Hope you all enjoyed your Veteran’s Day, especially if you were home from work like I was!  Big thanks to all those who served and those that continue to serve today.  With the extra free time this weekend, I was finally able to get the garage shoe organizer finished!  Jackpot.

After finishing up the build portion of the project, I brought the piece up to the garage for painting.  The plan was to spray on a couple coats of white primer and then follow that up with a couple coats of black gloss.  Those plans changed once I started spraying the primer.

I had a hard time getting good coverage in between those shelf areas.  It took some contorting.  It also took a lot of primer.  I went through 3 cans!  I couldn’t believe it needed that much.  So instead of repeating this process with the black gloss, I just opted for a small roller and a brush.  I’m kinda picky when it comes to painting.  Spray paint is almost always my first choice.  You get a nice even coat that looks professional.  Using a roller and a brush is nice, but it can leave brush marks and it never goes on as smooth.

But, you know what?  This piece is plywood and it’s going to be holding our shoes in the garage.  It’s not going to be in the Guggenheim.  I can roll the darn thing.

You know what?  It didn’t come out too bad.  The roller and brush method worked just fine.  To install the shelves to the wall, I used toggle bolts for the top two holes and regular screws for the bottom set.  The bottom brace on the shelf coincided with some lumber in the wall.

The toggle bolts are great for holding heavier objects to drywall.  I trust them over molly bolts any day.  To use them, I just drilled two holes in the top plate with a drill bit just a touch bigger than the diameter of the bolts.

To recess the bolt a touch, I then used a bigger drill bit and only drilled the hole halfway through the wood.  Unfortunately, the plywood tore out some.  You can eliminate this tear out by either using tape over the hole or starting the drill before you engage the bit with the wood.  No big deal though.  I can touch up the paint or just cover the holes.  If I were using regular hardwood and not plywood, I wouldn’t expect this type of damage from drilling.  But, with plywood, those laminate layers can tear occasionally.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.

The toggle bolts are a two piece system.  You actually need to setup the bolt onto the piece you’re fastening before you insert anything into the wall.

The other catch with toggle bolts is they need a large hole drilled into the drywall.  These required a 5/8″ size hole.  That’s pretty sizable.  The biggest bit I have in that range is 1/2″.  To get to 5/8″, I just worked the hole a bit.  It’s easy to expand drywall.

Once the bolts are inserted into the wall though, they grab pretty good.  As long as no one really puts any major weight on this shelf, they should hold nicely.

I like it.  More importantly, Lisa likes it.  It works pretty well too.  We put enough shelves in there just in case they start piling up out there.

So now more piles of shoes all over these steps.  Makes going in and out a little less of a hassle.

If you can’t tell from some of those photos, the garage overall still needs a good amount of cleaning up.  Trying to make some time to get to that, but it’s not easy.  It tends to be somewhat weather dependent too.

Planning on any projects in your garage?  How do you keep your shoes organized?