Thursday, August 30, 2012

DIY Storage Box / Garage Organizer



Like many people our over flow from the house has found its way into our garage and lives in what we call “blue bins.” You know those great plastic containers that Rubbermaid makes? Yeah well over several moves we have accumulated “stuff” and these hold the “stuff” great. Sorting through the “stuff” is on my To Do List … someday! Until then we wanted a neat organized way of storing these boxes so that on those rare Saturdays when there isn’t much else to do we could easily pull a box out and sort and begin downsizing.

These great plastic storage bins are a great organizer for all your keepsakes and seasonal decorations, but what happens when you get more than 3 of them together? If you’re anything like me they get stacked one on top of them until you have something that resembles the leaning tower of Pisa! Let’s face it these containers scream for me to stack them the way they are made! Inevitably one of two things happens:

1.       The bottom box starts to buckle under the strain of holding up the rest of the stack or
2.       What I want is in the bottom box and so I have to move everything to get at that one box.


Before

What if it didn’t need to be this way, what if you could easily access any of your storage boxes at any time without the hassle of re-stacking? Well this weekend we decided to try and tackle this project by creating a PVC storage box organizer. After looking online, visiting Lowes, Ace & Home Depot we came up with an idea (again this started with a Pintrest Pin!) and modified it to work for what we had and our budget. We did this for about $70.




Basic Grid

 Here is what we used:
1 rubber mallet
1 pvc pipe cutter
8 pvc ¾” corners
16 pvc ¾” X pieces
32 pvc ¾” T pieces
9 – 10’ lengths of ¾” pvc (you will have a bit left over, we are saving it to make another project!)

Here are the cuts we made & how many of each we used:
18” pieces (24)
12” pieces (12)
9” pieces (48)

And this is how we put it together (and by “we” I mean my darling husband and our two boys – they loved helping on this project!) If you think of it as a front and back grid you are attaching them together with the 12” pieces. So here is how we made 1 grid (you will need to make 2 grids)

Here is a grid:
from the side
Corner + 18” + T + 18” + T + 18” + Corner
9” + T + 9”
X + 18” + X + 18” + X + 18” + X
9” + T + 9”
X + 18” + X + 18” + X + 18” + X
9” + T + 9”
Corner + 18” + T + 18” + T + 18” + Corner

As you look at the picture (right) you can see the 12” pieces are the cross bars holding the two grids together.


So once they put the cross pieces and used the mallets to make sure each connection was tight we moved it (again this is the collective “we” meaning my darling husband J) into the garage and proceeded to organize what we had already downsized from the above picture into this tidy, loveliness. Oh, and the great thing is that you can expand this on either side, I’m already thinking if we did another grid of 4 on the side and if we put a board across the top the kids could store their bike helmets here … or whatever. I’m just sayin’ it sparked ideas of expanding the whole storage unit and it’s barely been in my garage for five minutes! Well at least it did for …

After! Easy access to each container - YEAH!!
This Frugal Momma!

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, I follow your blog for a long time and must tell you that your posts always prove to be of a high value and quality for readers. Keep it up.
    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good information about the blog. attached lid container leads the industry in design and proven performance. Taken out was the traditional metal hinge –replacing it with a safer and more durable all plastic hinge.

    Red, Heavy-Duty Industrial Plastic Storage Tote- 21 in. L x 15 in. W x 12in. H
    Blue, Heavy-Duty Industrial Plastic Storage Tote- 21 in. L x 15 in. W x 12in. H

    ReplyDelete