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Cities like San Francisco are notorious for the small amount of space apartment dwellers need to make due with. Lucky you then, if you find yourself living in a single family home with the valuable additional storage space of a garage! However, if you are like most people, you probably make the mistake of simply hiding in your garage anything you don’t really want in your home. This likely includes unused, bulky items that you’ll never think about or miss.

That’s why we recommend reclaiming your garage. A decent sized garage gives you creative flexibility over a space in your house you probably never thought about. A home gym, laundry room, a tinkering station, and even more inhabitable spaces such as a home office or indoor/outdoor space if you invest some time and money into it. But most importantly, a well organized garage gives you valuable storage space for the items you may not often use but still need. Golf clubs, skis, bikes, Christmas decoration, bulky winter coats, and more.

That means you may not want to use up all the space with old junk such as broken coffee tables, or your great aunt’s outdated china. Reclaiming your garage is a great spring cleaning project that can be accomplished in a short weekend. Here are our easy to follow steps to discovering a whole new room in your home.

1. Triage
Go through all of your furniture and items and make three piles. Some things are stored in the garage for a reason and you will want to keep them. Set those aside to be organized at a later stage. Other items may be pointless to keep yet valuable. This may include your great aunt’s outdated china for example. Sort aside those items you think you’d like to sell or give away to friends. As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. More likely than not, however, you will realize that a great majority of your garage space is currently taken up by useless junk. That’s the pile you want to have removed.

2. Recycle the smart way
We are a green cleaning business and, if possible, always advocate sustainable methods of living, whether that includes non-toxic cleaning methods or using recycling whenever possible. Thankfully, we live in a city that fosters a sustainable approach to living by making such choices easy to come by. You will be able to find a number of collection bins for a variety of uses, such as those offered by the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Good to know: If you keep track of what you are donating, you can also deduct the face value of your donations as tax deductible charitable contribution. And you are helping someone in need, to boot.

3. Get rid of your junk
But what about those bulky items and furniture pieces that make transportation difficult? Recology SF and other junk removal companies are at your service. All you need to do is call them and set up a time! Good to know: most services will come right to your doorstep, but alo pick up discarded furniture and items from commercial and retail locations. Other Bay Area junk removal services we like include 1-800-Got-Junk and Fast Haul.