Good enough for who it's for

I've known for quite a while now that my garage is a hot mess. There is stuff just thrown all over the place and though it came with some built in shelving units at the back of the space, I either don't have it organized well, or it just isn't enough room. It's also possible I just have too much stuff, but let's not go down that road...

After a fair amount of coaxing from @mrsbozz, I decided it might be time to build some more shelves in the garage. I did some searching via Google and I found a simple plan for some shelves to put against one of the other walls of the garage. I went out and spent about $70(USD) on the materials I thought I would need and headed home.

Unfortunately, that's where things kind of stalled. With a mini family reunion over the Fourth of July Holiday, and some other obligations, I wasn't really sure when I was going to be able to throw everything together. Thankfully, I got a bit of time on Thursday afternoon and though it was hotter than hell out, I started to get to work on my shelves.

The first task was getting the shelves built. Since I don't have a table saw, I had to do everything with my miter saw and hope that I made my measurements consistent across all of my boards. With all of my cuts done, I started putting them together. I ended up being short on 2x4's, but thankfully, I had some extra laying around, so I was able to get the shelves completed without having to buy more wood.

I made three of these that you see in the photo above. They actually came together pretty well and my cuts didn't appear to be off by too much. If anything, most errors were caused by the warped boards versus anything I did wrong. If you are familiar with the big box lumber yards like Lowe's or Home Depot, you have likely also heard the many jokes about how none of their lumber is very straight.

With the frames made for the shelves, it was time to cut the OSB for the tops of them.

Like I said, I don't have a table saw, so I had to break out my circular saw to do the job.

I've also got this straight edge I bought a long time ago that makes cutting boards like this with a circular saw much easier. You just fasten it in place, then you run the saw tight against it across the length of your cut. It usually gives me a better cut than trying to free hand it.

So I made my cuts, and started putting the decking on the shelves, and that's when I realized I wasn't going to have enough wood to cover the full lenght of the shelves. I had some other OSB laying around the garage, but it was quite a bit thicker than the other stuff, so it would have looked pretty funny.

Which meant I needed to head to the hardware store for some more wood. Unfortunately, I had other obligations, so I had to call it a day and leave the project for another day.

I picked up the sheet of wood on Friday, but I wasn't able to get back to it until Sunday when the family festivities were over and everyone was on their way home. While @mrsbozz cleaned out the trailer, I made the final cuts on the shelves and put the last pieces of decking in place. Then I had her help me assemble the whole thing. Despite what you might think, it's quite heavy.

We put it together upside down so that it would be easier to attach the shelves. If we had tried to do it right side up, it likely would have taken three people to get the job done. It actually turned out pretty well and though it isn't perfect, I am still pretty proud of it.

We moved it into place, and then I had to take off to do some other things before I could start putting stuff back on it.

If you look really closely in the front right corner, you will see that the legs weren't even and I had to add a small piece of wood "sistered" to the leg to make it level. I think part of it has to do with the slope of the garage floor towards the central drain, but I also think the wood was just funking after I attached everything. I know the four boards for the legs were as close to the same length as you could possibly get.

There was a board running horizontal along the wall, so I ran some screws through the shelves and into that board to make it a bit more secure as well.

This is a closer look at what I had do with the leg to make it more level. I'm not happy about it, but I guess if that is the only issue I had, then I did pretty good!

After spending three hours out in the woods with my buddy working on another project, I was finally able to come home and put everything away. I still have way too much crap, but it has already made a huge difference in how much space there is in the garage. I even added a couple cleats at the end of the shelves that I can hang my saw horses on as well as some stadium chairs that we have.

As the title suggests, it's not perfect, but it's good enough for who it's for. My next job will be clearing off those other shelves along the back wall, getting rid of the stuff I don't need, and reorganizing the stuff that I keep. I've also got some junk in the front of the garage between the new shelves and the door that I have to sort through as well.