I will start out by saying that my garage is still not Pinterest worthy, even after this makeover. And I’ve come to terms with the fact that it never will be. After all, it’s still just a garage. And this is probably the ONE place where I’m willing to sacrifice aesthetics 100% for pure functionality. Would I love my garage to be wall to wall cabinets that have doors and cover all the clutter? Absolutely. But I’m spending as little dollars as possible in the garage so I can save them for the inside of the house. Ya with me? Ok, good.
These are the only ‘before’ shots I could find. I suppose I didn’t stop to take photos of it in fear of vomiting. Let me also explain that my husband works from home and has A LOT of literature & equipment used for his job that we are required to store. His home office inside is already FILLED with lots of stuff [puke] and therefore the rest lives here in our garage. Our marriage has suffered pretty heavily over the last 5ish years due to half of the garage being taken over by my tools (read: sawdust) and his work stuff being perpetually coated in it. Kidding. Sort of.
This is my tool side of the garage. That black rolling rack is usually against the wall where Aiden is standing and then my rolling table saw stand and huge rolling mitre saw bench line the rest of the wall. We’ve only been able to park one vehicle in our 3-car garage a handful of times.
As usual, I turned to Pinterest gaining ideas and inspiration for garage organization. I saw lots of pretty cabinets and uniform bins, all which shouted dollar signs at me. I really wanted this project to be as cheap as possible so I can save those dollars for my upcoming ideas in the house. I saw lots of cheaper DIY storage options that looked like this:
But I really wanted my shelves to be floating and not touch the floor in any way shape or form. My ultimate dream goal is to be able to vacuum the garage floor with nothing in the way. I know I’m crazy, but this has been a dream for a long time y’all. It’s just been on the back burner forever because cleaning the garage is NOT my idea of a good time.
So I ultimately decided on these bracket shelves. They aren’t aesthetically pleasing in my opinion, but they do the job, and hold tons of weight. And they’re cheap. Win!
Tools Needed:
- Mitre saw
- Drill
- Level
- Stud Finder
- Spax Screws in various sizes
- Hammer drill (for concrete walls)
To make the brackets, I simply bought tons of 2x4x8’s at Lowe’s. They are $3.96 each. I came home and cut them into 11″ pieces on my mitre saw and pre-assembled dozes of brackets first, to make the shelf hanging process quick and easy.
I takes 3 pieces to make one bracket, and one piece has mitered ends. So I cut the mitered ends on 1/3 of the 11″ pieces. (This is an inexpensive, starting mitre saw)
Next, I used these 2.5″ spax screws to make the L shape as shown. (These screws are also sold at Home Depot, I just use Amazon because I don’t have to load 2 babies into a car.)
Then used my stud finder (this is the one I have and its beyond amazing), marked where the studs were on the wall, and used two of these 3.5″ spax screws to drill right into the studs. No pre-drilling needed. **For my concrete walls, I used the exact same method, but used 3-1/4″ TAPCON concrete screws instead. For those I had to pre-drill the holes with the bit that comes included with the screws**
The final step for the bracket is using four 2.5″ spax screws again to attach the mitered angled piece.
I placed the brackets on every other stud until it spanned 8 feet. I knew the plywood shelves would be 8 feet long so that’s how I determined how to hang the brackets. I used plywood cut into 14″ strips and screwed from the top down into the brackets to keep them in place with 1.25″ spax screws. I had the plywood cut for me at Lowe’s and you could use anywhere from 11″-16″ shelves. Some of the shelves were made from 1/2″ plywood and some was made from 3/4″ plywood. It just depends on how heavy duty you want them.
The brackets look slightly different here, but I made the rest of the brackets throughout the garage using the method I just explained above. I think that works best. I started these brackets at the bottom and have them resting on the baseboard. That way I didn’t have to worry about them being level! Then I measured up whatever distance on the wall I wanted to make the next shelf and kept going.
For the next wall I did the same thing. I started at the bottom resting the bottom brackets on the baseboards and just kept moving up the wall. I made these shelves closer together for my husband’s work literature.
After the first two walls of shelves were up, I ordered this 4’x8′ overhead garage storage rack. I realized there wasn’t going to be enough wall space to truly get EVERYTHING off the floor (which was my goal, people). And so much of our stuff is either Holiday things, or childhood things, or things we never, ever need to reach. So this storage rack was perfect.
It screws into 6 different trusses, holds over 500 pounds, and I managed to hang it by myself. I’m so in love.
It holds so much more than I ever expected!
After I got it up and saw how much it could hold I had to order another one! So while I waited on it to arrive, I built more shelves next to the door. This section was for our personal/family stuff.
And without further ado, here is the final result of my garage makeover!
(The rolling suitcases are for my hubby’s work and are extremely heavy and not worth putting on a shelf. Kind of bums me out that I had to leave these on the floor, but i’ll live! haha.)
The black and yellow bins are almost all Christmas, and the wall shelving is all hubby’s work stuff. Then we have a filing cabinet and refrigerator next to the door.
This side of the garage is all my side! 🙂
I hung the ladders up on the wall for kid safety (and to get them off the floor, duh) and even have EMPTY shelves above them! We will certainly be accumulating more things over the years with kids so we have a little more room for now.
This is the second storage rack I ordered and hung up over our third car garage door. Again, that door doesn’t have an electric opener and we’ve never opened it before. So I ordered these accessory hooks to hang our ladder and these to hang our bikes from.
I actually cut down my rolling mitre saw bench in half. I loved how big it used to be, but it was so heavy that I never actually rolled it out of the garage to avoid saw dust inside – which was the entire reason I built it in the first place. Face palm. So now that it’s smaller and lightweight I don’t have any excuse to not be coating the garage in sawdust anymore! This should help my marriage right? Haha!
(btw I used the Shanty-2-chic rolling mitre saw bench plans here)
My home improvement and tool wonderland.
And yes, we still have kid stuff and this side of the garage is now a toddler vehicle parking lot.
And I can fit my huge truck in the garage! I mean just look at all that space! I’m sorry if I’ve sounded overly excited for a garage this entire post. But you guys. I can’t help it.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
BEFORE:
and AFTER:
Cost Breakdown:
Each 8 foot wide section of shelves by 5 shelves high:
- 20 brackets = 8 2x4x8 = $32
- 2 sheets of plywood (with one shelf leftover) = $76
- Estimate of screws = $18
- TOTAL: $126
Overhead 4×8 storage racks:
- $180 each x 2 = $360
- Accessory Hooks = $35
- Total: $395
I used approximately three 8 foot wide sections of shelves total and the 2 overhead racks.
But most importantly, I am able to VACUUM MY GARAGE you guys! So much better, right? Comment and let me know your thoughts, or if you have any questions, I love hearing from y’all!