Guys! My shop has been a HOT MESS for entirely too long and its time to CLEAN. IT. UP! My shop is always evolving and for months I’ve been tripping over the various wood piles I have stacked on the floor (because there’s nowhere else to put it). This week my goal was to fix that mess! Because tripping and sharp objects don’t mix😖…and I’m already clumsy so I don’t need any help with that!🤣
See I told you it was messy! Wood everywhere!
I ended up making 2 sets of braces – originally I was going to just add storage over my miter saw, but once I got that completed…it looked so pretty and my old storage looked so janky, that I had to make another set. I made the sets 2 different ways, which I’ll share with y’all.
First, I took it to the table saw and cut down all of the pieces I would need – 2x4s into 2x2s for my back pieces and I scrap plywood for my angled brackets.
Before I cut my angled brackets, I drew out on my plywood where the angles would be. I made the front 1.5″ tall and the back 3.75″.
I cut out small pieces of 2×4 around 1.5″ tall for the front of the brackets. I cut enough wood to make 3 shelves.
The First Way
I started off by screwing the back pieces into the wall. I predrilled holes and screwed the screws in about an inch to make it easier to screw into the wall.
Once the back pieces were spaced and screwed into the wall, I screwed the brackets into the back pieces making sure each bracket was level to the previous bracket.
I found that predrilling holes and clamping the bracket pieces to the back made it easy to keep everything level and I didn’t have to worry about the bracket pieces moving.
After the I screwed in the side pieces of the bracket, I put glue on both sides of the 1.5″ tall 2×4 piece and screwed it into the front of the bracket. Here’s the finished product!
Once I finished the storage over my miter saw station, I took a step back to take a look at my work and realized that my existing storage (that’s to the left of this guy) was FUGLY! There’s no way around that…it got the job done, but it stuck out like a sore thumb now. So I decided to make another set of brackets to replace that ugliness.
The Second Way
Assembling everything on the wall ended up being a little more strenuous and harder than I expected, so the second time around, I decided to assemble everything before I screwed it to the wall. This way was so much easier to assemble and when I screwed everything into the wall, the brackets were level with each other. I don’t know if that’s luck or if I’m just that good (LOL), but I’m gonna just go ahead and brush my shoulders off….nothing ever works out this well for me!!
I cut out all of my wood again – enough to make 4 shelves. This time I lined up my 2x2s and measured the distance I wanted between each shelf. I marked a line where I wanted the tops of the brackets to be and then marked the bottom of bracket to measure down for the top of the next bracket. I did this 4 times to outline the placement of my 4 shelves.
I clamped down the bracket to the back piece and screwed it in place. Then, I glued and nailed the front piece to the bracket. Once that I did all 4 brackets on that side, I flipped it over and using my speed square, I lined up both sides of the brackets and screwed, glued, and nailed the other side in place.
Once I had all of my brackets screwed to the back pieces, I screwed them into the wall.
****** I screwed all of the back pieces into the studs – make sure to do that so everything doesn’t come toppling down and out of the wall. ******
Look at all of that storage!!! I even have enough shelving now to separate my wood by species. WINNING!!! I also cleaned up my plywood pile…everything is so clean and organized now. Yay! I pulled my miter saw station off of the wall to give myself room to hook up a house to the back of the saw. I’m trying really hard to make my shop dustless.
I ended up having 6″of space behind my saw and I didn’t want it to go to waste. I made a stop that sits behind the right side of the saw station so that I can just slide my plywood behind and don’t have to worry about pushing it too far (I don’t want it to get in the way of the saw or hose).
Organization is amazing! I don’t know why it always takes me so long to do it! Have y’all organized your wood pile? I’d love to know how – leave me a comment and tell me what you did.