Hi Mom,
I'm cleaning out my garage today, and I'm overwhelmed with sports equipment. Because our kids are different enough in age, we need multiple sizes of everything, and they each play multiple sports, plus my husband also plays sports (I have just one sport - golf). I have not been able to come up with any good way to organize all the equipment. It just lays around everywhere. We have about 5 baseball bats, 3 gloves, 4 basketballs, 4 golf bags with clubs, dek hockey goals, sticks, and balls, tennis raquets, a soccer ball, plus the generic kid balls that they play 4-square, etc with.
This stuff all just piles up in the middle of the garage between cars. What do others do to keep this stuff from turning into chaos? It needs to be pretty accessible, because they are in and out of all of it all the time.
We have a sports equipment organizer similar to this one...
http://www.target.com/p/rubbermaid-sports-station-storage...
It holds soccer balls, La Crosse equipment (sticks, gloves, helmets) and baseball stuff...as well as my kids scooters (when folded)...makes our lives soo much easier!!
We use these:
http://www.containerstore.com/shop/garage/sportsEquipment...
http://www.containerstore.com/shop/garage/sportsEquipment...
Can't tell you how much these helped us!!
We use the wall rails that attaches various bins. We have a ball bin with the elastic straps that will hold about 7 balls. You can get as many as you need. Then for the hockey gear, we have the rolling closets that we picked up at Bed Bath and Beyond. We use hangers to hang the jerseys and gear. I use the pant clip hangers I get from the stores to hang the hockey sock & cups. The gloves and small items, I drop at the bottom. I toss the bags on top of the the closet, which we call lockers.
Tennis rackets and golf bags can hang on that rail. There are several different types of hooks you can buy.
Get some sports equipment organizer bins.
I keep the person's stuff for their sport in their bag/backpack for that sport.
I have a bat bag for softball/T-Ball/baseball. Everything including their helmets go in the bad.
I have a backpack for soccer where the ball goes in it's own pocket. Kids names are embroidered on that section.
For basketball we have a tub on a shelf for those. I think a large barrel would fit in one corner for the tall things where they'd have enough on the bottom to keep them upright.
You can either:
-Get a clear bin for each child w/their name on it & label "Johhny's soccer equipment." (Or just his name & a picture of a soccer ball.) "Tommy's baseball equipement".
-For at home things, different clear bins. One for balls, for mitts, for cones
etc. A bucket for bats, tennis raquets etc.
-You can, also, use crates & nets for balls.
We used something similar to this but a little bigger. We didn't get it from this site but you can look around
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http%3...
These things are usually designed to be against a garage wall so there's still room for the cars.
Anything that hangs bats & racquets and that has a rack on the bottom for skates or roller blades was a great thing for us. The nets let you throw all the balls and odd sized items into them but they are still visible. You could also use a standard hardware rack designed for rakes & brooms - the expandable clamps should hold bats, and the part of the prong that sticks out can be used to hook the gloves in plain view. Take a bat with you to be sure the clamps expand enough to accept the narrow end of the bat. We also used those large rubber-coated hooks to screw into the studs of the garage and keep things obvious. And of course it helps if each kid has a different color bag for their own things that head out in the car.
I'd steer away from rubber bins and things that just become big heaps of things - you can't see what's on the bottom, and the kids just take out what's on top and toss it on the floor while searching for what's on the bottom. Something that has a full set - e.g. volleyball net, stakes, & ball - that are not used for anything else can go in a bag or bin devoted to just that sport.
