How to organize your garage with DIY cabinets

One side of our garage stores all our sporting equipment and landscaping tools which gets pretty crowded, especially when you add 2 cars. So I came up with an idea to use the unfinished wall that has studs showing. These have studs with 5.5” depth that I used to create cabinets to fit in between them. This allows for the cabinets to only stick out about 11 inches past the stud into the garage.

Step 1 - Make your cabinet box

I knew I wanted the depth to be 16 inches to fit golf clubs and golf push carts so I started by ripping down my sheets of plywood to 16 inches. Next was measuring the width between the studs minus 1.5 inches for the 3/4 inch plywood sides.

My cut list

(2) 3/4” x 16” x 72” sides

(3) 3/4” x 16” x 20 7/8” top/ bottom / shelf

then assemble your box using screws.

Step 2 - Secure to the studs

These should fit snuggly between your studs allowing for securing directly into the studs with 2.5” screws. Once secure add any shelving by drilling holes for shelf pins so you can adjust easily.

Step 3 - Simple plywood doors

The doors I wanted to be 2 instead of one so no bumping into the car parked there.

I decided to use full overlay hinges and created 4 doors per cabinet. 2 uppers and 2 lowers. I just cut the lowers to 48” height to make it easy when cutting down full sheet of plywood.

For width of the doors- measure inside of cabinet and add 1” (1/2” overlay on each side) since I did 2 doors I then divided that number by 2 and subtract 1/8” for where the doors butt together in the middle.

I highly recommend this kreg jig for easily drilling for the hinges!

Installing doors I like to install hinge onto the door first then add to the frame. Find the measurement for how far back the screw holes are on the hinge bracket, then just mark that measurement line on the inside of the cabinet so it’s parallel with the front of the cabinet. That line is where you’ll set your screws.

Now we can store golf clubs and sports equipment in the cabinets and don’t have to worry about them getting sawdust all over them! These cabinet pulls are so easy to install and don’t stick out far.

Another storage solution I created is a way to store all my son’s soccer, football, basketball and baseballs with a ball cage! Again I created a box to fit in between the studs and used 18” bungee cords for the front to make getting them out just as easy as putting them in through the top. 

Be sure to check out the rest of our garage organization!

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DIY workbench and tool organization

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How to make custom drawer slide outs for your kitchen cabinets