As a retired electrical engineer, Ed Szeman has a penchant for organization and an eye for detail, and the workshop area in the garage of his Bellbrook-area home reflects that.
All his tools hang neatly on hooks over the work area, and all his paint and glue are stashed in a set of matching cabinets.
For others, garage storage is not nearly as formal. A few hooks on the wall here and there and a piece of plywood tossed over the rafters. Voila! Instant storage space.
Whether you want your garage to be a showplace or just a hiding place, there are ways to take advantage of the empty areas that could be holding some of your excess stuff.
Ed and Patricia Szeman had their Sugarcreek Township house built about two years ago and later hired Cincinnati-based Closet Factory to equip their closets, pantries and Ed’s all-important garage work area.
The work area features two large workbenches and a smaller telephone and television table, all with shelves and drawers underneath.
John Sherman, sales manager for Closet Factory, said most people doing garage organization want at least a few cabinets that stretch from the floor to the ceiling, and Szeman’s emphasis on horizontal work surfaces is a little unusual.
“But there’s no such thing as a typical garage reorganization,” Sherman said. “Some people have a lot of things in boxes they want to put away, some people have bikes and things they want to hang up, other people want work space. But everybody wants storage.”
It’s common for people to accumulate items over the years that they don’t need immediately but aren’t willing to throw away. There are also items that are only used part of the year, such as lawn mowers.
And the longer you live in a given place, the harder it is to find storage room for everything. That’s why it’s often helpful to optimize the storage potential of a garage.
“You do a closet reorganization for people, and they’re overwhelmed with the extra space they suddenly have,” Sherman said. “A couple years later, though, all their space is filled, and they’re calling you back for more.”
I’ve always said the first step in improving your storage space is to stop storing some things. On a nice day when you pull things out onto the driveway without fear of rain, open all the old boxes, pull things off the top shelves, open all the cabinets and assess what you’ve been saving.
Some people will look at something, scratch their heads about why they might have stored it–and then put it back in storage.
Don’t do that. Anything you haven’t used in two years, you’ll probably never use it. Give it away, hold a garage sale, pitch it in the trash can. Anything but put it back in storage.
The next step is to figure how much space you need for your cars. Park the car or cars and open all the doors. You should plan to leave a few inches clearance beyond the open doors so you don’t bang things getting in and out of the car.
Don’t park against the back wall of the garage. Leave at least a one-foot gap so you can easily walk in front of the car.
All the space that’s left–on the floors, on the walls, under the ceiling and over the rafters–is fair game.
Now that you know how much space you have, start assessing what you want to store. Don’t store anything in the garage that can’t stand up to extremes of temperature and humidity. That includes clothing, photos and most food.
Consider the things you’ve previously stored in the garage and things in other overcrowded storage areas around the house that you could move to the garage. Remember that things in storage breed, so plan for the junk population explosion that always comes along within a year or so.
The rigors of garage life limit what you can store there and also affect the kinds of storage units you can use.
Humidity in garages can be brutal, and you should expect to hose down the floor occasionally when it gets dirty.
Sherman said Closet Factory uses a base of pressure-treated lumber under its cabinets in garages. The company uses a type of pressed wood coated with melamine, a protective and decorative coating.
The cabinets hold up well when elevated off the garage floor, Sherman said, but they would be damaged if exposed directly to the moisture that’s common on garage floors.
Sherman said floor-to-ceiling cabinets from his company usually sell for about $85 per foot. That means you can get a 4-foot-wide custom-made storage cabinet for about $340.
A do-it-yourselfer can find a variety of ready-to-assemble cabinets at home improvement stores for considerably less, though they take time and effort to put together and won’t match the look of custom cabinets.
For example, a metal rack 4 feet high and 4 feet wide with 18-inch deep moveable shelves will cost $60 to $100. A plastic utility cabinet 6 feet high and 2 feet wide with 18-inch adjustable shelves sells for about $70 to $90.
If you don’t mind having the things you store sit out in the open, shelves are about the easiest and most practical garage storage solution.
A long, continuous shelf may be more useful than several stacked shelves, but the layout of your garage will dictate what is best for you. You can either purchase shelf systems or buy brackets and make your own shelves out of plywood.
Wire shelves, shelves made of thin metal bars spaced about an inch apart, have become common in closets, but they also work well in garages. On the plus side, wire shelves are fairly attractive and you can see what’s on the shelf from underneath. On the minus side, wire shelves cost more than plywood shelves and may not hold as much weight.
A kit for an 8-foot section of shelving 12 inches deep will cost about $15 to $20. You can buy brackets and plywood to fashion shelves for about half the price per foot.
The most common mistake homeowners make in installing wire shelves is scrimping on attachments. Most wire shelves attached to drywall are supposed to be held in place with fasteners spaced every foot, for example.
To build plywood shelves, visit a lumber store and find out what kinds of shelving brackets are available and which will best suit your garage.
The most common type are individual brackets that are fastened directly to the wall in a row and brackets that fit into “standards,” which are like slotted post that attach to the wall.
Typical individual brackets are flattened steel pieces shaped like an L with a lower arm that is screwed to a stud in the wall and an upper arm that holds the shelf. Brackets for a 12-inch shelf sell for about $2 to $5 depending on how much weight they are designed to hold.
Individual brackets are usually the best choice for an inexpensive continuous shelf. You can buy a sheet of 3/4-inch thick plywood to make 32 feet of foot wide shelving for less than $20. Standards are good for stacked, adjustable shelves. Building shelves with standards gives you more flexibility, but it’s usually more expensive. A single upright standard about 6 feet high costs about $7, and you have to place one every few feet along the width of the shelves.
Standards, like individual shelf brackets, should be screwed down to studs in the garage wall when possible.
In garages with brick or masonry walls, it’s hard to attach shelf supports securely. Sometimes masonry anchors work well, but anchors are not always as secure as screws driven into studs.
Many garages with hard walls have a wooden header board along the top of the wall. You can attach a hanger strip, which is sold alongside the upright standards, to the header strip in those cases. You then can hang standards from the hanger strip, and your shelves will be secure.
Remember when you’re positioning shelves that you should leave three or four feet clearance underneath the shelves. A convenient way to store things along the wall of a garage is to put them into boxes or plastic storage containers and slide them under the shelves.
The simplest hanging device in the garage is a big galvanized nail hammered down into the wall at a 45-degree angle. If you’re driving the nail into a masonry wall, you may need to drill a guide hole first so the nail goes in at the proper angle without bending.
Of course, you can also buy various hooks and specialized hanging devices such as bike hangers. The cost varies with the application
If you have a lot of long-handled garden tools, you might want to install a pair of peg boards. Bolt a board horizontally on the wall one foot under the ceiling and a second board about 18 inches lower.
Drive pairs of nails or pegs angled slightly upward along the length of the upper board, with about 18 inches between pairs. Stagger the pairs of nails or pegs in the lower board to correspond to the gaps in the upper board.
A PRICE CHECK ON STORAGE ITEMS
You can spend a lot or a little for shelves, cabinets, racks and other things to store your possessions in your garage.
Here are a few prices for storage products:
– Shelving brackets. Attached to a wall, they form the supports for 12-inch-wide shelves. Price is $2 to $5 each.
– Shelving standards. Bars that are attached to walls have slots for brackets that hold shelves. Price is $15 for a pair of 70-inch high standards.
– Wire shelving. Shelves made of thick metal wire bent into shape, usually painted white or coated silver. Price is $15 to $20 for a kit for an 8-foot section of shelving 12 inches deep.
– Plywood. Sheets of plywood can be cut lengthwise to make shelves or laid over rafters to form a loft floor. Price is $12 to $20 for a 4-by-8-foot sheet.
– Custom cabinets. Floor-to-ceiling cabinets installed by a professional. Price is $340 for a 4-foot-wide storage cabinet.
– Prebuilt cabinets. Bought from a home improvement store and assembled in place. Price is $70 to $90 for a plastic utility cabinet 6 feet high and 3 feet wide with 18-inch adjustable shelves.
– Racks. Kits bought from a home improvement or discount store. Price is $60 to $100 for a metal rack 4 feet high, 4 feet wide with 18-inch-deep movable shelves.
– Sports rack. A rack that sits on the floor and has spaces for sports equipment. Price is $80 for a 4-by-4-foot rack.
— Cox News Service
