Thank You

The post Announcing the Winners of the Woodtex Shed Giveaway + Gift Card! appeared first on Woodtex.com Website.

Did you know that only one in four homeowners have room to park a car in their garage?

Here at Woodtex we talk a lot about helping people Make Room for Life , and that includes getting your car or truck safely parked in a garage.

Your vehicle is a big purchase and it just doesn’t make sense to keep it parked outside exposed to the elements. There are really two solutions that Woodtex provides to this problem.

1. Make room in your garage – store your belongings in a Woodtex Shed!

2. Put a Woodtex Garage on your property, and park your car inside!

One question we get regarding our prefab shed garages is “can I park my car or pickup truck in my shed?” We made a brief video showing you that yes indeed, you can park a full size truck in one of our prefab garages. Take a look!

PREFAB SHED GARAGES

Woodtex prefab shed garages are one of the easiest and most affordable ways to add a garage to your property.

Our prefab garages come standard with 3/4″ LP® ProStruct® Shed Flooring. The floor joists are 2 x 6 and are installed 12″ on center. The ProStruct flooring also has an eco-friendly treatment that protects it from fungal decay & termite damage. In addition, the 4 x 6 notched runners are pressure treated for ground contact.

The Classic Garage in the video is a 12 x 24, and there was plenty of room for me to pull into the garage, open the door, and easily get out of the truck. This garage can be yours for less than $6,000, and it’s built to last decades!

The post Woodtex: Built Tough – Can I Park My Truck In a Prefab Shed? appeared first on Woodtex.com Website.

According to organizer pros, only 25% of homeowners are able to park their car in the garage due to other things cluttering the garage! In addition, one in four report feeling embarrassed by how their garage looks, and they try to keep the door closed so no one can see the mess.

The average car costs $33,500 – one of the biggest purchases you’ll make. Sadly, many of us are forced to park our cars outdoors instead of parking them in the garage because our garages are full of clutter. Parking your car in the garage has a lot of benefits, here are a few:

• Protects your car from sun, acid rain, and bird droppings 
  All of these things can cause the finish and surfaces of your car to prematurely degrade.
• Protects against theft 
  Cars that are stored in garages are less susceptible to getting broken into, or stolen.
• Stay out of the weather! 
  When you return home from a long day at work, it’s not fun to park outside and have to get out into the rain or snow before heading into the house.

Here are some ideas on how you can stop being embarrassed by your garage, and get your car back under roof. Some of these lessons come from personal experience – just a few weeks ago I went through this process and got my car back into the garage.

7 TIPS TO REGAINING YOUR GARAGE:

1) SKETCH A PLAN.

Even a quick sketch on the back of a napkin can help. What are the things you absolutely would want to store in the garage in a best case scenario? Would you like the car on the left, or the right? Is the lawn mower going in front of the car, or beside it? List your non-negotiable items that you know have to end up in the garage. For example, I recently did this exercise, and one item I had to make sure I had room for was the backup emergency generator. That’s a heavy item that has to have floor space, and has to be close to a door or window for ventilation if I need to start it up.

List items that you think you can store on the walls or ceilings, and estimate the amount of hardware / hangers you’ll need. Go to the hardware store and buy the shelves, hooks, and hardware you think you’ll need. Another great item to pick up at the hardware store is some stackable bins with lids on them. If you get clear containers, it’s much easier to find what you’re looking for after you’ve organized the garage.

2) GET EVERYTHING OUT OF THE GARAGE.

This requires a full day, so set aside a day that you know you can dedicate to this project. You may want to invite some friends or family over to help you with this. When I did this, I didn’t invite anyone over for a few reasons – one, I was embarrassed by how bad the mess was, and two, I find it distracting to have other folks around. For me to get into my organizational state of mind I need to spend a little time in the space without any distractions.

The goal is simply to get the garage EMPTY. 

In the four different garages that I’ve organized this step has been the most freeing and inspiring. Taking everything OUT of the garage is the best way to start a garage organization project. You can actually SEE everything that you own, for one. Another benefit is it that it sets you up for success in Step 3!

3) SORT ALL YOUR STUFF INTO FOUR PILES:

• Keep
• Donate – Goodwill, local church
• Sell – Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, Craigslist, etc.
• Toss – 1-800-GOT-JUNK or contact your local municipality

I’ll caution you that this step is exhausting and a bit draining. It’s easy to get decision fatigue at this step. You’re making hundreds of decisions in a short amount of time. Even though I didn’t invite anyone into this process when I did it, my advice is that you may want to have an objective third party join you to help you make some of these decisions.

• The little red wagon that the kids used when they were young? Donate. 
• The 80 year old handheld wood plane that your great grandfather handed down to you? That’s a tough call – probably keep. 
• The pool floaty with a hole in it from two seasons ago? Toss. 
• The super duper bread maker you got for Christmas five years ago and never used? Maybe you can sell it. 

Lay down tarps or blankets on the ground and physically put these piles of stuff on each tarp, to keep the piles from spilling into each other and help visually separate the piles.

4) KEEP THINGS OFF THE FLOOR.

Before moving things back into the garage, install hooks, hangars, shelves and hardware to keep things OFF the floor. Your floor space is precious, and you should aggressively defend it. Even if you pare down your stuff, if you put it all back on the floor of the garage you still won’t have room to park. Here are some things you should consider getting up off the floor:

• Bikes
  If you use your bikes a lot, you may want to invest in a wall mounted rack that is easy to use, but find a way to get your bikes up off the floor.
• Kayaks / Canoes / Paddleboards
  These can take up a ton of space in the garage, but if you get them up off the floor it makes a huge difference. You can buy a ceiling mounted boat rack, or you can craft your own with some ratchet straps and hooks.
• Yard Tools
  It’s worth getting a wall mounted hook system to get your shovels and rakes up off the floor. This also keeps them easy to find when you head out to do a little work in the garden.
• Toolboxes and Storage Crates
  Put these items on shelves along a wall so that you can easily find what your looking for while minimizing the floor space used.

When you are considering what should get stored up on the wall or ceiling, think through how often you need to access it. If you use your fishing rod three times a week, you obviously won’t want to store it in a place where you’ll need a ladder or a step stool to reach it. Things that are rarely used can be hung up in more difficult to reach places.

Pro Tip:

A few weeks ago I learned of a wheelbarrow mounting kit! A wheelbarrow is the perfect example of something that takes up a lot of floor space but doesn’t get used very much. Since we only use our wheelbarrow a few times a year, I mounted it up on the wall with the mounting kit. Now it’s up and out of the way, but I can still get to it when needed.

5) USE A PEGBOARD.

The lowly pegboard is still one of the best ways to organize small items in your garage. It’s cheap, and keeps your small hand tools at hand. It takes up no floor space, and allows you to customize the hook spacing to fit your needs. Hang up things like extension cords, etc. as well. Along with a pegboard, consider a wall mounted small parts organizer. These have a bunch of small drawers for things like screws, washers, etc. Clear plastic drawers let you see what’s inside.

6) LABEL EVERYTHING.

One thing that contributes to clutter is not knowing where things are kept. I’ve found myself buying things that I already owned, simply because I didn’t know where to find it. Get a label maker and put labels on your storage bins and shelves so you can keep track of where everything is. This will save you money and hassle over time, since you won’t have to make a trip to the store to buy something that you already have, but can’t find. It will also make you more productive in the future. When you tackle your to-do list you’ll be able to finish more quickly because you won’t waste time looking for your tools and supplies.

7) CONSIDER A SEPARATE STORAGE SHED.

You may find that despite your best efforts, your ‘KEEP’ pile is still pretty big. If so, consider a separate backyard shed in your yard. You can apply the same organizational tips to your storage shed so that you can optimize that as well. A shed can usually be fitted with an overhead garage door, or with a standard utility door to best suit your needs. A ramp at the entrance makes it easy to store things like a motorcycle, zero-turn lawn mower, or ATV.

A storage shed with a garage door can act as a standalone garage, or it can be an overflow for your existing garage. You may choose to put things like bikes, kayaks, and generator in the shed, which makes it a lot easier to make room for your car in the garage.

Learn more about doing your own Garage Makeover!

OTHER BENEFITS

There are a lot of benefits to having your garage organized. I already mentioned protecting your car from the elements, but here are a few other things you’ll enjoy after organizing your garage:

1) WATCHING A THUNDERSTORM

Open the garage door and sit in a lawn chair looking out at the rain. This is a simple pleasure that takes me back to childhood, watching storms with my dad.

2) ENTERTAIN FRIENDS / KIDS / NEIGHBORS

A neat and clean garage is perfect to use as an extension of your house when you’re entertaining. Set up some folding tables, throw down a table cloth, and you can host a party. Throw open the big garage door, and you’ll have plenty of ventilation and it won’t feel cramped.

3) PLACE FOR THE KIDS TO PLAY WHEN THE WEATHER IS BAD

When it’s raining outside, it’s nice to be able to have a place where the kids can hang out. I used to have a remote controlled race car that I’d run around in the garage and entertain myself for hours. Mom wasn’t too keen on me running it in the house, as I recall, but the garage was the right place for it.

What Do You Think?

I’m sure you can think of many other ways you would use a well organized garage – please don’t hesitate to email me at blog@woodtex.com and let me know what other benefits you would enjoy with a spacious, clean, and organized garage!

Check out more of our organization posts here: Organization or Shed | DIY Shed Organization

The post 7 Tips to Get Your Garage Back! appeared first on Woodtex.com Website.

Do you have more stuff than you can store? It seems this is an increasingly common problem in our household. As our four kids grow up, the mountain of stuff that we have seems to grow as well. Bicycles, paddle boards, an emergency generator, a chest freezer, and air compressor, lawn chairs. A child size teepee.

I know what you’re thinking right now. A teepee? But I digress.

Some would argue that we should pare down – get rid of stuff. Lighten our load. Thing is, the stuff we own for the most part is important (well, ok, maybe not the teepee). We just moved from Pennsylvania to Tennessee this summer, and we tried not to bring anything we didn’t need, but the garage still looks like a storage unit. With winter coming on, it sure would be nice to get a car in the garage.

As far as I can tell, we have a few options:

• Let the stuff continue to pile up in the garage, and leave our cars parked in the driveway
• Rent a self storage unit across town and put the extra stuff in there and empty out the garage
• Put a Woodtex Shed in my back yard, put the stuff in that, and get my garage back.

MINI-STORAGE VS. WOODTEX SHED

Option number one isn’t too appealing – so let’s look at the other choices.

MINI STORAGE OR A STORAGE SHED?

Mini-storage, or self-storage, is a growing industry, with more than 54,000 self storage facilities in the US. Obviously, I’m not the only one in America with more stuff than I can fit in my house. It appears self storage is a popular choice , but how does it compare to having a storage shed in my back yard?

Convenience:

Choosing between the two options, I’d have to say that it’s much more convenient to have my storage space in my own backyard. I can quickly carry the extra stuff from the garage to the back yard and store it in my shed, instead of loading up the SUV and driving to a self storage facility. When I need to access one of the things I’ve stored, I like the idea of being able to walk over to my shed and get it, instead of waiting until I’m able to get to the storage unit.

On convenience, a storage shed is the clear winner.

Cost:

Shopping online for non-climate controlled self storage near me, I’m able to find a number of self storage facilities with storage space available.

According to the recommendations, It looks like I should rent about 200 square feet of storage, so a 10’ x 20’ unit fits the bill pretty well. Prices range from $199 / month to $249 / month for this size space. So about $2,400 / year, for the foreseeable future.

Looking at the pricing calculator on Woodtex.com, I’m able to get a 10’ x 20’ Standard shed delivered to my backyard for $3,092 with no extra delivery fees. If I want to pay monthly, that works out to about $116 / month on a 60 Month Rent-To-Own plan, with no credit check and no processing fee.

I can own the Woodtex (including tax) for about 16 months of rental payments to the place across town if I pay for it up front. Or I can make easy Rent-To-Own payments and own the shed in 36 to 60 months with monthly payments well below that of the self storage facility.

5 Year Cost of Self-Storage: $12,000

5 Year Cost of Owning a Woodtex Shed: $6,960

That’s over $5,000 in savings in just 5 years! 

When it comes to cost, the Woodtex Storage Shed is the clear winner.

Other considerations:

If I choose the self storage facility a few miles down the road I should borrow a friend’s pickup truck to haul the stuff there, and haul it back when I need it. With the Woodtex, it’s in my backyard, so I just carry it to the shed, where it sits until I need it. In this regard, as much as I’d like to borrow a friend’s pickup truck, I think the Woodtex Shed wins this too.

If my storage need is short term, say 6 – 12 months, perhaps there is a good argument to be made to use self storage. With Rent-to-Own on a shed however, I can simply cancel the rental at any point and Woodtex will pick the shed up again, no problem. For short term storage, I’d call it a draw between self storage and a Woodtex Shed.

What Do You Think?

Send me an email at blog@woodtex.com, and let know which of these two solutions you think is best. Did I miss an advantage of Self Storage? Let me know!

DESIGN YOUR OWN WOODTEX SHED

The post Storage Wars: Mini Storage vs. Woodtex Shed appeared first on Woodtex.com Website.

As a kid, the garage was the second most important ‘room’ in the house. Other than the kitchen, no other space holds as many memories for me as the garage.

I was a ‘car guy’ as young as 3 or 4 years old, and when I went to kindergarten I could identify most every car that drove by our house on the busy state highway. Knowing the difference between a Pontiac Firebird and a Chevy Camaro was a cool thing for a five-year-old.

My dad nurtured that love by making sure we always had a great garage wherever we lived. When Dad showed up with a brand new 1981 Honda Civic–our first new car, similar to the one above–I remember he would carefully park it in the garage and warn us sternly about not letting our bicycles bang against the shiny new paint.

On Saturdays, we spent a lot of time in the garage. Dad was fastidious about his cars, and my brothers and I begged to help him wash the car on Saturday afternoons.

He would always wash the car in the garage. I had no idea until I was older that most people wash their cars in the driveway. He didn’t want the sun to dry the car too quickly, lest it would leave water spots on the paint. Even in winter, he’d fire up the old wood stove in the corner, getting it nice and cozy in there, and we’d shed our coats and get underfoot as he gave the car it’s weekly bath.

I remember distinctly when I was allowed to help with this routine. My introduction to washing the car was being allowed to start with the wheels and tires. He was concerned about having dirt in the water that might scratch the paint, so I was to wait to wash the tires and wheels until he had washed the rest of the car.

On the surface, these memories seem pedestrian–almost mundane. But that’s where life happens–In the mundane threads that weave our lives together into the fabricthat is life and family. The conversations that happen when father and son are tackling a project. The values that are imparted. The lessons learned.

It’s not a stretch to say that many Saturdays were spent almost entirely in the garage. It was our domain, where we could be dirty and greasy, and grow up from boys to men. But there was one exception to our total dominion over the garage: Mom.

Mom had one rule about the garage: When we’re done working, and washing the car, we had to get the garage floor cleaned up. Her clean house was not going to stay clean if the whole family tracked through a dirty garage to get to the house! So after the day’s work was done, we’d pull the car out, and work with a hose and a squeegee, and clean up the garage floor until it met her satisfaction.

As my brothers and I got older, the size and scope of our garage projects grew as well. The fastidiousness of my parents and my love for cars melded with our entrepreneurial tendencies, and I started a business with my brother right in our garage. I was 13, and he was 11, and we started detailing vehicles for friends and family. We’d start early on Saturday morning, and toil for many hours to get those cars as close to new looking as possible. We made some money too-I think we started out charging around $75, and soon raised our prices above $100 per car. That’s real money to a couple of adolescents!

Many Saturdays, we would be squeegeeing the floor after a long day of car detailing and the clock would turn past midnight. Sunday morning. We knew then that we’d better scoot. There was a strict prohibition against working on Sunday, and it was now Sunday morning. Time to put the stuff away, park the customer’s car proudly in the driveway, and carefully pull Dad’s car back into the garage.

Father teaches his son how to put oil in the family car.

Now that I have my own sons I realize again how important it is to have spaces like the garage. Space for boys to be boys, and men to be men. Where you can turn wrenches on cars, lawnmowers and bicycles. Or where you can just push the door up, set up some lawn chairs, and sit there and watch a warm summer rain while enjoying some of Mom’s chocolate chip cookies.

It’s deeply rewarding and humbling to be a part of creating spaces like this. Spaces where memories are made, treasures are stored, and lives are knit together. I’m incredibly proud to be a part of the Woodtex family, and I invite you to create your own ‘stories from the garage’!

The post Life Lessons In the Garage appeared first on Woodtex.com Website.

We got to know Chip and Joanna Gaines (the stars of HGTV’s Fixer Upper) in July 2014, when they came to Travis at our Texas facility because they needed a big ol’ dependable storage shed for Magnolia Market, their Home Decor shop in Waco, TX. They ended up selecting The Classic Garage Shed with a ramp to meet their needs.

Travis was happy to deliver, of course.

By the way, if anyone at Woodtex was going to end up on National television, it would definitely be Travis! You can catch Travis delivering “Big Blue” on Fixer Upper Episode 4, Season 2.

Magnolia Feed + Supply

When Magnolia Market continued to outgrow their space, they came to Travis again for some help.

The shop has been packed with shoppers to the point where they’ve had to turn customers away. Our Texas Team built them an additional 512 square feet of shopping space, which is now located at their Silos location.

Can you believe this building is a shed?!
That’s right, they simply customized The Original Shed Model, by adding a set of double doors on the side.

The Garden Shed at the Silos

Next up, when Magnolia Market launched their new project at the Silos, they were in need of a well designed storage space, so, of course, they called Travis again. They customized this shed with Cedar doors and a classic cupola. We love it!

If you are a fan of this look, check out The Heritage Shed Model.

THE FARM

You may have seen this latest project Chip and Joanna added to their farm in Waco on another episode of Fixer Upper. Our Texas crew built a custom White Barn on the Gaines’ property, right next to their house.

We are so honored that Chip and Jo trust Woodtex to work for them, and construct a space that will add value (and room!) to their family. We had a blast getting this barn up!

Joanna posted this beautiful photo on Instagram:

Are you interested in a custom build like this? We can help with that too! Check out our Site-Built Garages page here.

If you like this, check out our collaborations with Shanty2Chic and Property Brothers.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE!

To receive updates on more projects we do in the future with our friends Chip and Joanna, as well as other tips and ideas on how you can Make Room for Life, make sure you sign up for our email newsletter at the bottom of the page! We look forward to helping you build the space you need for the important things in life.

The post Our Projects with Fixer Uppers Chip and Joanna Gaines appeared first on Woodtex.com Website.