Josh Christie's Weblog

I come from a long line of pack rats. When my granddad needs more space he builds a new barn (seven and counting..), but last Sunday all I needed were some garage shelves.

My wife and I bought the wood and built the shelves shown below in a single day. I'll explain the design and construction in case you're in need of something similar and, like me, can't find a design you like elsewhere on the internet.

I built five shelves that were eight feet tall, eight feet wide, and 20 inches deep. Each shelf is supported by a 2x4 rail in the back screwed to the wall studs and a 2x4 rail in the front supported by three vertical 2x4 supports. Each shelf is 15 inches high since that's the maximum height of my stuff.

What you need

13 10' 2x4s
3 4x8 sheets of 1/2 inch plywood
5 pound box of 3.5 inch deck screws (you'll have plenty left over)
6 #8 1 inch screws per shelf to screw them down
15 3.5 inch long 5/16 width carriage bolts
15 nuts
30 washers

TIP: Buy 10 or 12 foot 2x4s even though you're going to cut them to eight feet, not eight foot studs. The longer 2x4s cost about 50 cents more and are typically about 100 times better quality wood than studs. Don't feel bad cutting them off.

TIP: Save yourself a lot of headache by using deck screws. They don't strip out like the regular zinc coated screws at Lowe's. The Phillips brand screws I used even came with their own special bit. My dad gets the credit for this one.

After you cut everything, screw the bottom back rail to the wall studs making absolutely sure it's level.
Measure up 19 inches from the top of that rail to mark the top of the next rail. 15 inches of shelf height + 1/2 inch of plywood + 3.5 inches of 2x4 = 19.
Repeat for the rest of the rails.
On the floor, screw the plywood shelves onto the 2x4 front rails. Make sure the screws won't interfere with where you are going to drill holes for carriage bolts.
Now comes the tricky part where you're definitely going to need two people. Position a shelf (with attached front rail) onto a back rail.
Making sure the shelf stays level, position the end vertical supports and make sure they are level, too.
Clamp the front rail to the each of the end vertical supports.
Once clamped, drill a hole and insert the carriage bolts through the vertical supports and front rail.
Screw the first shelf down to the back rail.
Repeat for the rest of the shelves. After the first shelf, it starts firming up and becomes much easier to keep everything level.
After all the shelves are in, level and clamp the center vertical support and insert carriage bolts.

You can see I splurged an extra two dollars and fifty cents per shelf to get nice looking plywood. It probably would have been smart to paint the wall beforehand, though.

One vertical support rests on the brick foundation running around my garage.

There you have it, super sturdy, good-looking garage shelves you can build in one day. Let me know if you have any questions.

Posted by JoshC at June 13, 2007 12:46 AM

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