Recommendations for wall panels

[jeffv]

Hey guys & girls - New here but have been trolling around for a couple of weeks now. Great site with great info.

I want to cover the some of the walls in the garage with one of slatwall type wall panels. I've been looking around the web and found storeWall products which look pretty promising. The potential cost for my 2-car garage is somewhat prohibitive so I'm considering the "regular duty" type and not the heavy-duty ones. Does anyone have any experience with these panels? Quality, looks, installation experiences? The other brand which seems to be readily available is Gladiator. The cost is comparable to storeWall (a few $ less) and some of the products are accessories are available locally which make them somewhat attractive.

Recommendations and experience with any of the online retailers with these products would be great too.

I would really appreciate some input before taking the plunge.

Thanks.

 

[MotorCity57]

Hi Jeffy, welcome to Garagejournal!
I was also looking to cover a section of my garage wall with a slatwall product. I chose the Gladiator system mainly because of availability - it's sold at Sears and Lowes. This week I picked up a bunch of the individual Geartrack channels on sale at Sears (and later discovered that Sears' sale price is the same as Lowes' regular price!). I'm also planning to buy enough of the Gearwall panels to cover a wall section 16' wide by 6' high. Between the Gearwall section and the individual channels I'll pretty much cover my storage needs for the entire garage, and the components (hooks, etc.) will all be interchangeable.
Hope that helps. I'd love to see more input from other posters here....

John

 

[Silver Bullet]

I purchased actual "slatwall" sheets (4'x8') from a local panelling supply store here on Long Island. The kind of sheets they use for walls inside small stores. I can't remember what I actually paid per sheet but I DO remember it being a lot cheaper than Gladiator or any other garage specific slatwall systems. They came in white and really look pretty nice. Once you have the slatwall you can hawk ebay for hooks, shelves etc. much cheaper than Lowes or Sears.

 

[Abodyracer]

You don't have to use slatwall specific hooks and such with slatwall. Regular peg board hooks work just fine and will give you more options for organizing.

 

[keepcold]

I also used slatwall sheets for the wall's in my the garage. The only thing I can say about installation is that this stuff if extremely heavy so you might need a couple of guy's to help lift while you screw it to the wall. If you deiced to go that route you might want to try Craigslist, I picked up About 18 Sheets from a store that was closing for about $250.. "Depending on the color and style I think it goes for about $40 to $80 a sheet new"
And like silver bullet said you can pick up hook's, basket's and shelves from fleebay for pretty cheap

 

[jeffv]

Thanks for the posts. I went ahead ordered the storeWall light duty panels from wall to wall storage. They had the best price I could find and they are in MD. Waiting on delivery now. It is rather expensive but since I am only covering the top half of the walls on 2 sides of the garage, I should get away with a reasonable overall cost. I wish I'd thought about going to to a lumber yard or panelling supply as Silver Bullet recommended. Oh well.

My garage is a mess from the prior owner. Poor sheetrock job, wires everwhere, floor covered with stains, dirty and dusty. I lease my cars so there always new and don't leak. I plan to cover as much of the sheetrock job as I can with the storeWall panels, paint the rest as well as the lower half of the walls which are concrete.

I'll try and post some before and after pics as soon as I get some time.