An issue that many of us run into is figuring out how to park in our garages properly, making sure we don’t pull in too far and hit something or make it hard to move around the garage, while also making sure we don’t pull in so little that the garage door hits your car when it closes.

One of the best ways to gauge distance in your garage and park the proper distance is to use a tennis ball of a string.  The way it works is that you tie a tennis ball to a string with the string being the proper distance to go from the ceiling to the car windshield.  Then you attach the string to the ceiling in the position where you would want your car windshield to be when properly parked.  Afterwards whenever you park in the garage you stop and park the car at the point the car windshield hits the tennis ball.

This might be easier to understand if you look at the following picture.

Note that on Amazon you can buy pre-made balls on string. Here is an example: Genie Yellow Perfect Stop Parking Aid – Retractable Ball Compatible with All Garage Door Openers-GPS-R, one Size

However, making your own tennis ball on a string is pretty simple, you just cut open the tennis ball, tie the string around a washer and then put the washer in the tennis ball. You could also just directly tie the tennis ball to the string but it might come undone over time.

In my house I initially used the tennis ball on a string to properly gauge distances in my garage when parking.  However, my kids kept playing with the tennis balls and pulling them out of the ceiling.  Therefore I had to come up with a new system.  The system I came up with was to place a stop sign on the side of the garage which would align with my head when the car is properly parked.  In other words, when parking I stop when my head is perpendicular to this stop sign.  This system has worked well and is pretty easy to implement.  The following video explains this in a little more detail.