Summertime fun and trips to the beach go together like peanut butter and jelly. Better yet, if you get the chance to camp on the beach or break out your water skis, canoes, and kayaks. Yet all these things can certainly pile up on you at home. Without a proper way to safely store summertime beach gear and outdoor equipment, your garage or mudroom can descend into absolute chaos.
If you’re looking forward to a summer spent at the beach, or you’re already finding yourself up to your eyeballs in sandy clutter, you might want to try one of the following options for creating a summertime beach gear storage system in your home.
Storing Beach Camping Gear
A chance to camp on a beach or stay at a beach-side campground is a joy that can’t be beaten. Though all the sand that comes home with your tent can be maddening. The easiest place to store beach camping gear, including shade tents is in the garage
This makes it quick and easy to pack them up in the car for a beach getaway. To make the most out of your available garage space, you might want to also invest in a sturdy garage shelving system. This lets you stow tents, shade umbrellas, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, tarps, and other assorted beach camping gear in the same area.
A heavy-duty stackable plastic tote bin or two is ideal for holding smaller items like flashlights, matches, eating utensils, plates, and cookware. It makes it easy simply load these into the car when you’re ready to head out, while only taking up a limited footprint on the garage floor.
Create a Dedicated Place for Your Cooler
A high-quality cooler is an essential part of any great day at the beach. Yet knowing exactly where to keep it when not in use can be a little bit of a conundrum. When loading it, you want it close to your refrigerator/freezer to make it easy to pack with ice, drinks, and perishable food items.
Yet you still need to keep it up and out of the way. Not to mention being able to easily clean it after every trip to prevent mold and mildew problems.
If you’ve got a mudroom in your home, some sturdy shelves and/or a cabinet can be the ideal place to keep your beach cooler when not in use. You can then spray it down after every trip, while still being reasonably close to the kitchen to load it up with ice when the sun and surf beckons again.
Storing Beach Bags & Towels
Most people try to avoid mixing their everyday towels and their beach towels together. Beach towels take a lot of use and abuse. They can also carry minute particles of sand with them, which can transfer to bathing towels.
Ideally, you’ll have a place in your garage or mud room to hang up beach towels to let them dry. Then shake or beat the sand out of them before laundering them separately from the rest of your towels and everyday clothes.
You can then neatly fold the clean beach towels in a lightweight mesh bag. Peg hooks in the garage or ceiling hooks in the mudroom let you stow your beach bag and beach towels together, making them easy to grab.
A Jumbo Trashcan for Pool Noodles and Loose Items
Pool noodles, floaties, snorkeling gear, and water skis all need a place to stay to air/drip dry. A jumbo trash can is ideal for letting them stand up to drip off. You might want to make some holes in the bottom and place it near a garage floor drain. Overly wet items that leave remnant pools of water in the bottom can be an invitation for mold.
This is also a great place to store your beach umbrella and other stand-up items. Though fishing gear is usually too delicate to be kept near these other clunky beach items.
Drying Hooks for Life Jackets
Life jackets, wet suits, diving suits, and other swimming items can be prone to mold and mildew if they aren’t dried shortly after use. One easy way to handle this is to hang them from ceiling hooks in your garage or mudroom. A box fan can be easily pointed at them to speed up the air-drying process.
From there you can clean them per the manufacturer’s instructions and store them in an airtight stackable plastic tote.
Ceiling Rod Holders & Cases
Fishing rods are sophisticated things that don’t do well stored with heavier long items like beach umbrellas. They also tend to be costly, so you want to keep them safely out of harm’s way.
One of the best ways to do this is to mount fishing rod holders on your garage or mudroom ceiling. Most have some type of clip, lock, or Velcro system to hold the rod and reel combo together. When you want to bring them with you for a fishing trip to the beach, they can easily be brought down and transferred to your car or boat rod holders.
Proper Storage for Canoes & Kayaks
Even the simplest canoe or kayak is a significant financial investment, that needs to be stored properly to prevent damage. Manufacturers typically recommend storing them items indoors to keep the elements from degrading the fiberglass, plastic, fabric, or epoxy-coated components.
Yet you also want your canoe or kayak to be easily accessible in the summer. So it is possible to store them outdoors if you take precautions to limit their exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays and the ravages of thunderstorms. One of the best places to do this is to simply store your boat or kayak under the deck, under a suspended tarp during the summer months. Just make sure to keep the tarp from touching the hull, as this could lead to mold or fungal growth in areas with summer rain.
When winter comes, the wise move is to bring your canoe or kayak indoors. Especially if you live somewhere that experiences severe winter cold. Suspending it from heavy-duty ceiling cargo hooks or storing it in the attic space above your garage ceiling keeps it out of the way, while also ensuring it is safe all winter long.
