adpostel
Member
I recently moved and now have a 2 car detached as opposed to an attached, and I was wanting to take advantage of the clean slate I had now to create a nice garage to work in. I am now going to sheetrock and paint the garage along with epoxy coat the floor, and finally get to piece everything together. Well in my search of garage storage, I was shocked to see the high prices of all the high end cabinetry and storage options. I am definitely a DIY kind of guy and didn't want to spend too much on storage. So here is what I came up with by default. My wife had a huge 5 drawer lateral file cabinet that she wasn't going to use anymore, and it was sitting outside during the move. Well, rain started to move in and I just started throwing stuff in there so it wouldn't get so wet. Well by God, every little nick nack and miscellaneous thing fit in the cabinet, so she said, why don't you just paint that thing the same color as your new tool box and use it in the garage, She said, maybe it will eliminate some of the clutter. So I came up with every reason why I didn't want to do that and plus the cabinet was a funky beige color. Well her next trip to Home Depot, she got a paint sales guy and brought me a quart of Rustoleum Gloss Black paint. She gave it to me and said, here, the guy at HD said to just sand the cabinet a little, and spray this on with the HVLP setup I bought you last christmas and you never used. So I was on the hook. I took everything out of the cabinet and brought out the sandpaper and got to sanding. Took me about 30 minutes to sand it all down, I wiped it down really well, and used a cheese cloth to get the tiny stuff off, I loaded up about half a quart of the paint and thined it with some mineral spirits and started shooting. After the first couple of passes, I was amazed and really into it. So I tried to do the best job I could to get a nice smooth finish with no drips. In the end, I have ended up salvaging another one of these, and several smaller steel file cabinets from craigslist and garage sales and have ended up with some very nice looking usable storage for very, VERY inexpensive. I have posted some before and after pics and some pics of my tool box for comparison purposes. I have all my pieces together now, I just need to sheetrock and paint the interior of the garage for my mini makeover. These things are fantastic to get rid of the cluttered look of open shelving, and are pretty nice looking as well, I thought. I hope this information helps out.
Salvaged File Cabinets: 5 to, no more than, 35-40 bucks
HVLP Spray Gun: 40 bucks from Home Depot
Sandpaper: a few bucks
Paint: I think it was like 9 bucks
Time: About 1 1/2 hours total
One of the pics shows the top drawer that slides out and I have all of my chemicals stored in there: Notice the Three Gallons of Mineral Spirits and Thinner on the right side, A whole gallon fits upright in one of these things.
Another one shows the bottow drawer to get an idea of how much fits in one of these things: 1 100ft. HD Extension Cord, 1 50 ft. HD Extension Cord, 2 50 ft. air hoses on reels, and one more light duty 100 ft. Extension Cord on a reel.
Again, these are just for size reference
Salvaged File Cabinets: 5 to, no more than, 35-40 bucks
HVLP Spray Gun: 40 bucks from Home Depot
Sandpaper: a few bucks
Paint: I think it was like 9 bucks
Time: About 1 1/2 hours total
One of the pics shows the top drawer that slides out and I have all of my chemicals stored in there: Notice the Three Gallons of Mineral Spirits and Thinner on the right side, A whole gallon fits upright in one of these things.
Another one shows the bottow drawer to get an idea of how much fits in one of these things: 1 100ft. HD Extension Cord, 1 50 ft. HD Extension Cord, 2 50 ft. air hoses on reels, and one more light duty 100 ft. Extension Cord on a reel.
Again, these are just for size reference
