Yes! You must properly winterize your pool before winter hits here in Tennessee. We posted a guide to help you do that, or a member of our team can come out and close your pool for you. After talking to customers and seeing lots of pools at the end of the season, many of you are looking for ideas to clean up around your pool area before winter. Why do this? It helps protect your equipment when it sits unused during the winter, and it makes it easier to kick off pool season in the spring because everything is ready to go! Here are some of our favorite ideas to declutter your pool area before winter.

Sort Your Pool Toys & Equipment

It’s hard to organize your supplies until you know what you have. After an active pool season – especially if kids are around – it’s common to find pool toys and equipment scattered throughout the yard and stashed in odd places. Throw away anything that’s broken, and donate items that work but you no longer need (you’re not the only one wondering how 3 kids could end up with 10 pair of goggles). Categorize your toys and equipment so like items are together; toys in one pile, rafts in another pile, equipment in another, etc.

Create Organizational Solutions

Here are some of our favorite ideas to store your pool toys and equipment throughout the winter. The best part… most of these items are already lying around your house or you can pick them up at the store for just a few dollars.

• Store sunscreen, aloe gel, sunglasses and goggles in a shower caddy.
• Use zip ties to secure laundry baskets to your fence and use them like outdoor lockers. These offer great storage throughout the summer for towels and guests’ belongings, but they also give you space to store items throughout the winter.
• Pick up some waterproof, stackable storage drawers to house nets, hoses, chlorine tablets, and other pool equipment. Reminder: place these drawers out of the way of kids and pets.
• Create a hanging station using a peg board. During the summer, you can use this to hang towels, swimsuits and your guests’ bags. Over the winter, you can use it to wrap hoses and other large items that are better stored hung up.

Do you have any winter storage ideas that our customers need to know about? Share them with us on our Facebook page!