We have a large number of the big heavy duty 27 gallon totes that we store things in. Things like the boys’ stuff that they don’t use or don’t have a place for. With Sam in Okinawa, and having only taken 3 sea bags with him, we have all of his stuff in these totes.
We’ve seen several videos on making storage racks for these, and decided to build one for the shop. There’s a corner that has become a storage corner. After some measuring and calculating, I figured there’s room there for 28 totes. The height in the shop to the rafters is 10 feet. Each vertical column could hold 7 totes, and there’s room between the south wall window and the west wall for four columns.
I initially drafted this in SketchUp, you can download the file here.
I made this out of 10′ 2×4’s. The cross support pieces are 30″ long and 1″ wide, I was able to cut 12 of them out of one 2×4. 56 are needed.
To build these, two 2×4’s are placed on the bench and 7 cross pieces are used.
All of the spacing between pieces is 15″. I cut two 15″ spacers for aligning the cross pieces. They are drilled with a countersink bit and screwed together with 2″ construction screws.
For the interior uprights, the cross pieces are on both sides. I used some pieces of 2×4 as clamping cauls to line them up with the first side pieces.
Once the upright assemblies were all assembled, we brought them over to the area where they were going to go, and stood them up on the front edge. We then attached some lateral braces which would also attach to the walls.
We spaced the first three sections at 19 3/4 inches. The width of the tote lids is 19 1/2, so this gave a little wiggle room. The final section was spaced at 20 1/2″. We have a handful of these totes that are a little wider and squatter than the rest. These lids are 20 1/4″ wide.
We then stood it up, which proved to be a fun challenge, as there are various obstacles attached to the trusses which were in the way. Eventually we got it stood up.
I attached it to the walls with 3″ cabinet screws. Then I used some 1×2’s that I cut from the 2×4’s to make a top and bottom spacing brace. I attached these with 2″ construction screws.
Now it’s time to put the totes away. Notice that one of the totes has the inventory tag on it. I love this system. When Sam was here over the holidays he went to the shop and grabbed a few things he had wanted to take back to base. He did not update the inventory. We brought back home recently more of his things that he was not going to be shipping overseas and I wanted to make sure that it all got entered into the system. I also wanted to go through all the boxes and update the inventory so it was accurate before putting things back on the shelves. It was a pain in that I took everything out of every box and checked it against the inventory, made updates as needed, and then repacked it again. This is a long term thing and I want it to be right, it only took a few hours to do all the boxes and when I repacked I actually did a better job of not just shoving things in.
With all of the moves, ours, our children’s, a theaters and closing down a parents home we were paying for several storage units every month. Eventually we got them all emptied and moved here. It took some time to figure out how to make it all fit and then lives all changed yet again. We had settled on the black totes with yellow lids because they are very sturdy and they had been on sale. One of the things that moving has taught us is that your normal plastic totes don’t hold up well to being stacked 7 high. These black totes hold up better. I know this might sound silly but seeing a wall of same feels calmer. Not having everything just slightly a different size or shape makes things a lot more efficient and calmer. We knew we wanted to build one of these storage units so I had started packing everything into the black totes and getting them entered into inventory. As I worked through it I would take them to the shop and stack them on the wall we would be building the unit on. I kept telling myself it’s fine I mean honestly how much different is it to have them stacked vs stored in a shelf unit? Let me tell you the difference is HUGE! First the ability to go vertical is amazing. Can I reach the top without going up on a ladder? I cannot. Do I like ladders? I do not. But Bill does ladders. Can I lift some of these boxes up over my head to him while he is on the ladder? Probably not without racking up huge medical bills BUT we have a hydraulic cart that can lift things up pretty high and I can push that over to Bill when he is on the ladder. Have we tested how high it will go and what the weight load is? Well both Bill and Sam took turns getting on the cart and using the hydraulics to lift each other up so yea it’s been tested. Let’s call that testing and not playing with the new toy.
Vertical use of space is huge. Did I have the totes stacked up, yes I did, they were stacked about 5 high. It was fine. This is why every time we talked about building the rack I would push other projects in front of it. It’s fine.
Now that it is built and we have started moving things to it I have fully begun to realize how “not” fine it truly was. Just getting the boxes down to clear out the space was a pain. The bottom of one tote kind of catches on the lid of the one it is sitting on.
I had not put any of Sam’s things away after we brought them home because I knew I needed to go through all the boxes to put things back for the inventory. The thought of having to take down all those boxes to put 1 thing in it was overwhelming so I ignored it. Now even if something is in the top box and Bill has to go up on the ladder to get it that is so much better than having to unstack 5 boxes.
It now looks intentional, like an organized space, like it’s functional and purposeful and totally usable. I want to put things away. I don’t cringe every time I go over in the weld shop. Since we moved almost everything off that back wall we now have the opportunity to put it all back but put it back better. On top of that we will be finally moving some things out of the wood side of the shop that never should have been there. Some things will be moving to the new tractor garage, at least for the summer. Some things will be moving into the she shed because they are for garden projects and don’t need to live in the shop. White we were working Bill said, “You have no idea how nice it was to be able to pick up a 10′ 2’x4′ and swing it around to get it on the saw or to the table. Yes, I had to be careful but I could do it, that felt good.” Yes, Bill, I know how good that felt. It’s why it really is important to me that we get your shop back to being a functional shop and not a storage unit.
