Typically our customers purchase a storage shed to help clean up clutter in the garage, become more organized or find a better location for their gardening tools and more. In the first article of organizing your shed, we’re going to touch base on just a couple of ways to organize your shed and also how to build them! These are great for almost any skill level, however they do require the use of a few different types of saws. If you don’t have the saws required, you can also ask your local hardware store if they can make the cuts for you – just make sure you have the measurements right beforehand!

Storing Rakes & Shovels In Your Storage Shed

Who would have thought that a little PVC could be so helpful? If you seem to be a collector of rakes and shovels (guilty as charged!), then you need to find a way to organize them so you can get the right one quickly. With this method, you can keep the rakes and shovels off the floor while giving each one a place of their own.

Photo Credit: Newly Woodwards

Simply take a 2” piece of PVC from your local hardware store and bring it home to chop up. You should figure about 1 foot of pipe for every tool that you have to put up. If you have a chop saw, this project won’t take long to do at all.

You’ll want to first take a couple of 2×4’s and cut them to length, making sure they land on a stud on both left and right sides. Attach the first to about 9” off the floor and then also attach the second about 2 feet higher than that. After you have that taken care of, take the PVC and you’ll want to make the first cut at a 45* angle with the longest point of that angle being about 6” in. We’ll explain the importance of this angle in just a minute. Then after that, set your chop saw to a straight cut and again make sure you are about 6” from the tip that you had just cut. You should now have 2 identical pieces to use and mount on the 2×4’s. The angle that you cut will allow you to drill and screw the pvc to the wall. You’ll want to repeat that process as many times as you have items to hold. When deciding how close to put them together, we recommend thinking about what will go in each. Rakes will take up more space than a shovel, so laying them out on the ground first will help you determine how close you can place them to each other.

There are other ways to incorporate any left over PVC as shown in these pictures. You can do a very similar cut to give yourself space to put pencils, brushes and more on a workbench. If you are placing any screw guns or drills in your storage shed, then cutting out a piece of PVC and then putting in a notch will give you the perfect spot. It’s always great to know exactly where a tool is, just make sure you put them back where you got them!

PVC Hanging Tools:

Photo Credit: Ashbee Design – PVC Inspiration

Building Corner Shelves in Your Storage Shed

Tell me if this resonates with you. You’re sorting through your garage or current storage shed and you realize you are a bit of a hoarder. Not necessarily a hoarder of everything, but somehow you have 8 million cans of spray paint, WD-40 and other things that don’t quite have a spot to hang out. Well, here’s a great way to give them a space while utilizing space within the walls. Here’s what you’ll want to do:

• Step 1: Getting the cleats ready

  First we’ll want to get the cleats ready. You can do these out of almost any type of scrap wood you have laying around, but they don’t have to be very large. You may want to rip these down in height to be uniform across all the shelves – for that a table saw is best. From there, measure between the studs from the wall to the next stud out where you’ll place the cleat. Then, use the chop saw to cut them to length.

• Step 2: Installing The Cleats

  Once you have all your cleats cut, we recommend drilling the holes before screwing them into the walls. You’ll have to measure the thickness of your cleat, but make sure the screws are not too long and will not protrude outside. You want them to connect into the meat of the wood, but you don’t want unsightly screws showing on the outside of your shed, not to mention that it would allow water a way to get into the shed at the same time. Make sure when hanging the cleats that they line up on both walls. A great way to handle this is with a laser level, but you can also simply measure from the floor up and make sure you have them at the same spot. When determining the height of each shelf, think about what will be placed there and what the tallest item is. This is your shed, so set the heights to whatever suits your needs!

• Adding The Shelves

  After you are done with the cleats, you can move onto plywood portion. A skill saw will be best used in this application and there’s really no right or wrong way to cut them. You may want them to be square, or you may want to angle the front to go diagonally across like seen in the picture here. As you can see, you’ll have to notch out the back to fit around the corner studs.

Photo Credit: Family Handyman Storage Organization

As you can see, with just a few cuts, you will have shelving that will help give your paint cans and more a place to live. Another great part of this is that you can replicate it from floor to ceiling or just place a few up higher so that you can put other items underneath on the floor. It’s fully customizable to what you need!

These are just a couple of our favorite ways to keep your shed organized. Do you have some that you would like to share with us? We’d love to see them! Stay tuned for Organization & Storage Ideas for your Storage Shed (Part 2) coming soon!