One of the pitfalls of having a double garage is that there is a high risk that half of the garage ends up being used as random storage, with boxes and things piled randomly around the place. We moved into the house almost 2 years ago and there were boxes we placed in the garage after moving in that have remained there ever since. Over time, more things got added and soon half of the garage was becoming a hazard to venture into. We finally had enough of the mess and decided to install some shelving to make more efficient use of the space. We dropped by Lowes and picked up several shelving kits for about $75 each. We checked around a few places for containers and found some we thought were the right size from Fred Meyer.

The shelves were simple to assemble, only requiring a rubber hammer. I was pretty impressed by how sturdy the shelves were. After putting up four of the shelves on one side of the garage, we found that the container lids were scratching against the shelves so we returned them and looked around for replacements. After checking close to 10 places, we finally found the right containers from Bed, Bath & Beyond for about $10 a piece.

So far we've got 8 shelves and about 40 containers installed and we've cleared enough room in the garage to set up the elliptical and exercise bench.