This is about garage door storage shelves and how to make them. Some of you may end up accumulating a bunch of crap, so you need to have a place to put it well.
It’s quite obvious that not all living spaces or garages are created equal. So, before you go modifying anything be sure that the structure itself can actually handle the weight.
The way that this system will work, is there will be a 2×2 board on the wall at the height in which I want the shelves to be away from the ceiling. There will also be a 2×2 board along the ceiling at the distance in which I want the shelves to extend away from the wall from the horizontal piece on the ceiling. Some vertical 2×4 will come down to another floating 2×2 piece, which will make the other side for these shelves to rest against, and then I’ll place a plywood on top of both of those 2×2 boards.
As far as the 2×2 boards go, it’s much cheaper to buy a 2×4 and rip them right down the middle to get approximate 2×2 boards. I’ve got two 12 ft. boards and on the other side I’ve got two 8 ft. boards and then I’ll cut them to the approximate length according to the opening for my attic. Each shelf has three horizontal 2×2 and they all need to be the same length.
So, with one measure I can extend my mark to the other 2×2 boards. The shelf is actually a little too long for my miter saw station. So, I’ll cut those real quick by hand using a spacer board and a couple scrap pieces of wood to locate where I want the shelf to be. The 2×2 board that will support the actual shelf will go on top of these two cleats.
These two cleats are here just to make the installation of the next board a lot easier. I’ll do this on both sides for both shelves while pieces are already installed, and luckily the ceiling will be even easier to install because the screws from the ceiling panels are clearly visible and the ceiling joists are running left-to-right.
With the vertical 2×4 is installed I can add the front horizontal 2×2 shelf support and to help me hold it up there while I secure it with the first couple screws, I’ve added a Koch pieces of scrap wood to the bottom of a couple for the vertical supports.
At this point, all the hard work is done. I just need to cut some plywood shelves to their final size and secure them from the top with some one and a quarter inch screws. So that was definitely one of those projects that require a little bit of manual labor but it was also definitely one of those projects that will be very beneficial in the long run.
This is otherwise wasted space that pretty much all of us with a garage have and don’t utilize.