No place in a home gets cluttered as quickly as the garage. What starts out as a space for storage and your car can quickly turn into a tangle of tools, garden equipment, and rarely used household goods. Using shelves strategically is a simple way to get the clutter under control, and with the many varieties of shelves on the market, it's easy to find the right shelving unit to fit your needs.
Free Standing Shelves
Probably the most prevalent kind of garage shelving is the free-standing unit made from wire, steel, or plastic. You can find these shelves in just about any home improvement or house goods store. They're easy to assemble, relatively inexpensive, and come in a wide variety of sizes. You can also easily customize them with removable bins, baskets, and hanging baskets. Some free-standing shelves come on casters making them easy to move around. The downside to store-bought shelves is that they only come in a few stock sizes and it can be difficult to find bins to fit the shelf spaces exactly.
Adjustable Shelves
Another great option for garage shelves is adjustable shelving. These usually come with a set of rails mounted to the wall or inserted into feet brackets. You can easily adjust these shelves to fit the things you need to store, or to fit the storage bins you want to use. If you don't have free wall space, or garage walls suitable for mounting rails, adjustable shelves may not work for your home.
Reduce & Reuse
Consider turning old kitchen or bathroom cabinets into your new garage cabinets. Those old cabinets may have gone out of style for your home but easily become useful storage space in a garage. Reusing shelves isn't as aesthetically pleasing as installing new shelves, though, and they are difficult to customize.
Custom Shelves
Of course, having shelves custom-built by a professional handyman to suit your needs is ideal. You can choose your own materials, build around structural oddities in a garage, and get exactly the kind of storage you need and want. Custom-built shelves last a long time and are very sturdy. You can also have the shelves built to the exact measurements to fit the bins, boxes, and drawers that best keep your garage organized.
Any shelving option you choose will help keep a cluttered garage in check. Explore your options and find the best shelving unit for your needs.
This article is part of the Garage Organization Ideas series. Read more for garage organization tips from Mr. Handyman.
