Thank You, Pinterest...

...for helping organize our garage...

I realize that our garage isn't nearly as bad as some, but to me, it's a complete pit. With the random Rubbermaid's, the endless supply of Army junk, sports/lawn equipment, and other random items, there's no way we could ever park both vehicles in there. Okay, not to mention the fact that I think the truck is too long anyways, but still. We always have my car on one side, and a complete mess covering the rest...

So thanks to Pinterest, I decided a couple months ago that we were going to create a massive shelving unit to help store some of the junk in an organized manner. Knowing my parents were coming for a visit, I decided to wait until that time to break out the tools and build it. My dad loves doing projects like this. In fact, growing up, I would always get excited about helping him build things, so I knew this would be a great opportunity to get it taken care of.

Here is a link to the tutorial that we based our project on...

If you ever decide to create one of these, this is how we built it...

You'll need...

(14) 2 x 4 x 96 boards

(2) 19/32 x 4 x 8 plywood sheets

1 lb roofing nails

1 lb 3 in. self-drilling star-drive screws

Instead of having Lowe's cut everything for us, we just had them cut the plywood and took the rest home and did it ourselves. You'll want to cut the plywood exactly in half, leaving each sheet at 24" long. After it's all said and done, you'll have one 24" piece of plywood left -- I wonder what project we can do with that? :)

With the boards, you'll end up with (6) 93" long, (6) 24" long, (4) 70" long,  (3) 21" long, (1) 19" long, and the last board left uncut. After all was said and done, we had several little pieces left over that I'll soon sand, spray paint, and give to Samuel to play with -- what kid doesn't like building blocks?!

Being the perfectionist that he is, my dad took his time to make sure every measurement was precise...

And me, looking a like a bum off the street with an old sweatshirt and boxer pants, had fun using power tools, ha. I think the last time I used a saw was in 6th grade working on a project for school (with my dad)...

To make each shelf, you'll want to line up the 93" boards with the 24" ends and use two 3" screws on each corner. Can I just say, I had never heard of a "rapid load" drill bit until my dad insisted we use them for this project. Where was this awesome tool all these years? It saved SO much time! I always drill pilot holes before drilling in the screw (even though they are self-drilling), just to ensure the wood doesn't split, etc. Switching between the different drill bits was super fast thanks to that rapid load mechanism. It will definitely (always) be used from now on!

I would definitely recommend using a clamp while drilling so that the wood doesn't try to run away...

Once the four corners are screwed together, the 24" x 8' plywood should fit perfectly on top. We then used the roofing nails, spreading them a foot apart all around the board. 

After creating each shelf, we added additional support in the middle with the 21" boards -- using (2) 3" screws on each side...

Seems pretty easy, right? Time-consuming, but super easy! After each shelf was done, the fun of measuring out the space between each shelf and installing the legs began. We chose to have 19 inches between each shelf. That is enough space for the tallest Rubbermaid container, so we went with it. This is where that one, lonely, 19" board comes in. If you hold it between the two shelves while drilling the holes/installing the screws for each leg, it ensures the spacing is perfect. We started with the top shelf and went down... 

 

There you can see my dad holding the 19" piece in place while James used the drill...

(Don't you just love the messy garage?! Drives me insane...)

Here's a view from the other side -- you can see the middle boards that allow for more support...

I failed to grab a pic of us installing the final board, but before finishing up, we added one final (full-sized) board to the back, going diagonal across the back to add more stability -- using 2 screws at each point where it met the shelves... 

And here's the finished project. It's much heavier that I expected, but a HECK of a lot sturdier than that expensive hard plastic junk we've bought in the past (that has broken with each move)! In fact, it's much cheaper than even the huge metal shelving units you can get at Costco, so yay for that! I don't know what I was expecting exactly with the weight, but my first thought when we stood it upright was, "I sure hope this doesn't make us go over our weight allowance with the next move!" Sad, but true. We're always bordering that pesky weight allowance with the military moves...

So here's a before and after...

   

It's still messy, and sadly, I could probably use another one of these shelves and fill it with more Rubbermaid's, but it works and I'm happy that I can now easily access each tub. I noticed when putting the Rubbermaid's on the shelf, a few of them were half empty. I suppose the next project will call for sorting these tubs and organizing them!

Samuel thought the view from the top was pretty awesome...

And there you have it. We all pin so much stuff on Pinterest...

Every so often, it comes to fruition...