Orange County's garages tend to reflect how people spend their weekends. Across the Irvine Ranch, about 57,500 acres, roughly 60 percent of the ranch, has been set aside as parkland and open space, so mountain bikes, helmets and hiking packs are standard garage equipment. Closer to the coast, add boards, wetsuits and beach chairs. In the older master-planned neighborhoods, where Mission Viejo's first houses went on sale in 1966, garages often hold decades of accumulated life. In Rancho Mission Viejo, where the first village opened in 2013, the challenge is usually the opposite: an empty garage that fills fast unless it has a plan from the start.
- Cabinets with doors: paint, tools and sports gear off the floor and out of sight.
- Raised off the slab: cabinets sit above the concrete, helping keep them clean and dry.
- Workbenches: a surface for projects, built into the run of cabinets.
- Slatwall and overhead racks: bikes, boards and seasonal bins up on the wall or ceiling.