Open Shelves

All posts tagged Open Shelves

Shelves Over the Garage Door

Posted by James on October 13, 2012
Posted in: New Home. Tagged: , , . 16 Comments

Yepp!

We found a place to hoard, I mean store, more of our crap, I mean prized possessions.

Over the garage door, (but y’all already knew that from the title of the post).

Here’s the spot. Since our ceiling is 10 foot tall, there was plenty of room to install a couple of shelves (2 feet from the ceiling) and still leave plenty of clearance for the door to open.

Built us a couple of 2 foot by 8 foot frames out of 2X4s. And then mounted them with lag screws into the studs because we don’t want anything crashing down on our heads.

After completing the cedar planking around the frames, we added a platform of plywood. Plywood comes in 4X8 sheets so we just had the H-depot “half-Z” it.

Our shelves are the perfect size for 6 tubs of assorted importance.

Not quite sure about the view from underneath…..we haven’t decided if seeing the plywood bothers us. Probably not, it is just a garage after all.

That’s 12 tubs (count them) that are now tucked out of our way, mostly christmas decorations. I think this falls under the catagory of “Organized Hoarding”. L O V E a label maker.

Pay no attention to that white cord that runs along the ceiling (it used to be a brown one) that powers the garage door opener. We have plans to cover it with a “box” of some sort….still working on those details.

Just to make sure our new shelves are extra supported, we reinforced the corners with chain. Eye hooks in the ceiling studs are connected with a short distance of chain. The trick to this is the turnbuckle eye/hook. This small piece of genius tightens the distance between the shelf and the ceiling.

Yeppers! We are now even closer to a garage floor we can actually see…….and one day Paint.

Creating Shelves Between Cabinets

Posted by James on September 15, 2012
Posted in: New Home, Projects. Tagged: , , , , , , . 5 Comments

OK,

So we mounted our old cabinets on the garage wall, and they didn’t quite strech over all the wall space we were hoping for.

Not to worry. Nothing wrong with a little open shelving in this house….

This project is very similar to the shelf we built over the door to our master Bedroom last year…….and visually mimics the Ikea Lack shelves that we attached to the side of the cabinets over the washer/dryer.

We love consistency in this house……….

Here’s the space between the wall mounted cabinets. About 30 inches.

We started with a few scrap 1X2s cut to fit the shelf. Using a level, we then screwed them to the cabinet sides and wall. Right into the studs. This will support the weight evenly. If we just did the sides, eventually they might sag in the middle.

For shelves, we hacked down 2 of the old laminate shelves that used to hang over the washer/dryer. Laminate surfaces are great in a garage because painted shelves would just get scratched with all the action.

I’m really glad that we could reuse the older shelves.

The American Indians have an mantra that we in the Cavender house try to live by too,

“Every part of the Buffalo”

They got everything that they needed to survive from buffalos (technically Bison, but I digress) ……..food, clothing, tools, weapons and even housing. Not a single little part of the animal was wasted.

It’s very possible that the Native Americans were the first hoarders.

Added a couple of 1X2 strips to the front just to make them look thicker…and I filled in the cracks and nail holes with white kitchen/bathroom chalk.

Remember that Crate & Barrel outlet down the street? Found these lovelies there a few months ago…

See where this is headed now?

Great place to wrangle all those oddball things that we need in the garage; extension cords, electrical supplies, shop towels, and even rubber gloves. Out in the open, but still organized.

I’m thinking about adding another white trim piece just under the counter top…….. I think I’ll go do that right now.

We’ll see y’all later with more of our easy garage organizing ideas.