Professional Garage Cabinets & Shelving Projects

Cabinets and Shelving Estimations: Professional Carpenter Quotes.

Building Garage Cabinets & Shelves

Your garage is more than just a simple shed to keep you vehicle safe from mother nature. It also serves as one of the primary places for storage in your home. However, in many garages, a lack of storage cabinets and shelves can cause a garage to look more like the aftermath of a tornado.

If you have been putting off adding adequate shelves and cabinets to your garage because you fear that they will be difficult or expensive to build, you’re wrong! This easy guide will show you how anyone can build the perfect set of shelves and cabinets for a garage that will help you to keep everything clean, organized, and tidy, without breaking the bank.

How to Build Your Own Garage Cabinets

Building cabinets for your garage can be shockingly simple and cheap to accomplish. After all, when you think about it, cabinets are basically just boxes with doors on them, right? That being said, this is your guide to building very basic and cheap cabinets for your garage.

What You Will Need

Plywood

2×2’s

Wood glue

Hardware/doors

Hinges

Screws

The Process

For cabinets you are going to cut your plywood into two sets of matching sizes for the sides, top and bottom at least 16 1/2 inches deep, two even sizes for the doors sixteen inches wide, and a back side that is 32 inches wide so that you can easily attach the cabinet to the stud.

You will also want to cut pieces 32 inches long and 16 inches deep for your shelves inside. Using the glue, and clamps, assemble the basic box. Next you will need to use the hinges to attach the doors to the front of your cabinet.

Finally, screw the hardware into the doors for easy opening and closing. You will also probably want to paint your cabinet. Finally, attach your cabinet to the studs in your wall.

*Tip* If you will be parking vehicles in the garage, you may want to make sure that your cabinets are high enough on the wall so that you can still park your vehicles underneath if necessary. You may also want additional room for storage.

The Cost of Building Your Own Garage Cabinets

Depending on what type of wood you decide to use for your cabinets, they can be very cheap or fairly expensive to build. Using basic plywood will be the cheapest way to go and should run you about $100 for one cabinet.

How to Build Your Own Garage Shelves

For the purpose of this article, we are going to show you how to build very basic shelves from simple 2×4’s and plywood which will be just as sturdy as anything that you might buy in a store, but a lot cheaper! In fact, you could use scrap wood to build shelving for your garage, for next to nothing.

These shelves will have a depth of 16 inches, which is ideal because it is deep and sturdy enough to be able to support tool boxes, but also shallow enough that you will be able to reach everything on them with ease.

What You Will Need

3 lengths of 2x4's for support brackets

six pieces of 12 inches

six pieces at 10 inches

six pieces at 8 1/2 inches

1/2 inch OSB cut into 6 feet in length

The Process

Using a speed square, mark a 45 degree angle on each end of the 12 inch bracket cross piece, and cut it using a miter saw.

Next, using 2 1/2 inch screws and an impact driver assemble each of the support brackets. The longest (10 inch) pieces will be the tops, which will be in direct contact with the shelf itself.

In most cases, the wall studs will be 16 inches apart on center, but you will want to use a stud finder just to be sure you know exactly where to attach the brackets.

*TIP* You will want to make sure that your shelves are at least 16 inches from the floor, as well as, the ceiling to be sure that you have enough room to store your items away.

Before you drill the holes for your shelves, you will want to use a level to make sure that you are installing the shelves correctly.

Pre-drill holes into the support brackets and the into the wall using the 2 1/2 inch screws and attach the brackets to the wall. Each bracket should be 16 inches away from one another and to the stud.

Now, you are ready to attach the shelf. Making sure you have it pushed all the way back against the wall, pre-drill four holes into the support brackets before attaching with four screws. Make sure to drive the screws all the way flush so that they don’t snag on anything you are storing.

The Cost of Building Your Own Garage Shelves

Again, the cost to build your own garage shelves can be next to nothing, or even free if you already have the extra wood laying around. However, if you want to make your shelves out of higher quality woods, your expenses will go up.

Building wood shelves for your garage like the ones we have outlined could easily be done for $20 or less per shelf and will make a big impact on making your garage neater and more organized.