Richard Felt: Cheap and Easy DIY Lumber Rack

This is one of those projects where a harebrained idea turned out to actually work.

DIY lumber rack with shelf brackets

Part of my garage makeover plans included installing a wall-mounted lumber rack for full lengths of lumber, conduit pipe, and molding that haven’t yet been used. I’ve been searching for lumber rack ideas online and noticed that most of them came down to three options — each of which had their pros and cons.

1. DIY project: wood + pipe

source: jayscustomcreations.com

The gist of this option is to install lengths of conduit pipe into a piece of lumber and then mount along studs.

Pros: this option looks pretty cool, super sturdy, and conduit pipe isn’t super expensive.

Cons: it seems like a little more work than I really want to do.

The conduit has to fit snugly and I can imagine myself procrastinating on getting this implemented due to the number of steps needed, which means months and months of lumber still laying around until it’s finished. So that’s out. Onto the next…

2. DIY project: furring strips + plywood

source: oneprojectcloser.com

There are many variations, but the plywood plans are relatively the same: build supports and then install them between vertical lengths of wood along studs.

Pros: cost effective, visually ok, probably easier to DIY than the pipe version

Cons: I still see myself taking time on this one to cut and assemble.

Nothing really wrong with this project, but my lack of a table saw means that this may take too long, I’ll blow it off for several more months, and the lumber yet again continues to lay on my floor in the meantime. I’ll earmark this for “maybe later”, but what about an install-and-go option?

3. Buy

portamate-lumberrack

This pre-made version is less than $100, so if the goal is to just get it done and move onto the next project, it’s really not a bad choice. But after looking at specs of the depth and weight limits of each level, I realized that there may even be a cheaper and easier option altogether.

4. My lumber rack: shelf brackets!

DIY lumber rack shelf brackets

The storebought lumber rack has levels that each support 110 lbs and carry a depth of 12.25 inches. I figured that if I could find something similar in terms of steel shelf brackets, I may be able to make this project both cost effective and easy to install in less than an hour. So, I asked my dad to raid his garage, where he found six 12 x 14-inch shelf brackets. I brought a few outside for painting.

Most of these were old and covered in dirt and crusty paint, but FREE, and therefore my favorite kind of material to work with. I looked up their weight capacity online and discovered that when mounted into studs, each shelf can hold 100lbs — only 10 lbs shy of the storebought rack. (FYI: there are also heavy-duty shelf brackets that can support 300 lbs, but they cost quite a bit more, so the pre-made rack is actually cheaper and easier to install).

During the garage cleanup over this past weekend, I gave each bracket a few coats of primer and white spray paint, then installed them on one side of the garage (carefully making sure that each screw went into a stud). Then, I loaded ’em up:

DIY lumber rack

To my surprise, these two levels held every piece of full-length lumber, conduit pipe, and molding I had (I carefully distributed the heavier 2x4s between the racks, so I didn’t feel like I came anywhere close to the weight limit). I still need to build a lumber cart for scraps, but this solution was perfect for getting some of the biggest culprits of my bruised legs out of the way for good!

DIY lumber rack with shelf brackets

For the record, I’m not sure that this is really my long-term solution, so I’ll probably upgrade to the plywood version above (option #2) after I am no longer storing stuff along that wall for the upstairs bathroom. But for now, it suits my needs perfectly, and was both FREE and QUICK to install. No procrastinating, no DIY hiccups, no fuss. It also crosses part of the workshop makeover off of my project list!