The Right Way And The Wrong Way To Do Garage Storage
I remember going to my grandparent's house when I was a child and they had a huge two car garage. When you are little a two car garage can look like an auditorium with its wide open space. But this was a dirty place and it was the perfect place to hide cars. My grandfather believed in utilizing space as effectively as possible but he was also not one for details.
So when you would walk into my grandparent's garage you would look up and see boards haphazardly strewn across the roofing supports and an occasional rake or some other potentially dangerous yard tool resting delicately across the boards. Luckily no one ever got hurt but that was definitely the wrong way to do garage storage. If you are going to do overhead garage storage you want to be certain that you are doing it the right way. The way I just describe is most obviously the wrong way.
One good jolt to the garage wall and all of that garage storage would come crashing down. Like I said, no one ever got hurt, but the potential was there and when you are talking about heavy and sharp objects hovering 4 or 5 over your head you probably want to make sure they are as secure and as safe as possible.
Designing garage storage can get a little complicated if you let yourself get carried away. The first thing you want to make sure your garage storage has is easy access from the floor. Climbing ladders may not always be the best way to get things up and down from your garage storage. It may be best to build some sort of collapsible stairway or some other secure way of getting to the garage storage overhead. If you are comfortable with a ladder then that is fine but remember that it takes at least one hand to safely climb a ladder and you may not have one hand available when carrying an 8 foot long piece of lumber.
Make It Secure And Airy
Closing off your garage roof to create garage storage can cause problems. A roof needs to breathe so sealing the garage roof to create garage storage could cause serious damage over time. The best way to build garage storage is to have a couple of good sized openings in the floor of the upper storage to allow air flow. Remember to use good plywood at least a half inch thick or more to make sure it is safe to walk on and store things on.
Taking the extra steps to make sure your garage storage is safe is the smart thing to do. I always wondered why my grandparents' things never collapsed on them in the garage but then again I was always happy they did not.
