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Brent Dowell

Brent Dowell

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Reno NV
Well, there goes all my weekend plans. I have an area by the entry to my shop that has always been very poorly utilized. So poorly utilized that I noticed a rat had made its home there. So I started to pull out some of the junk to clean things up, and well, before I knew it I removed the existing metal shelves, 2nd hand cabinets that were hanging on the wall, and even moved the gun safe next to the door.

My thinking is that If I do some floor to ceiling shelves along that area, I might just be able to clear out enough room from some other areas of the shop to make room inside for the ole radial saw I inherited from my FIL. I really would like to get that puppy running.

Anyway, this is the long way around asking for you kind and generous folks to show me what your shop shelf systems look like. Right now I'm thinking floor to ceiling 2x4's spaced every 32". 32" seems to be a good compromise for shelf length, and I'll be making them 20" wide. I've got room for about a 10' length of shelves, and about 8' high.

Any tips guys? Thanks! :wave:
 
These are 24" deep.
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My sister and her husband had some beefy storage shelves in the garage of their last house, and years ago I asked her to draw me a sketch so I could build some similar ones in the house I owned at the time.

Here's her sketch (she's a draftsman, so her idea of a sketch is better than mine):

Garage Shelves.jpg

Nothing fancy, but all kinds of stout. Here are a couple action photos:

Shelves 1 - 800.jpg Shelves 2 - 800.jpg
 
I have moved almost entirely to cabinets so I will just impart things learned as I morphed from floor to work table to shelves to cabinets . . .

With a few exceptions (like shallow/long drawers for chisels and such) a drawer or cabinet deeper than about 18" will develop a stable worm-hole and transport items in the rear to the gamma quadrant. A shelf deeper than about 15" will house gremlins that move smaller items in front of larger ones so that these smaller items go crashing to the floor as you wrestle the larger item out from behind. . . or is that just in my shop?
 
I agree somewhat with Glenn's observations about deep shelves. Shallow shelves are better for short-term storage of things you use relatively frequently, but for stuff you only access occasionally (Christmas decorations, boxes of old paper files, that box of your old toys from elementary school, etc.), deep ones can be pretty effective for getting junk out of the way. The ones I showed above are about 30 inches deep, and that's about how deep I made mine, too. I liked 'em, but a lot of boxes that were stored on those shelves never came down until I moved from that house.
 
Brent, before you build, make sure there aren't any more resident rats. The old saying, if you see one, you must have 25 as it takes a large population in order to actually view one. On the other hand, if he was a new resident, he was spotted as he didn't have his hidey hole established yet. Even though they can get large, they fit through a hole the size of a nickle to a quarter so look carefully throughout and using steel wool block/plug any holes otherwise they will enjoy your new cabinets more than you will. :eek: If you have pets, mice and rats like horses cannot burp or fart through voluntary muscle control so a pan of coca cola (keep if fresh) will cause death to mice and rats through the explosion of their stomach. Safe for pets and children at the same time. Good luck, mice, snakes, rats, man I hate 'em.
 
glenn bradley said:
I have moved almost entirely to cabinets so I will just impart things learned as I morphed from floor to work table to shelves to cabinets . . .
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Interesting idea. Hadn't really thought about cabinets in this area. It's really kind of a 'hallway' from the door to the shop, er, garage proper

glenn bradley said:
With a few exceptions (like shallow/long drawers for chisels and such) a drawer or cabinet deeper than about 18" will develop a stable worm-hole and transport items in the rear to the gamma quadrant. A shelf deeper than about 15" will house gremlins that move smaller items in front of larger ones so that these smaller items go crashing to the floor as you wrestle the larger item out from behind. . . or is that just in my shop?
Click to expand...

Planning on making them just 20 inches deep But 18" might be a good idea. Don't really need them that deep.

Jonathan Shively said:
Brent, before you build, make sure there aren't any more resident rats. The old saying, if you see one, you must have 25 as it takes a large population in order to actually view one. On the other hand, if he was a new resident, he was spotted as he didn't have his hidey hole established yet. Even though they can get large, they fit through a hole the size of a nickle to a quarter so look carefully throughout and using steel wool block/plug any holes otherwise they will enjoy your new cabinets more than you will. :eek: If you have pets, mice and rats like horses cannot burp or fart through voluntary muscle control so a pan of coca cola (keep if fresh) will cause death to mice and rats through the explosion of their stomach. Safe for pets and children at the same time. Good luck, mice, snakes, rats, man I hate 'em.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm sure we've got a bunch. Getting the traps out and ready. This guy had a nice little nest in an area that was behind the gun safe. I moved the safe yesterday (Hmm, As I recall It was a lot easier moving it 4 years ago) to a spot right in the corner.

I don't think there's any way to completely close off the garage, so I'll just have to start trapping. I don't like using the poison bait so much, cause I don't know what happens to them if some other critter like a hawk or something eats them.

The big reason I'm doing this is that the shelves were so inefficient that I had gotten into a habit of just stacking stuff up by the door, which the rat apparently took advantage of. With these shelves, I should be able to better store stuff neatly and be able to monitor if any vermin are getting in.

Knock on wood, but I haven't seen any snakes yet this year. This is the second time I've made this comment in the last 2 days, so I'm sure I'll start seeing them soon...:doh:
 
glenn bradley said:
as I morphed from floor to work table to shelves to cabinets . . .

QUOTE]

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: Glenn this has me cracked up, somehow we followed the same path. Mine was floor to draws still trying to get to cabinets.

But yours are wise words for sure.



Vaughn McMillan said:
box of your old toys from elementary school, etc.),.
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Now i feel completely normal. Glad to hear i am not the only one with these.:D;):thumb:


Jonathan Shively said:
using steel wool block/plug

. :eek: a pan of coca cola (keep if fresh) will cause death to mice and rats through the explosion of their stomach. .
Click to expand...

Man you a wealth of information. I love the idea of coke being used in this application. Can just picture Monsieur mouse being blown up. :rofl::rofl:

The steel wood one i dont get. If they knawed the first hole through something surely blocking the hole with steel wool will only have the knaw through again next to it.?:huh:


Hey Brent my 5 cents on this shelving thing. Up until Allens recent shop reorg, i was set on the 2x4 approach to cheap strong shelving for my shops wood storage. Then time went by and i got to see what Allen saved in wall storage/shelf height through the use of metal bracket shelving.
Those 3.5 inch spaces add up quickly. Of course none of this matters if the item going on the shelf is boxes etc like Vaughn described. But in the case of something narrow and flat like Allen did for his wood, he gaine valuable space and whats more seperation which makes access for him much easier. I changed my mind after seeing his experience. Good luck with the rat. If i was more creative and able i would do a photoshop version of the Dreamworks mouse blowing up after a coke with a witty caption.
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