Did you return the $60 shelves?

I did this recently with free materials as well and was so pleased to find the huge space benefits of being able to store auto tools, cans, etc. above ground level.

Awesome idea, thank you so much! If I ever get all my junk in the garage yardsaled so I can clean it out, I am going to do this.
I wanted some shelves, but couldn’t think of any economical or easy means of doing it.
Thanks for the inspiration, you are my hero!

On Ask This Old House recently they helped a woman install an entire garage organization system. Doh! She paid huge amounts of money for her system and at least what the camera showed led me to believe that she needed to instead 1) get rid of clutter & junk and 2) Get a simple, less expensive shelving system.

This is a great idea. My wife and I are moving to a new home in a few weeks and I’ll have to give this a shot for our new walk-in.

sounds good - how about posting a pic?

They may seem sturdy, but if not somehow secured to the wall, they may not be child-safe.

My company recently moved buildings, and in the process sold off a lot of their old conference room and office furniture. I picked up several banquet tables for a few dollars, as well as some very sturdy metal bookshelves that I put into our garage for the same purpose - they are the perfect size for holding paint, sprinkers, and other misc garage items, plus they are narrow enough front-to-back to fit in our tiny garage. As we grow into a new larger house, I can definitely see a need for more shelving. Thanks for the great idea!

Love freecycle, got my piano off of the local list.

So fellow frugalist…lame, but I had to include your blog in my top 3 Frugal Subversive nominations! So the post is here Me Frugal Subversive

How stable it is? If for some reason your kid throwing the ball on one of those blocks the whole thing might fall…. how safe it is?

Thanks,
Mickey

I built a pretty elaborate shelving system with a work bench, built in space for a mini fridge and a few other features out of 2×4’s and ply-wood. I got most of it for free. Everything is screwed together and screwed to the wall so its not going anywhere. Each shelve has anywhere from 100-400 pounds on it and they are holding up great. I did this after seeing how ridiculous shelving units were and hw I was going to pay for something that didn’t really fit what I needed.

Finally, after who can count how many years, I replaced my cinder-block-&-board system with inexpensive garage cabinets. Around here several franchise and independent companies compete to underprice each other, so you can get some pretty decent ceiling-to-floor custom-built particleboard cabinets with doors and masonite hanger boards for just a few hundred bucks. The blocks & boards went outside to the metal storage shed & gardening area, where they now house pots, pool supplies, frost coverings, and indispensable outdoor junk.

Why replace them? I got mighty tired of all the dust they collect. And yup…they DO look tacky. I have to wash my laundry in that garage, and also the garage is the first thing I see when I get home. It’s worth a little cash outlay to have the place not be messy, dirty, and depressing.

Besides, blocks take up so much space, you can get three times as much storage out of built shelving.

This must be a very young crowd. Not all that long ago, bookshelves made of cinder blocks and boards were what everyone started out with — in the living room and bedroom, mind you, not the garage. These shelves can actually look quite chic if you paint the cinder blocks. They don’t have to be “messy, dirty, and depressing” unless you let them get messy and dirty.

I did this in college, but used them inside–we spray painted everything white and then put candles inside the holes in the centerblocks.

It was a very nice effect, and very cheap!

> @ Anna…you must live someplace other than the desert, where winds blow layers of dust into the garage all through the spring & summer.

Yes, so true! In our first house (lit by gaslight…), our living room, TV room, and spare bedroom were furnished with blocks & boards. In those days, TV sets were bulky, heavy contraptions. I managed somehow to get a couple of two-inch-thick redwood boards (don’t ask how…I’d be surprised if they even manufacture such lumber anymore!), which I varnished & then set up across the CBs to support the television. It worked, and it actually LOOKED GOOD!

In the living room, we had eight-foot bookcases and a sofa table that held an old aquarium for our goldfish. They weren’t quite so handsome, but they sure did the job. And in the spare bedroom (our office) I built a big desk and another set of bookcases. The beauty of brick-&-board bookcases is that they’re infinitely expandable–you can keep adding to them as you need more storage space.

Painting the blocks helps a lot. So does staining and varnishing the boards…or just painting them a color that goes with your other bargain decor.

You can also build a desk with good storage by stretching boards across two low file cabinets, which you often find in yard sales. Just be sure you’re getting two cabinets that are the same height. Another device, which doesn’t provide you any storage space but which looks kinda stylish, is to lay boards across a pair of sawhorses. You don’t see those in yard sales as much as file cabinets, but they’re pretty cheap at HD.

Just now, my indoor bricks & boards are restricted to the closets in my home office & library (formerly a spare bedroom)–they fill up the interior of two long, narrow closets and provide a ton of space for linens, art & sewing supplies, Christmas wrap, wintertime table fan storage, small kitchen appliances & serving dishes that won’t fit in the small kitchen, tax records, computer gadgetry, and office supplies.

Grad school bookshelves, is what these are called.

Just be careful that when your kids are older (more toddler age) that they don’t try to climb this. The disadvantage of this type of shelving is that because it relies on gravity to stay up, if someone tries to climb it or it gets strongly bumped into, it will come tumbling down. Shelving that is actually attached to the wall is more secure against toddler incursions.

Necesity is the mother of invention! That’s a great idea. Being frugal means being resourceful, using what you have available. When I moved into my apartment I needed a shelf so I made one out of the junk that was left behing by the previous tenants. I found a piece of plywood and wall brackets in the pile and pulled a bunch of screws out of the walls. I even hung it myself, and got it pretty straight. And I did it with a regular ol’ screwdriver.

I guess sturdiness could be a problem at some point, but I’m sure the blocks could be cemented together or something. I would be more concerned about the structure colapsing on it’s own, over time anyway. Like j0lt said, gravity is holding it together and nobody can predict gravity. I would personally recomend a middle column of blocks to support the structure. Even a bunch of light items can cause it to buckle.

If it were me, the garage would be off limits to small children in the 1st place. Kids are notorious for climbing things but that’s why parents set rules. It probably wouldn’t matter what the shelves are made of, a book case would tip and hanging shelves, even if they are really sturdy, might come off the wall along with their contents.

I see a lot of parents giving their kids free range of the house. They either don’t care, are too busy to monitor them, or don’t consistantly enforce boundaries. They feel guilty, like they are being mean, give in then get frustrated when the kid pushes his limits so they give up. A child has no business climbing on furniture regardless of where it is anyway. That’s what toys and playgrounds are for.

Cinderblocks, boards, milkcrates, and old-doors-as-desktops are traditional, but I found it easy to maneuver a single flat-pack box for a $20 bookcase into the apartment. The plus side would be customizing to your own need. A friend of mine inherited his dad’s old desk–door over two tallish wood tabarets and all painted green, with a coordinating swivel stool–most importantly, a desk that would fit the late gentleman’s 6′10″ frame.

Why are so many people letting their kids play in a garage full of tools and rusty nails???

I always have to remind myself when reading some of these posts that not everyone lives in california and has to think about earthquakes with every design decision :).

I suppose gluing the cinderblocks to the wood then using a bracket to attach it to the wall would make it california safe though. A little extra work and cost but not much.

“Like j0lt said, gravity is holding it together and nobody can predict gravity.”

My what a crazy world you must live in…I can predict gravity…it pull things down. I think that what j0lt meant was, toddlers are unpredictable.