Do It Yourshelf November 2006

by Jim Frazier
Images by R. Byrne

Jim Frazier provides helpful instructions, information, and tips for the home-improvement amateurs in getting the clutter off their garage floors and onto a set of attractive wire racks.

I pounded my first nail into a board for good purpose when I was a kid working beside my uncle, who was a carpenter. I was probably 11. I was bracing my floor because I got a waterbed. It was 1960 and waterbeds were the rage. One of his buddies had given it to him and he passed it on to me. I had fun crawling under the house putting in the extra bracing to support the bed. My uncle and his dad, my grandpa, were both carpenters so I guess it was in my blood.

After high school they were starting an apartment complex behind our house. I got a job on the spot as an apprentice carpenter, spent four years at apprenticeships, and then became a journeyman. I worked for a dozen years with a developer, got my contractor license, and went out on my own.

I like people. I got a kick out of doing this article and showing area residents how they can improve their lives.

Putting up Shelves in a Garage
Putting up shelves along the walls of a garage is a good method of utilizing space, avoiding mini-storage charges, and providing sufficient room to actually be able to park two cars in a two-car garage.

The homeowner handyman can choose from among three popular materials including Melamine, raw wood, and wire shelving. Melamine is a synthetic material manufactured from an organic compound that can be fabricated into planks to make strong, long-lasting shelves.

Plastic is a difficult medium for the average person. It is easier to shape by processes of extruding and fabrication than by cutting, grinding, and sawing.

Plastic shelving works best for the typical homeowner when purchased as pre-made ready-to-assemble units. In this case plastic shelves are the least-attractive but easiest of the choices, since the modular units can be simply snapped together and then lined up side-by-side in order to fill the available space. You don’t have to anchor these since if an earthquake dumps them over you can just clean up the mess, stand them back up, and then put the stuff back on the shelves.

Raw wood is an obvious choice for homeowners planning to install shelves in their garage. Many people have had experience working with wood – beginning with their high school shop class. They can buy plans from multiple sources, they know about the material, and usually have the saws, hammers, levels, sand paper, etcetera necessary for installation.

The advantage of wooden shelves is that you can build these strong. If you have a collection of antique sea anchors or any other material that requires heavier load-bearing structures, you need to use wood, making sure to install a ledger on the wall to nail the shelves to, plus continuous bracing to the floor.

The difficulty with this choice is that wooden shelves really do require a lot of planning and construction effort – with a number of “measure twice; cut once” principles that the homeowner has to know about and follow. The tasks of selecting the plans, doing the specifications for the job, assembling the materials list, buying the material, and hauling it to the site is a set of complicated tasks all by itself. Plus, unless you really know what you’re doing, you’ll probably be making that trip back to the lumber yard a number of times.

After the construction of wooden shelves is finished comes the painting tasks, of course, which is a big job, as well – and the one that I find most distasteful of all the parts of construction.

The third option, wire shelving, is easy for the sometime handy man since the only equipment required is a cordless drill, a tape measure, a chalk line, and a level. (NOTE: This is a good project for you husbands who want an excuse to buy that Dewalt power drill you’ve been lusting after.)

Another advantage is that wire shelves permit everything to breathe and prevents any build-up of mold or dampness. They have the additional advantage that you can see everything so you don’t have to go searching through cupboards to find the set of four wineglasses that you know you put somewhere two years ago.

Wire shelves are light to medium strength. You can’t put any of your larger sea anchors on these things. On the other hand, the bottom level is simply the garage floor so if you have only a few anchors or lead ingots or whatever, you can make sure these are stored beneath the shelves themselves.

Creating Wire Shelves
For the project illustrated in this article, we erected wire shelving on two sides of a garage, 16 feet long on one side and 12 on the other. We were using four levels of shelves that were 16 inches deep. So the project provided the homeowner with almost 150 square feet of usable wire storage space. When you add the floor space below the bottom shelf where the homeowner will store heavy objects, the real usable space becomes more than 186 square feet.

You can buy the materials at any of the home supply stores. Besides the 16-inch deep shelving that we chose you can buy narrower shelves, 12 inches deep, or wider shelves that are 20 inches deep, depending upon your needs and the configuration of your space.

The way the shelves are sold makes the ordering of materials a snap. You simply measure the length of a wall you want to build shelves on and multiply by the number of shelves. The longest wall in this project, along the left side of the garage, was 16 feet. We built the shelves four high, which meant we needed to purchase 64 linear feet of shelving for the left side of the garage. The right side of the garage, making allowance for the laundry facilities, was 12 feet long, and therefore required 48 linear feet of shelves. These are sold in increments of six, eight, and 12 feet. Most of the home improvement stores will provide custom lengths for a small extra charge. Or you can cut these to a desired length yourself with either a hacksaw, a skill saw with an abrasive blade, or a pair of wire cutters, for that matter.

Wire shelves require the installation of angle brackets below each shelf to keep the shelf sturdy. Make sure you nail each bracket to a stud and not simply into the drywall. We installed brackets every four feet, or so, matching them to the studs. You should plan to put in more or fewer angle brackets depending upon the weight that the shelves will by bearing.

You can buy dry-wall anchors, which are supposed to let you ignore studs, but I don’t recommend them. These anchors are often a bad choice because in that case the bracing is only as strong as the drywall, which is simply paper glued over a layer of gypsum. The framing provides a much stronger foundation, one that is less likely to let down your shelves.

I never use the screws that are sold with the shelves, but instead purchase Grip Rite Fas’ners. I call these “grabber screws,” because they are thicker in diameter than standard screws and have an aggressive thread that will force the screw to pull itself tight.

The shelves are attached to the drywall by clips. You should make sure that you use one of these every 32 inches, or less. Space these 16 inches apart for maximum strength.

All garage floors have a slope for drainage so be sure to use the ceiling and not the floor when putting in the lowest shelf. Find a point for one corner of the lowest shelf. Measure from the ceiling. Then measure from the ceiling for the opposite corner. Use a chalk line snap from point-to-point to establish your straight line. This will ensure that your shelf is perfectly level – or at least as level as your ceiling. Once the lowest shelf is installed you can then measure from that point to the shelf above. The right side of the garage in our case had a floor beam, which is a cement curb set beneath one wall of the garage. These beams are always level.

We usually put the lowest shelf 24 inches off the floor. This leaves sufficient floor space for large items like suitcases and heavy items like Propane bottles or bowling balls.

Once the first shelf is in place you can space the other three shelves to suit your requirements. We spaced each shelf 16 inches apart.

The project from opening the garage door and seeing the stuff laying all around to putting in the final screw took a little over two hours of work. Everyone was pleased with what an enormous improvement we had created in the appearance and usability of that place in such a short time. We were pleased ourselves!

Now the homeowner has gotten a car off the street. He’s happy and so are his neighbors.°