I now have one car in long term storage in my garage and is taking up a lot of space. There is currently a set of cupboards behind it which means the front of the car is right up against the garage door. There isn’t much in the cupboards and it isn’t anything that is regularly accessed.
I was thinking of building a shelf that will hang down from the rafters but be above the height of the car. This way the car car be stored flush against the back of the garage leaving more room at the front of the garage door to get in and out. The stuff in the cupboards would get moved to the shelf and everything is good.
Before I start building I was wondering if there is anything fundamentally flawed in the idea/design.
Also, what screws/bolts to fix the timber together and to the joists?
The plan is not to have too much weight on the shelf but I know the wife will pile everything onto it so stronger is better
At the moment it only shows two sets of supports. I can put more in. How many and how far apart?
I had something like that in my garage – I screwed flexi-shelving brackets to the rafters. Took a lot of weight – the local street party Santa’s sleigh was up there for a couple of years!
our garage had a line of pallets hanging on string tied to nails in the joists as high level storage when we moved in – I think you can over engineer some of these solutions if you’re not careful 🙂
I had that sort of arrangment in my garage but I took it down as it was casting large shadows when the lights were on. That and I didn’t need the storage. It worked fine and looked like it could take a fair load but I suspect that it was a bit overengineered given the size of the bolts that I took out!
i wish i had pics but my mate mike has a 911 in his garage with a floor above for all his garage stuff.. granted he has to push the car in and out but it solves all the space issues for bikes etc..
he has a std breeze block construction single garage but has put joists at right angles to the length and supported them with those metal brackets. floored it then with 20mm chip board and a set of steps to get up to it which he pulls out from under the car..
using the same principle .. but on a cheap skate budget i built a 8 x 4 shelf above my motobikes for my push bikes with a sheet of play and some 2 x 2 for legs..
I’ve got the same arrangement to your first pic in my rented garage. Not allowed to screw to the wall so I’ve used rope for uprights and they just wrap around the joists. the shelf is a sheet of osb and a softwood frame to stiffen it. Pretty sure it’s 100% junk on it, though
Mine is a double garage so can’t tie both sides into the wall. I guess I could use rafter hangers on the wall side and then just use the rafters to support the other.
It is in the corner of the garage and the window will let light in beneath it so shadows shouldn’t be an issue.
Your diagram is spot on really, especially as you’ve got the materials. A couple of 4″ nr12 screws at each corner through the 50×50 uprights into the joists and into the ‘base’ and the thing ain’t going anywhere. Couple of supports beneath across the base and it’ll be rock solid. It doesn’t need triangles or fixing to any more joists in my opinion, unless you store something ridiculously heavy on it. All assuming the wood isn’t total gash that you left behind the shed 10 years ago of course.
Mine is a double garage so can’t tie both sides into the wall.
Beam down the middle of the garage (front to back), put joint hangers on either wall then put joists up supported by the wall at one end and beam a the other. Screw down chipboard flooring and you’ve got a great storage area
I’got a similar setup to your drawing but just with cross pieces to take lengths of timber. It was put up by the previous owner and not as well over engineered as anything I’d put up but it’s got loads up on it and hasn’t fallen down in the 11 years we’ve been here.
Posted 11 years ago
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