Get The Best Garage Storage Cabinets Without Spending Tons Of Money
If you are debating what the best garage storage cabinets are for you take a look at this.
There's no better feeling than taking pride in something you have done. It doesn't matter what it is: cooking, cutting the lawn, or fixing an electronic. There's something special in doing it yourself. Our blog post 18 DIY Garage Organization Tips touches on just that subject!
That's how Walter, a client from Tennessee, felt after he finished assembling his own diy garage cabinets.
Walter purchased his garage storage system at GarageCabinets.com. There he was able to choose all the sizes he needed and the color he wanted. GarageCabinets.com also offers garage cabinets financing to make the process even simpler!
Walter's garage is 24 ft. deep and 28 ft. wide. He says that the extra width of his garage allowed him to add the cabinets that he wanted. So, he took his chances and bought the custom garage storage cabinets and waited a week for them to arrive.
If you're wondering which garage cabinets might be the best fit for your garage, check out our blog post that covers that subject in detail.
Walter's Process
This garage cabinets installation is not the usual. Walter has some pretty unique ideas of how he wants his garage to completed. Below is a timeline from the crate coming to his house to completion.
Garage Cabinets Arrival
Walter receives his garage storage cabinets neatly shrink-wrapped and crated on a pallet. Since it was a large and heavy pallet, a driver had to bring it to him. The UPS Freight driver used a pallet jack to easily get the pallet onto the tailgate and lower it safely to the ground. From there, they rolled it into the garage where Walter had made space for the pallet.
Unpacking the Crate
Following the arrival, Walter gets his garage storage cabinets in his garage, his opens it up right away to get started on his project.
Preparing for Mounting
Previously mounting the cabinets, Walter thought of something clever.
Cabinets are at times mounted directly on walls, but he chose to mount on wood instead. He used pine shelves for the wood and prep'd the block wall for ledger boards. Soon after he added 2 x 6 ledger board to the cement block walls to provide a solid and plumb mounting surface. Also, Walter routed electrical three duplex outlets prior to the backsplash.
Mounting Top Cabinets
Walter started with mounting the top cabinets, that way he wouldn’t have to work over the lower cabinets. The lower cabinets would've gotten in the way if he installed them first.
First, Walter added the boxes of the cabinets. Soon after the boxes were well mounted on the wood, he added the front doors and drawers .
Mounting Base Cabinets
Soon after he installed the top cabinets, he moved his way to the base cabinets.
Just like he did with the top cabinets, he first installs the boxes.
As soon as he is done installing the boxes, Walter notices that he has an issue with his garage floor....
His garage floor falls off significantly under the last set of lower cabinets so he had to make some riser blocks. Walter's solution was to add blocks under the two end cabinet feet. This allowed the base cabinet to be evenly placed on the floor.
Tip: Another option would have been to add the block directly to the cabinet, then add the cabinet foot to this block. This would have concealed the block better, similarly like Walter did.
After all the boxes are properly installed, he goes in to add the doors of each box along with the pull out drawers he selected.
The top and base cabinets are completely installed. If you look at the photo below closely, you can tell that the counter-top is not added yet.
Counter-top Installation
Walter chose to install his own countertop. He added a finished oak flooring over plywood for a butcherblock look.
Walter made the top slightly long on one end to accommodate a small woodworker vise.
Would you have ever thought of using flooring for the countertop? Walter certainly got really created with his custom garage storage cabinet.
First, he laid in 3/4” MDF with a mid line seam which he carefully joined and leveled using 1/8” x 8” backer strip to hold alignment. Then he laid 1/2” engineered rift cut white oak flooring (with a 3/32” wear layer) with floor mastic and pin nails. Pin nails were used to ensure good adhesion and later filled the nail heads with a bit of oak wood putty. Then he edge banded the top with 1/4” pine lattice.
After sanding the top once to 80 grit and final to 120 grit, he used semi gloss polyurethane (two coats) to finish the top.
As a result, his counter-top turned out fantastic. The pros of building your own garage storage cabinets is that you can add whatever you want. It's yours and you are the only one who knows your needs. If you take a close look at the picture, you can see that there is a plywood between the top and bottom cabinets. Well, keep scrolling down to find out what unique piece Walter added to his garage storage system. It really is the best idea ever!
Unique Idea
Walter says he was never really a fan of pegboard or slatwall. He says they tend to gather lots of random items and gets messy, which he can be right. So instead, Walter adds a dry erase board as a backsplash to the cabinets.
He got tired of writing dimensions down on paper and than being 10 feet away while setting up a saw. It required him to lose track of what he was doing to go get the paper or sometimes even lose it. With the whiteboard he can now write down dimensions and read them from anywhere in the shop. He says it's also a good place to make lists of items he needs for a project and snap a picture before heading out to the store.
Final Result
Last but not least, take a look at how Walter's garage turned into! He added such a unique twist to it. Accommodating his garage storage cabinets to his needs and what he wanted.
Walter says the installation was easy thanks to the instructions that came with the cabinets. Even hanging the upper cabinets by himself was easy.
Meet Walter
Walter reached out to GarageCabinets.com and says he is very impressed with the specification for both materials and ease of assembly. All his questions were answered promptly and completely.
Walter now has many envious neighbors that want their garage looking just the same.