Remodel Your Garage !

do it yourself home improvement


A garage is the perfect home for all sorts of items and activities from storing sporting equipment to tools and machines; and it’s original purpose for car parking to activities like a home-office, a gym or a workshop. If your garage is only used for storage rather than other activities it really needs some shelves for organization.

Usually garage shelves can be found in two main forms: site-built and prefabricated. Site-built shelves are usually less expensive and allow you to adapt the sizes to the space available. You can find everything that you need at the local home center, lumber yard, discount store or hardware store.

One of the basics of the garage shelves is made of a simple piece of three-fourth inches plywood or a length of 1x or 2x lumber on a set of heavy-duty shelf brackets. This is mounted by attaching the brackets to the studs directly using long screws then by attaching the shelf to the brackets. To strengthen the shelf you can add a brace at each stud.

Another type of shelves are the floor-supported ones. One method is to run vertical 2x4s every 50 inches and resting them on the floor and attaching them to the rafters or ceiling joists at the top. In addition, the 2x4s are run horizontally on edge between the uprights then a particleboard is used to create the shelve. The most commonly used dimensions are 19-25 inches for depth and the spacing between 2x4s is usually on 25 inches but of course, these sizes can be changed to accommodate the size of the items that you are storing.

For storing small items you should take into consideration the space between the studs. By attaching a series of 1x2 strips horizontally to the inside edges of two adjacent studs approximately 6 inches apart, cutting some 1x4 and 1x6 pieces of lumber and fitting them between studs and slipping them on top of the 1x2s you can create some small adjustable shelves. These are great for jars, cans and bottles and also for other small and light items. The small shelves are great for organizing and storing screws and nails.

The best choice when building prefabricated garage shelves is Steel shelving. Plastic shelving may be enough for storing light Weight items but in time you may need something more resistant for storing heavier items. One disadvantage of the steel shelving is that they cannot be cut to size so they have standard widths, depths and heights so you have to choose something that fits within your available space.

Adjustability is another important consideration in prefabricated shelving. Prefabricated shelves should be adjustable to at least two different locations within the shelving framework and also the pins for adjusting should be heavy duty and should have something in place for preventing them from working loose or becoming accidentally dislodged.

Another thing to be taken into consideration when opting for prefabricated shelves, especially those designed for heavy loads, is that they may require a wall attachment or other support against tipping.

What do you see when you first examine a garage?

The garage door. This is the first and most important “contact” of your garage to the world. If you want full confidence in your garage, this “contact” should be 100% secure and safe. Also the door says a lot of you and of your taste in design. You can have a beautiful house but if your garage door is a wooden, plain, white one with that makes an awful sound when opened or closed, says a lot of you and your negligence regarding style and safety.

An ageing garage door and opener could be a real threat for your children or pets. Injuries and death are a thing of the past with the new openers and garage doors. If you plan to remodel your garage, one of the first steps in doing this must be changing your doors and openers.

Old garage doors have been heavy, huge, wooden colossus that rot and crack. Even though wooden doors provide a wide range of styles and textures the problems related to poor insulation are real and even of present times. An alternative is the fiberglass material, inexpensive, easy to lift, resistant to corrosion and the require little maintenance but they also provide little insulation and security.

If you want a maintenance-free, durable and not-wrapping garage door you need steel. They also provide good insulation, being made of two or more sheets of steel alternating with a variety of insulating materials. The also come in various textures, styles, shapes and colors suited to your needs. Moreover, you can add windows including the reflective type that provide an obscure view into the garage.

In 1991, automatic reversal doors for garage door openers have been required by law in the United States and in since 1993 optical sensors became a requirement. The sensor works perfect for your safety: if something gets in the way of the sensor beam while the door is going down, the sensor sends the door back up. Also the new design provides more security and quieter operation. Today, the silence options include a belt-driven trolley made of Kevlar or, the cheaper option, a screw-drive model with a plastic-lined track to lessen the noisy contact of metal-to-metal.

Remote controls have been upgraded so you can find a remote control having enough buttons to control the lightening or appliances in your home and garage. Another option for your remote-control buttons are the child-safe lock-out and the rolling security codes witch automatically change every time the garage door opens to prevent the stealing of your opener’s code.

Even though you have all these changes added to your garage, security and safety are not 100% guaranteed. It is better that the installation of a new garage door and opener be done by a professional team who can make the proper adjustments that will allow the sensitive equipment to provide you with the maximum amount of safety in your garage.


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