Vancouver Sun

Stack it

Even if you have a completely standard three-metre-high garage, you, too, can have a Lift King car lift - essentially an extremely sturdy rack on wheels that allows you to store a vehicle or items such as snowblowers and lawnmowers above another vehicle.

"If you have more cars than you have room, you can stack cars on top of each other," says Ross Cameron, owner of Calgary-based Lift King. The solution is ideal for those storing a special vehicle over the winter, but he notes that more than 20 per cent of purchasers are spouses looking for a way to stash boxes and other garage messes so they can park inside.

Cameron has designed this system with 12 separate locks on the rails, so you can choose the top rack's position - and the hydraulic locking system has a mechanical backup. "There's never any chance of this thing coming down," he says.

The $3,000 Pro King model comes in black, red, blue and yellow, but Cameron notes that if you buy six, you can have any colour you want.

Pool it

Even if you have a gorgeous painted or tiled garage floor, the reality is that you're driving dirty tires across it daily. Saskatchewan-based Dale Hughes came up with a solution he's  named Carpools.

The modular system runs about $300, and includes two tray-style tire runners that you simply drive into when you enter the garage. Mud and slush from the wheel wells then drips off into the trays instead of onto the floor.

"It keeps all that grime and dirt and salt and sand off the floor surface so it doesn't abrade the floor," says Hughes.  It's the combination of the sand and the salt that tends to wear down the top surface."

To clean the Carpools, simply pull them out of the garage, tip them over and hose them out. You can use them summer and winter, or store them during summer.
Create a clutter-free garage
and park inside again

Create a clutter-free garage
and park inside again