Garage Storage

I knew I wanted to have room for my gear in the garage of the van. When I really started thinking about it, I knew I wanted shelves so that the space could be best utilized and I wanted it to pull out so that I could easily access everything.

My uncle is a big fan of upcycling so we headed to the junkyard to find some angle that we could use to create this shelving unit. Once we found some, we cut it down to size with a band saw and he welded the pieces together. Then we added in the 4ft drawer slides that have a weight capacity of 400 lbs onto the bottom of the bed. This was a big challenge getting everything to line up and function how we wanted. Working overhead is so challenging (or maybe it just points out my lack of upper body strength).. Once the drawer sliders were attached to the bed we attached the shelving unit to do a fit test and to make sure nothing was catching on the drawer slide. Everything was working great so we took the shelving unit out to finish painting it and adding in boards to the shelves.

Next, I painted the shelving unit with black spray paint to make the angle and boards uniform. Once that was complete, we installed it again and tested the functionality. 

We also attached drawer slides to the floor of the van to add a table / bike storage area. We again attached boards to that section that were then primed and painted. The bike storage area slides out separate from the storage unit and provides great functionality to get the bike and anything stored in the back of the van in and out easily.

See more photos of the garage build process here.