Garage Storage Shelves Can Offer Sturdy, Reliable Storage Space

If you don’t have garage storage shelves, you’re missing out on what is without question a very important element in ensuring that you garage floor is free of detritus, detritus of the sort that has turned a large portion of American garages into non-functional areas so beset by clutter as to be useless as handiwork or car-storage spaces. The good news is that you can find simple garage storage shelves or modular shelving systems at stores like IKEA and Home Depot for about as much as it would cost to buy the lumber to build them. The bad news is that such shelves are often fragile and unstable, likely to fall over if you or one of your kids bumps into them too hard.

Looking At Garage Storage Shelves

Far preferable is cantilevered shelving. Properly put together, built in cantilevered shelving can be so strong as to allow a full-grown man to climb up the front of it. If you don’t know how to build garage shelves, the simplest design requires

  • two boards to be nailed to either side of a two-by-four, with a smaller diagonal piece inserted between the horizontal and vertical boards to brace the shelf.

  • All the joins (the meeting points between the boards) are glued in addition to being nailed together, a combination that gives the construction the stiffness it needs.

  • If you’re up for doing some sawing, you can make the shelf support pieces from a single two-by-four.

  • If you aren’t so keen, you can just purchase a couple of two-by-two board, which, square though they may be, will essentially fulfill the same purpose as a solo diagonal would have.

You can attach any number of shelves to your vertical planks, and then bolt those vertical planks to the wall, or to a ceiling joist for garage ceiling storage, if your garage has any. At the last, you should literally be able to test the shelving by climbing up its front, alternately hanging from and standing on the shelves.

Pre-Built Garage Storage Shelves

If building shelves in a garage doesn’t sound like a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon, well, then you could always go for pre-built garage storage shelves. Indeed, if you’re not too concerned with strength or stability, there’s no reason not to find some old kitchen cabinets and use them in your garage. If you are, however, you’ll probably want to go for metal garage storage shelves.

Aluminum Shelving

Now, in case you didn’t take high school physics, not all metals are created equal.

  • Salespeople at your local hardware store might suggest that you buy aluminum shelving, and you may be impressed by its attractive appearance and proclaimed immunity to corrosion.

  • Well, the corrosion part is true - indeed, aluminum will last up to half again as long as stainless steel, resisting rust in all but the worst of conditions.

  • However, it won’t offer the incredible strength provided by stainless steel garage storage shelves, strength that translates into the ability to withstand just about any weight you’re likely to place on a shelf in a residential setting.

Furthermore, the difference in corrosion-resistance can be heavily offset if you purchase stainless steel with a baked-on enamel coating, which, aside from giving the metal a more attractive appearance, will render it pretty much immune to damage from the elements.