Easy Basement or Garage Shelving

It's January, there is 2 feet of snow on the ground, I've been stuck inside and my house is screaming ORGANIZE ME!
Actually only my storage room is yelling at me. But it's January and January is my favorite month for organizing.

It's too cold to go outside and all the shopping, entertaining and decorating is over from the holidays.





I'm kind of embarrassed to show you this room. This is (was) my storage room. It's a great space located in my basement, directly under the family room. Because I have a step down family room, the ceiling height in here is only 7 ft.
It didn't always look this bad, and I have cleaned and organized the room before, you just wouldn't know by looking at it. See the blue bins all the way in the top left? Totally organized, you just can't get to them. What you can't see by looking at the picture, is that one of the bottom blue bins has collapsed from the weight of the upper bins.





Looking around the internet, I found lots of diy storage shelves and eventually settled on these plans from Ana White. hxttp://www.ana-white.com/2014/09/free_plans/easy-economical-garage-shelving-2x4s
What I liked about her garage shelving was that it was made entirely out of 2x4's, so I could fit it into my car easily, and it was listed as going together in about 3 hours. Perfect!
Knowing that I wanted to tackle my storage room and that there was going to be a blizzard I stocked up. Not on the normal toilet paper and milk, but on 24's. I ended up using 10, 2x4's 66 1/2 , 28, 2x4's, 8ft long and a box of screws.
Right now 2x4's at Lowes and Home Depot are running just under $2.50. What that means is that you can get all the lumber you need for 16 feet of floor to ceiling shelving, for under $100.
I measured out and marked my shorter 2x4's. I only have 6 here because my original plan was to only do one set of shelving 8ft long and then reevaluate the plans.





For the cross pieces, or the rungs on my ladders, I used pallet wood (the thicker side rail pieces). That saved me the cost of a few 2x4's.
If you've ever visited my site http://scavengerchic.com/, you'll know that whenever and wherever I can use pallet wood I do. It's free, what could be better?





The website recommends 2 1/2 inch self tapping screws. I didn't have self tapping screws, but quickly predrilled my holes then attached with screws.
For 16 feet of shelving, I used 5 of these ladders.





Because my ceiling height was only 7ft, I had to adjust the measurements of the plan to be able to hold 4 bins.These were my measurements for the ladders .
Measure your space and figure out how large the bins are that you want to include on your shelving and adjust as necessary.





For half of the shelving, I decided not to put on that bottom shelf since I had a big bin of camping gear that I wanted to put down there as well as an artificial Christmas tree. That's the beauty of these shelves, they are totally adjustable for whatever you need to store.
Not everything that was in the room made it's way back. I did end up with a couple of trash bags of junk and a car full for a quick trip to the dump. The luggage is nested to take up half of its original space.
I'm so excited, I can actually walk into the room without tripping over anything and my house has officially stopped yelling at me.
For more before and after pictures, as well as a few organization tips I hope you get a chance to come and visit. See ya soon. I hope I've inspired ya.







Original article and pictures take http://www.hometalk.com/13475487/easy-basement-or-garage-shelving site