Thursday

Installing Shelves In Your Garage

The most important benefit of having shelves in your garage is that it helps to keep your things organized and presentable. Installation of shelves means that you are creating additional space for storage, which otherwise gets wasted away.

To arrive at the most effective shelving you should know before hand the items you intend storing therein. For instance, lightweight items can be stored on plastic shelves that are easier to install and are lightweight. But, such shelves may not be very appropriate for storing of heavier items, as they may get bent due heavy weight. Further, they are more prone to breakages than strong metallic shelves.



Storage of heavier tools and equipment demands solid metallic shelves. Some of the metal shelves are free standing. As these may get tipped over, it is better to attach such units to the wall near their top. The other variety of metal shelves is attached to the walls by means of brackets. That further helps to make better use of space by keeping the shelves off the floor, thus enabling free movements of vehicles on the floor. However, such shelves need a very careful installation for fear of their getting detached from the wall due weight of heavier items and thus cause an accident.

Another preferred option for garage storage is wire shelving. The advantage of these wire shelves that are generally provided with a plastic coating, is that you can use them for storage of heavier items, though they are not so strong as solid metal shelves. On the positive side they facilitate better circulation of air that may be of help during humid atmosphere.

Adjustable, or "rail" shelving is mounted on horizontal rails that are fixed on the garage walls. You can install shelves anywhere along the rails, and they offer the possibility of varying their height as per your requirements.

It may be worthwhile to consider wooden shelving, depending on the material to be stored. Hardwood shelves are pretty strong, though a softer wood like pine tends to sag in the middle after prolonged use. Long shelves should necessarily be supported in the middle to have a uniform distribution of loads and to keep them straight. However, climatic conditions needs to be taken into consideration while thinking on the lines of having wooden shelves that are adversely affected by humidity and temperature. At the same time wood is very easy to work upon for getting custom made shelving for the garage.

Once you have the proper shelves for your garage, you’ll realize how convenient it is to organize the garage to find everything so handy and easy to locate.

Tuesday

Power Shelf - A Garage Shelving Solution

With the oncoming of spring most families start compiling a list of activities to be performed for home improvement. But, before you really start working on any such project, the first thing that comes to mind is the availability of needed tools and equipments. Where did you leave the hammer after having used it a couple of months ago? Now, there comes the problem and one begins to loose the enthusiasm. Not so anymore, if you decide to organize your garage with the aid of a Power Shelf.

Organizing your garage should no more remain a wishful thinking only. Now you can give it a practical shape with the easy availability of many a garage organizer. Should you be contemplating on those lines, just spare a day and follow the useful tips mentioned here to give a great look to your garage. At the end of the day you will be happy for having invested your time in planning and the procurement of a garage organizer of the kind of a Power Shelf.

power shelf

Before you really get down to finding solutions to the management of your garage, you should assess what you already have. While making a list of your inventory, list the items in different categories. There might be some tools that you don’t use too frequently, yet would like to have them around in case of emergencies. There are others that you need on a regular basis and a few that you need occasionally. Once you have categorized the priority, you will realize how easy and time-saving the system has become. A Power Shelf, not expensive equipment, helps in the process and is easy to install.

With the coming of The Power Shelf in your garage, the whole scenario undergoes a change. Here’s how. Your workbench finds a home, while the drilling machine is no more left on the floor. It remains there on the shelf for being plugged in any time you like. The Power Shelf accommodates your power tools and the walls look neat while the floor is cleared of all the clutter. Another feature is that you don’t have to provide another power source for it, just continue to use what you already have. Now you won’t get irritated at not finding the appropriate drill for making that hole in a jiffy as it neatly accommodates the machine and its accessories. It surely improves your efficiency and it is going to be fun working on your project.

An organized garage implies that all the tools and other stored materials will be at a pre-designated point, thus facilitating retrieval of any required item whenever the need arises. Getting started with organizing a garage is not as difficult as it might appear to you, as long as you are willing to give it a try. To start with you may arrange all your gardening tools like hoses, rakes and fertilizer in one part of the garage while all the power tools could be housed together in some other part. You can keep items in separate boxes, on storage shelves or put them in a garage organizer that is conveniently available at any home improvement store.

Another feature of a really well organized garage is to get rid of excess of tools like hammers, hoses, shovels and rakes etc. Go back to your inventory and check out the quantity of all the items. Don’t crowd your place with multiples of the same tool, howsoever big or small. You may gift it to a friend who might have just picked up a new interest in DIY projects or arrange a garage sale to dispose them of. All this goes to help in giving a new organized look to the place while you save time and money in the process. Over and above all that has been said, you’ll realize that you start working on your projects with a new zest and we know that you love doing that!

Thursday

Four Simple Steps To Good Garage Storage

Typically, an American garage becomes a dumping place for all the unwanted items in the home. Consequently, it is nearly impossible to locate any item when you need it most. We know how tedious and frustrating experience it is to dig out any item from a cluster of not so beautiful household materials. You are not only wasting your precious time only, but the floor area as well.

When spring comes, it’s quite natural or even habitual for most of us to start making a list of the things to be done around the home to make it more organized. But, ever wondered how often we succeed and to what extent!

Try putting to practice the following few elementary steps to get a well organized great looking garage to the delight of your family.

1. As a first step get rid of everything that you don’t use. Once you go thru the items that have been lying around there, you’ll begin to wonder from where all those landed up! If an item has been lying there unused for almost a year, you can safely conclude that it is not needed anymore. Spare sometime and make a list of such items to get rid of those. Give them to a friend who could perhaps better use one such item or make a donation to a thrift store. Another possible way of getting rid of these items will be to organize a garage sale.

This first step is the most important as it paves way for the other steps in that direction of organizing your garage better.

2. Another trick to have more of space on the floor is to go for vertical storages. Why not have ceiling mounted racks for bikes. That clears the floor of all the bikes, be those of kids or adults. If any of these is not being used, it deserves the treatment as suggested in step noted above. The only limitation here would be to help the kids while removing the bike or storing those back. There are racks available that mount on the wall or even stand- alone stands. You have to keep in mind how frequently the bikes are being used during the year and arrive at a suitable arrangement for housing them within the garage.

3. Make an inventory of all your possessions in the garage. Now segregate the list to three different parts. Separate the items that you are using most frequently. Arrange them is size. Get shelves of varying sizes to store these items in the most easily approachable part of the garage. Next, make a list of items that are not so frequently used and store them at a not so easily accessible a place. Third list comprises of items that are rarely used, yet you might like to have them for any eventuality. Store them accordingly. Whatever is left unaccounted in the lists at the end is clutter. Get rid of it in any of the suggested ways, the sooner the better.

Explore the possibility of having shelves with doors that keep the items organized and away from sight. You could always compartmentalize your garage. Keep your gardening equipment in one compartment, whereas workshop tools could be in another compartment.

4. Look around for a suitable arrangement to store loose sports items. A visit to a sports shop will prove helpful in procuring a bench with provision for keeping bats, balls and helmets etc. Specially designed sports racks with plastic shaped mounts are available. That improves their accessibility while offering an organized storage. The best and most effective way of having an increased floor area is to install a sports rack or be prepared to have a litter of balls on the garage floor.

Garages were meant for storing of items. Not that anyone or everyone should throw away anything and everything into a garage and create clutter around the whole place. With all the clutter around, you really lose that enthusiasm of putting it to a better use or even entering it till it gets unavoidable. Aren’t you prompted to make a better use of floor space, already at a premium?

Monday

Wooden Garage Shelving For You

At this moment, car garages are being used for purpose over and above the intended purpose of housing a car. It has become customary to make use of the available space for storage of rarely needed household items. As a result the garage ends up as the most disorganized place of the household.

The volume of cluster reaches such a level that it needs an almost Herculean effort to organize the whole place. It is but natural to make use of the available, especially with ever going cost of land. As most of the available space is along the verticals, it is practical to have some kind of shelving along the walls for storage, and thus clear the floor of all the clutter.

wooden garage shelves

There is a variety of materials available for shelving. For instance, you could use steel for its characteristic strength and long life. Heavy duty wire shelving is another choice. It is strong durable and pleasant to the eye. Another option is to have adjustable steel shelving traditionally being used in industries for storage.

Of course, that choice of having traditional wooden shelving is always there. It works out cheaper than metals. Besides, if you decide to work yourself on wood and its designing, it further reduces the total expense. It’s not at all difficult, but you have to have that inclination. Here’s how you may go about it.

Use of wood also offers a wide choice. You may use particle boards of size ¾ inch that is very economical. Else you may use plywood but in case you decide to use solid wood, it’s perfectly fine, though more expensive than the other varieties of wood. You may use pine or fir.

Even if you intend using the shelving for normal household stuff, it is better to keep some margin for storage of heavier items, for you can’t be sure of what you might decide to send to the garage.

Bear in mind that shelving of particle board has a tendency to sag in the middle over prolonged use. In such a case keep a closer span.

Being careful at the time of planning shelving will facilitate quicker construction without much wastage. You should decide before hand how deep the shelf can be without occupying too much space of the garage. Another important feature to be decided before hand would be the height of shelving or the distance between any two shelves.

wood garage shelving

Usually lumber for the frame is of 2x4” for ordinary floor-supported shelf. The size of plywood for shelving will be ¾”.

Keep the 2x4s against the garage wall, with the lower end touching the floor and fix them into the wall with wood screws. Fix the next 2x4 separated by a distance of two feet.

Next use a few more of 2x4s to get horizontal supports. Keep one piece along the bottom in such a manner as to have its 4” side against the upright pieces. A level should be used to check that it remains straight. This is going to be the support for the bottom shelf. Now fix screws along its length, at each location where there is an upright 2x4. Repeat the process for each shelf level and keep going up. That completes the rear part of the frame.

Likewise for the front part of the frame, fix horizontal and vertical 2x4s as per the measurements of what you did earlier. Nail the pieces together and stand the frame on the floor.


2x4 to as per the depth you had decided for the shelving. Using these cut outs of 2x4s attach the front part to the rear part. For getting stability and support, nail the top part to the rafters or to the stronger parts of the ceiling.

Finally, cut the plywood to the planned size of the shelf. Placing them on top of the horizontal pieces nail them down.

There are many designs available for garage shelving. You may refer to some magazines, books and online too. Check the one that would best suite your taste and requirements.

Friday

Garage Shelving And Storaging

Consider this: Every time you decide to organize your house or a part of it, it affects the organization of the rest of the house. That’s how your garage meant to store your car gets converted to a junk yard with your beauty parked in the midst of that. Because, when you organize the rest of the house, all the unwanted objects land up in your garage. And then you end up in a nasty place, where you can't find anything you need and have no idea how to fix it.

What we fail to realize is that organizing the garage not only gives it a neat and pleasant look but also offers more space for storage of a lot more items in an organized manner, not to mention the ease with which you and your family can get into or out of the car.

garage shelving

As the intent here is to keep the floor clear for movement of car and people, you have to think on the lines of making use of vertical space that has nothing but air. So, the solution lies in having shelving along the walls. You have a variety of materials for doing the needful. You may choose any of the metals or wood, though each has its own advantages and limitations. Choose the one that best suits your budget and style. Amongst metals you may opt for aluminum, steel, or diamond plate. Steel is strong and sturdy while aluminum is light and colorful.

For a stunning look you should go for diamond plates. Freestanding shelves offer the flexibility of adjusting shelves to store odd sized items that are difficult to store otherwise. You can compartmentalize you garage to accommodate your tools, children’s toys and may be for shoes as well.

It’s not too difficult to make your own shelving. Apart from the material for shelving you will need simple tools that are generally available in most of the houses. Buy pieces of pine, prime them before installation find the studs and then just drill them into the wall. Steel brackets are fixed by drilling them into the wood. Next, secure a wooden shelf to the steel brackets.

aluminum shelves

A plastic shelf arrangement is the easiest to install, yet strong enough to store most of the garage items. The most beneficial feature of this kind of shelving is the ease with which it can be dismantled and shifted to another place, if ever the need arises for that.

Use your imagination, go thru a few magazines or visit online and convert your garage into a more useful and better organized place while improving upon its looks.

Sunday

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