The Ultimate ’80s Garage Checklist: Things We All Had

Garages in the '80s were less about parking your car and more about being a catch-all for everything you needed to get out of the house as consumer-driven culture kicked its jazzercised butt into high gear.

It was also a place where parents (okay, let's face it, Dad) could "tinker" — a term that may have fallen out of fashion but simply means "an act of attempting to repair something" (which makes us feel a little less bad for saying it was Dad).

Garage in the 1980s

'80s Garages Were Total Chaos

In those days, organization was a little less about de-cluttering and more about banishing. In reality, '80s garages were often a Wild West of home storage and if you wanted to lose something, this was the place to put it.

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Garages were also a suburban sanctuary—closed-off spaces that, when the door slowly rose (or quickly, if you had one of those new fancy automatic openers), revealed an outdoor extension of your home. Neighbors could get an idea of your family's varied interests, latest purchases, or even darkest secrets.

Let's click "open" on the remote and enter the world of '80s garages to see what treasures we might find.