How to Build Wall Mounted Garage Shelves

By John Vivian
Published on April 1, 1999
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by John Vivian

Learn how to build wall mounted garage shelves for easy storage in your garage, backyard shed or porch. Now you have a place to store tools, holiday decor, cleaning supplies and more.

On any self-sustaining country place, we accumulate great heaps of stuff that we don’t need every day but that we want in clear view and close at hand when we do: books, hand and power tools, the sausage-stuffer and canning equipment, seasonal ornaments and kid’s toys, engine oil and dry-food stores, leftover wall-paper and paints, nails, screws and adhesives, and more tools. If such items are stashed away in drawers or boxes, the back or bottom layers will inevitably be forgotten and lost. How many half-used containers of putty, paint, and fluid adhesive have you misplaced, forgotten, and discovered years later, dried up and ruined?

I find that the best way to keep track of stuff is to store it out of the way but in full view and in easy-to-reach spots on the otherwise unused overheads and unfinished walls of the house and barn. Fixed storage shelves can be easily erected on stout wooden brackets fastened to open wall studs using a few simple tools, elementary fasteners and straight cuts in stock lumber and sheet goods.

How to Build Wall Mounted Garage Shelves Opening Stud Walls

A majority of the walls in most spread-out country places are finished on the outside, but on the inside, the 2 x 4 or larger vertical posts or studs are exposed on three sides. Most of this wall area is ignored and wasted. Insulating, sheathing, trimming, and hidden-wiring such spaces is a major undertaking that’s justified only if you need an additional interior room: an added bedroom, playroom, or office. But with minimal effort and expense, the space can be utilized as is: the open studs can be converted to storage walls, rendering the unfinished area a useful, informal, temperate-weather living or working space–a storage pantry, shop, rough-finished dorm, indoor-outdoor room, or summer kitchen. Here is how to build shelves that will put all of that wasted space to good use.

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