Garage shelves

[drkelly]

I'm going to build some shelves in our new garage. I used some metal brackets from Lowe's at our old house, and they worked great, but are kind of expensive if you end up buying a bunch of them. I cut 4x8 sheets of wood into three pieces each 16" wide for the shelves themselves. I might only make the shelves 12" deep this time getting four pieces out of a 4x8 sheet. I'm not sure. Before I started building them, I wanted to see other peoples ideas for building shelves and what size you make them. Post up what you built if you are happy with how they turned out.


These are the style brackets I used at our old house. Very strong, and I think I bolted them to the wall with some 1/4" dia hex head screws.

 

[Blaze]

In my last house I had a full wall of shelves. The very top one I used those shelves and then the ones below it I used the standard L brackets with 12" boards.

The new house, in the house garage I used those big brackets for the shelves over the doors and then a few L brackets here and there for 12" shelves around the garage. In the workshop I used the L brackets with 12" boards all the way down the wall.

 

[RatLabGuy]

I would stick w/ 16" shecles. I have had both 12 and 16 in the garage, and the 12s just end up being too short. Especially given the odd shapes of many car parts and tools. Plus w/ deeper shelves you can sometimes stack things 2 deep.

I use the hanging strips that are 4' long and have adjustable slots. The double-slotted ones are very strong. Yes you have to buy the strips but the brackets are cheap so in the long run it pans out.
I like this b/c it allows more options for different shelf heights to maximize space.
Also, one big problem w/ the type you posted is that b/c of that diagonal brace you lose the space underneath it, so if you don't have a lot of height between shelves you can't put long things on the lower shelves.

Also if ripping your own shelf, consider the board strength and how far apart the supports are... don't want saggy shelves

 

[drkelly]

Did you have good luck with those stamped 'L' brackets supporting the loads you put on them? I sometimes put heavy items on my shelves.

 

[drkelly]

I looked at those hanging strips this morning while there getting other things. The ability to adjust the shelves does sound nice. You are right about the ones I used at the old house. The angled support bracket would sometimes dictate what I could put where.

 

[Blaze]

Did you have good luck with those stamped 'L' brackets supporting the loads you put on them? I sometimes put heavy items on my shelves.

Yeah, they will hold a lot of load. I have some really heavy stuff on them like buckets full of bolts and things like that.

 

[drkelly]

Thinking back, I believe I put one of those HD white brackets every other stud, so every 32".

 

[RatLabGuy]

Thinking back, I believe I put one of those HD white brackets every other stud, so every 32".

see this is the challenge. If you don't use good thick plywood, w/ constant heavy loads 32" isn't enough they will sag. But every 16" is overkill and expensive. Bonus is you can get away w/ cheaper wood shelves, but then you really do have to be careful about how much vertical space they consume. this is why I like the clip-in bracket style.

 

[RatLabGuy]

You can always do different size depths, like mostly 12" deep but the top row is 16" for bigger things.

 

[jeepinmatt]

I made mine out of 3/4" treated plywood (because I had some extra laying around), and the brackets are 3ft apart so I could use 3 for every 8ft piece (at 1ft, 4ft, and 7ft). I can put really heavy stuff up there (50-80lbs), but it sags. I wish I had put the brackets every 2ft.

 

[rockmafia]

Shelves suck. Get a storage building and keep all that crap you don't use in the garage out of the garage.

 

[mcutler]

^^^x2. I ran 3'deep shelves around perimeter of my new shop for parts, accessible by ladder. The other stuff that's sees random usage go in second building. ..

 

[mcutler]

All these shelves are 8' from floor

 

[mcutler]

This is second building for storage

Another tip that I made sure to apply in my new garage is- anything that is not attached to the walls is on casters. That way if some thing is not being used for a period of time it gets rolled out of the way or put in the storage shop.