Family Handyman: I have a small shop with a lot of bench-top power tools (table saw, router table, scroll saw, miter saw) I use often. To keep the shop uncluttered, I mount all my bench-top tools on 1/2-in. thick plywood bases and store them on hooks on the wall. When I need the tool, I just clamp the plywood base to my worktable with two large C-clamps.
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The breadth of the tips shocked me. At first I was thinking that these would all be workshop tips and the ball storage through me for a loop. Some of these tips are a bit concerning like the overhead storage. Yes getting rarely used items up and out of the way is nice, oftentimes now houses are made to only take a specifically engineered load that includes high winds, snow load, the roof, and other things. It is very easy to forget how much is loaded to your roof beams and trusses, and a little more weight here and there might not be a problem, but if that weight exceeds the engineered capacity and the roof breaks your insurance likely won’t cover it. There are some good, although a little bit “5-minute crafty”, ideas but they are cheap and easy to implement. I mean the same thing with the under-joist shelving. That can easily be overloaded, especially when the joists are not used as a system.
Magnetic labels is a simple solution to labeling drawers that can easily change contents. I don't know why more places in the SOD don’t use that system of labeling more. Specifically with props I think this would be an effective method of labeling for the prop shop and all of their yellow bins we had to re-label over the summer. I also think this would be an effective method to label the 33 Shit Cabinet labels that we also re-organized over the summer which are constantly changing what gets put into the bins. I think repurposing a pallet to store vertical items like brooms is smart for tall people but for someone on the shorter side it seems like a pain to lift the item all the way up to get it out. The DIY overhead storage system is also an idea that caught my attention but I feel like it has potential to go wrong with poor structural design choices made by just some random person in their garage.
As someone who grew up with a 1 car garage that we were never able to park in, this article is very helpful. Throughout my childhood, we always tried to clean the garage to a place where it was able to park in, but it never worked. I think some of these ideas are slightly worse than others, like the reusing a palate to put rakes and shovels inside when you could just hang them up, but I do love some of the others. The tip of bolting some bench tools to plywood plates and then hanging them is great, as it the overhead storage for bins. They have come out with a lot fancier options for the overhead storage, but the image in the article is really all that you need; just get some 2x4 and plywood. The biggest thing about my family's garage is that we just have too many things that should live in the garage, and the garage would just barely fit one car if it were completely empty. I do hope to have a garage of my own one day, and I definitely will try to use these tips and similar others to try to maximize space.
I feel like these articles tend to have a mix of several types of "tips". Some where I feel like they are pretty smart and useful, others where I feel like it could not be more stupid. The tips in this article seemed pretty spread out along that spectrum to me. I think that the storage over the garage door is smart, and is something that we did back at my home in Colorado. It really does free up a lot of space for storage. Although, it can make it a challenge to get stuff down. I very nearly laughed out loud at the tennis racket idea however. It just seems stupid to me. Why use a tennis racket? It has holes in it! It wouldn't be that hard to get some old 3/4" and build a mechanism that slides it out from under your workbench, and if you're committed to the swinging part, a swinging arm wouldn't be that hard either. A tennis racket is just dumb.
I have to admit, I was surprised by how effective these tips sound. Some are definitely better than others, but overall I was intrigued by most of them. I was most impressed with the idea of mounting tabletop tools to plywood for storage, and clamping them to a workbench when they’re needed. I can see a solution like that saving someone a lot of table space in their workshop. On that note, even something as simple as the folding work table can make all the difference depending on the size and clutter of your garage. Pegboard is always an awesome way to store stuff; it’s super versatile, easy to find tools, and it takes advantage of vertical space instead of horizontal space. Combine it with their sliding pegboard and cabinet solutions, and you get a great storage area for all of your tools; dense but easy to find everything. I don’t see how the ‘rag cutter’ is really a space saver, but it’s a useful trick that I don’t think a lot of people do.
As someone one who comes from a family of mechanics and vintage car owners, our garages serve a different purpose than the one this articles describes. This is rarely where the things to do household handy work is kept as it is prime space for cars and their specific tools and equipment. This article does make me think of the garage where my father's business is and how many of these things he does employ, like pegboard systems and storing things as high vertically as he can and giving each mechanic a moveable workbench. For the average garage user these hacks could be very useful, but also seem to sway a bit pinterest hack to me on some, but I would be interested to see if there are any my father could implement. The only thing on this list that made me cringe was the cord extension on the garage doors, I could see in my head someone thinking that to be a great hack then promptly getting their cords stuck or broken and getting stuck in their garage.
This article has such a random assortment of tips to organize one’s workspace, which is great for the amount of random stuff and bits I have to use. I particularly like the hacks that keep visibility and consolidation in mind, such as the lazy susan storage stack or the sliding pegboard storage box. The rotating storage rack made of lazy susans seems so incredibly useful in keeping all of one’s materials visible on a shelf while also having all the different shelf compartments stacked and 360 for more of them. The sliding pegboard box is fantastic for anyone who doesn’t have space on a wall to hang tools on, with the extra plus side that it is portable, you can take your neatly organized mini-walls anywhere that’s needed. The rolling work table seems like a better investment than the wall folding work table, I personally will never have the time or be finished with a project in order to fold the table up at the end of the day, however if the table can be moved somewhere else and out of the way while keeping all my stuff on it, that sounds perfect. It makes me wonder how useful it would be to make a table that can rise vertically while keeping the table horizontal for anyone who has a tall ceiling.
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