I have a dream. A dream to park my car in the garage, out of the scorching southern California sun. Unfortunately for me, the heat starts in May down here, so this project had to be accomplished pronto!
As you can see in the following "before" pictures (please excuse the quickie iPhone photos), I had a major challenge on my hands. The movers literally dumped the boxes in the back of the garage, with no organization or regard for floor space. How dare they? We can barely fit the motorcycle in here, never mind the "2 cars" we were promised.
It took me the better part of a month just to go through the boxes and organize them in the large black tubs I bought from Big Lots, who, by the way, has the best prices on storage bins, in case you were wondering. The only reason for the black tubs over the clear variety was purely financial. I knew I would need at least 16 of these things, and at $5 a piece, I could get them under $100. The clear boxes were at least $8 each. No worries though, I had blue tape and a Sharpie to label the contents.
I also sorted a trash pile and a garage sale pile. Anything left over from the garage sale was taken directly to Goodwill, no looking back. It felt good to purge decades of stuff we will never use.
I won't write a tutorial here because I used one that already exists and pretty much stuck to that plan with only a few adjustments in measurements. See link here to the original tutorial. I should add I did 95% of this project on my own. My hubby helped me put the long shelves into the frames after they were built, but this project can be done by yourself with a little creativity and muscle. Go girl power! The total cost for the wood and the nails/screws was $150 for both shelving units. Much more affordable than prefab metal units and custom made to fit.
And now the "after". If you decide to tackle something like this yourself, consider the specific needs you have. For example, I had lots of framed art I wanted to keep. It was being stored up against a wall, but this top shelf was made to accommodate large and small pieces. Measure your largest pieces to make sure your shelves will fit them. Not all your shelves need to be the same size, but try to plan what will go where.
The large shelf unit is 13 feet long and 2 feet deep. Its amazing that we still managed to fill this thing! All the boxes on the bottom are books. Heavy, heavy books. We have very little flood threat, so I'm not too worried about them getting wet. We do however have earthquakes, and this thing is SOLID! I added a hook for the ladder on the end to keep that off the floor. Side note, hubby "decorated" the garage with Buddy, the antelope. This was not my choice, but he seems attached to it because it was his grand fathers. So I let it slide, for now.
I just need to take the broken down cardboard to the recycle center, and I'll be able to park in the garage! I still have a couple projects in mind to really complete the organization, but that won't affect my parking abilities for now. Can you say Pegboard? Eeeee!
-Sarah
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