how to build a shelf for the garage

10/22/2012How to Build a Shelf for the GarageWinter is coming.

Which means that it's time to clean out the garage, or else itwill never get done. Actually i wanted to make room so thatKarrie could park her car in there and not be covered insnow. A few months ago it was completely packed full ofstuff. Since then i've given away my old broken Snapperriding lawn mowers and a bunch of other junk. I also movedsome boxes to the basement, cleaning that mess is definitelya job to be done this winter. But for the rest of the stuff, idecided that a big wood shelf was needed to store it all.

Now i could have just bought plastic shelves at Meijer or

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How to Build a Shelf for the Garage http://davewirth.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-to-build-garage-shelves.html

1 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Lowe's but they are expensive and wouldn't provide as muchspace. I have a couple of really nice heavy-duty plasticshelves in the basement. They are great for small stuff butthe wood shelves i planned on building would be stronger,larger and cost a lot less.

A few weeks ago i made a tool rack for all the garden toolsand hung that on the wall in the garage. So far it's beengreat. The big PVC pipes are easy to use and strong.

Seeing how well this tool rack worked out gave me anincentive to get the rest of the stuff in the garage cleaned up.

My plan was to build four 8 foot shelves made of pine 2x4'sand OSB (oriented strand board - sometimes called particleboard). 8 foot just makes sense because there will be lesscutting since they all come in 8 foot sections. I decided to use2x4's because they are cheap. And decided on OSB becauseit's relatively cheap but really strong. They make OSB in 7/8"and 1/2", they were only a few dollars different in price so iwent with the 1/2" thickness.

I first drew up the design on paper but then i decided to getmore detailed and use Google SketchUp. I've used Google

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2 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

SketchUp before to draw the two twin beds.

SketchUp is great for several reasons. It's free. It's easy tounderstand, which means it doesn't take hours trying to learnhow to draw, though it does help if you spend 8 hours a dayusing AutoCAD. It's just a really nice program that lets youdraw 3D object very quickly. And there's tons of Youtubevideo's that you can watch and learn different tricks.

I not only wanted to get the shelf right, but i wanted to makesure that it fit in the garage. So i measured my garageinterior dimension and then drew it up. I added the two sidedoors and the big front garage door. Then i drew the shelfitself and tried different orientations. The first picture at thetop is what i came up with after lots of fiddling around. Buthere's the dimensions for the final shelf design. This wasprobably version 6, and the third time i redrew it.


3 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

If you want to download the actual Google SketchUp files,which are .SKP and .SKP, i uploaded them to my GoogleDrive. You can download them from these two links:

Google SketchUp - Garage Shelf.skpGoogle SketchUp - Garage Shelf.skb

I actually got a bit carried away with what i could do. Here'san early version where i though about covering all the wallsin the garage with shelves. This was also when i thought thati should attach the 2x4's to the floor and ceiling.

But this is why Google SketchUp is great, it lets you zoom in


4 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

and actually see what it will look like when you are done. Itgives you any perspective view from any angle. That is whenyou realize things like, will the door shut, how tall will it look,do i need 4 shelves or only 3.

Now having said all that, the funny thing is that i didn't checkwas whether or not a car would fit. It turned out to be ... notreally. If i pushed the shelf all the way over to the right a carcould maybe fit, but there wasn't enough room to open thedriver side door.

So even though this was my final designed drawings, the finallocation for the shelf was for it to be flat against the on theright.


5 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Material List:Description Height Width Length Quantity Price Total2x4 2" 4" 8ft 15 $2.50 $37.50OSB 1/2" 4ft 8ft 2 $13.00 $26.00

Also i ended up using around 200 - 2.5" deck/drywall screws,which cost around $4.

The total cost with tax was just under $70 which seemed likea lot at first. But then you figure that a cheap plastic 4 foothigh shelf cost around $40.

Here's all the wood i bought. Actually i only needed 14 -2x4's but i got one extra, just in case.

This is what the garage looked like before i started. I made a360 degree panorama of garage, combining around 18pictures to make this one.

(click to enlarge)


6 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

The first thing i did was to clear the area where the shelf wasto go.

And right away i ran into a problem. Measuring from the backwall to the old wall hanging shelves i got 7.5 feet. Whichmeant that i would have to cut at least 6" off. So i clearedeverything off the shelves, unscrewed them from the metalbrackets and cut off 10", just to be sure.


7 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

While cutting the shelves i decided to also lower the bottomshelf for more room. There used to be a board with weirdhooks which in the way. I never used it, so i just took it offthe wall. Before the bottom shelf was only 8" from the shelfabove it. By taking off the board with hooks i was able todrop the metal brackets all the way down. You can comparethis picture with the one a couple above and see thedifference.


8 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Moving all of the junk, putting everything back, cutting theold shelf and all that was a lot of work, but when i was done itlooked the same as when i started.

The next day i cut the short end boards and started to lay outthe shelves. These would be the vertical end pieces.


9 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

After taking this picture i realized that i had the screws flippedbackwards. It might not seem like a big deal but if i left it likethis then the screws which connect the side boards would hiteach other. So i had to remove these screws and flip themhorizontally. You will see what i mean later when i attach thefront and back 2x4's.


10 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

That's when i decided to make a pattern for each of thedifferent screw layouts. It was a great idea that saved metons of time in the end. The top pattern is for the shelfboards i would cut out later. The left pattern is what i neededfor the boards above. The right pattern is for the front andback facer boards


11 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

With the end pieces all screwed together i set them in placejust to see how it would look and see if it all made sense.


12 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Then i screwed in the first front and back shelf boards andstood everything up.


13 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Here's the way i connected all the boards together. Had i notchanged the screws earlier, all 4 or these screws might havehit them.


14 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

The interlocking way in which the 2x4's all fit together was adesign i decided on with some help from John. When Karrieand i went to Katie and John's cottage, he drew this out onthe computer.


15 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

This was my original idea. It seemed simple, but isn't asstrong, since there aren't as many faces touching and screwsholding it together. The final version is more compact andeverything interlocks with each other.


16 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Next, using a jig saw, i cut out the U-shaped notches usingthe cardboard pattern from earlier.


17 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Here's a closer look of how the OSB shelf fits into the 2x4support posts.


18 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Looking at this picture you might think i forgot a few steps,but actually i didn't. Putting the OSB shelves in beforeattaching the 2x4's was necessary. If i didn't do that firstthen i would have never been able to get the shelves in.


19 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

That's because i had to actually pull the 2x4 uprights apart tobe able to slide the shelf boards in and if i screwed the 2x4'sin then i wouldn't have been able to pull them apart. Luckily irealized that before attaching all the 2x4 cross beams.

But after cutting all the shelves and fitting them in place i wasthen able to screw the 2x4 front and back supports together. To make sure it was all square i screwed them in with theshelf on it's side. By this time it was getting pretty big andheavy so i had to get karrie's help to put the shelf down andstand it back up.


20 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

But i was able to push it into place by myself and take a lookat it. I knew from the start that i was going to have an issuewith the shelf not being level because the concrete slab in thegarage is much higher near the back wall. You can see thecrack in the slab underneath the shelf.


21 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

I thought about all the different ways i was going to makesure it was level. I though about making the front legs longeror maybe trimming the back legs. But i decided that the bestidea was to just make the shelf square and level and thendeal with the uneven floor afterwords. It was off quite a bit.


22 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

So i lifted up the shelf on the right side and, after trying aseries of different thickness boards, found out that using two2x4's would make the shelf almost perfect.


23 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Close enough for me.


24 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

I pushed the shelf back into the corner as much as i could anddid a few things to make sure it wouldn't move. I screwedthe floor 2x4's together and attached the upright to them withjust one screw


25 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Then, so that the shelf didn't tip over, i screwed it to the wallin a few places.


26 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Here's the finished shelf in place, level and secured to thewall.


27 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

I actually got really lucky. The second shelf cleared thehandle of the old door by a couple of millimeters. I totallydidn't think about the door handle until i went to push it inplace. If it didn't fit i guess i would have had to trim a fewinches off the legs.


28 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

Then it was time to start loading up the shelves. Hopefully itwill have enough room for everything. otherwise i'll have tobuild another one.


29 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

I took a break, then came back a few hours later to starthanging stuff on the wall. I used those rubber coated hooksand screwed them into the studs behind the drywall. I admitthat i got a little crazy hanging the wood bench i made forKarrie on the ceiling, but it did save a lot of room.


30 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

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Over the winter karrie and i are going to go through all thestuff we have in boxes in the basement and sort them. Some of the less important stuff can go on these bottomshelves. I haven't totally fill it up just yet.

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31 of 31 4/24/2013 8:26 AM

how to build a shelf for the garage

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