every shed would have a large, sturdy bench to do quick potting and prep work, or to hold hobby-related tools. But in reality, few sheds actually have this much room.
If you would love a work space but a permanent bench is out of the question, try building a fold-down table instead (you can also buy fold-down tables at home improvement stores). It saves on space and gives you the work surface you need. Just make sure it is attached to a strong wall.
Need More Space? Add Another Shed!
A problem many homeowners eventually run into is that their shed becomes crowded with different types of stored items—gardening implements are hung next to ski poles and inner tubes rest next lawnmowers.
This can make organization very difficult and cause a lot of space problems. One of the best solutions is to build a separate shed to store like items. You can find a variety of shed kits if you don’t want to build one from scratch.
You Don’t Need to Keep Everything
On an annual basis, go through your shed and throw away everything you really don’t need to store. Sheds tend to accumulate some items that shouldn’t be kept around and that take up way too much space. Take chicken wire, for example. It’s not worth the effort to store, and it costs very little to replace it later on. Don’t let an automatic store everything mentality ruin your shed’s usefulness! And be sure to purge once in a while to maintain your storage shed organization.
Make Use of a Mobile Cart
A mobile cart is a great solution to keep your frequently used garden tools and supplies (gloves, soil, trowels, etc.) in one spot and properly organized. You have two choices here: First, you can try our DIY garden cart project to use materials you may already have. Second, you can buy a durable garden center that can hold a wider variety of items. Both are a great fit for organizing your shed.
Photo: Inna Reznik/Shutterstock
Install a Track for Holding Tools
We particularly like the GearTrack rack for organizing your shed, because it’s easy to install. These tracks can hold a variety of different-sized tools, making them ideal for your shed. Remember to install the rack fairly high up in your shed to free up floor space.
Create a Garden Supply Cupboard on an External Wall
A garden supply cupboard is a fun little cubby that you can mount on the outside of your shed. Pull the box open, and it can hold common garden tools or supplies you use every day. This helps when organizing your shed and makes cleanup easier, too. Check out our plans for a cupboard to see if it works for you.
Make Space for a Pegboard Organizer
Pegboard is one of the best materials for organizing your shed. Install a wall of pegboard, and with the right hooks and attachments you can transform that wall into whatever type of storage space you need. Add a few labels for better organization, and you’ve got a great solution. Here’s our guide on how to use pegboard for storage.
Photo: ItsPaz/Shutterstock
Seal Up Patio Cushions and Related Items
If you use your garden shed to store patio cushions and other seasonal items, then you need a way to protect those cushions and keep them from cluttering up your shelves. We suggest a cushion storage bag, which is designed for this very thing, but you can also repurpose any large, sealable plastic bags.
Photo: Stockforlife/Shutterstock
Simple Rack for Long-Handled Tools
This compact rack is strong and simple to build. You can store shovels, rakes, a sledgehammer—any long-handled tools—conveniently up and out of the way.
Add a Potting Bench
We have plans for a beautiful cedar potting bench that you can construct for your garden shed. This allows you to concentrate the messiness of working with plants into a single area that’s made for just that kind of work.
Photo: Del Boy/Shutterstock
Include Plenty of Toy Storage
Do you end up using your shed to store a lot of yard toys that tend to get cluttered, even when they are “put away”? This handy cubbyhole-based project has space for lots of toys and gear.
Build a Lumber Rack
If you use your shed for storing rough lumber and boards, you need a rack or two to keep the boards off the floor and to allow space between boards for air to circulate. If you also have plywood to store, this plywood rack is perfect to help organize your shed.
Photo: ElRoi/Shutterstock
Storing Hazardous Materials
If you store any cleaners, pesticides, pool chemicals or other hazardous materials in your shed, consider keeping them up and away from kids and pets in a wall cabinet or similar lockable storage area.
Photo: Amirul Syaidi/Shutterstock
Storage Drawers
These drawers are a great way to organize all those tools and supplies kicking around your shed. Here’s how to make these DIY garage storage drawers.