Garage Renovation... Cabinets

Here's the last post on our garage renovation...

Last weekend we took advantage of a 20% off in-stock cabinet sale at Home Depot and purchased some Hampton Bay cabinets for our garage redo.  I wouldn't use these less-expensive, lower grade cabinets inside our home, but for the garage they were perfect. With the 20% off, we only spent $610 for a corner cabinet, three 36x30x12 cabinets, and one 30x30x12 cabinet.

My husband and I installed the cabinets ourselves. We'd found years ago when we installed some cabinets in our utility room that installing cabinets isn't difficult. (Here's a good tutorial on how to do-it-yourself.)

The hubs is very picky much more meticulous than I am when it comes to doing projects like this. It used to drive me crazy, but I've learned it's something to be admired. When all is said and done I can count on him to do it right, and over the years we've learned how to work well as a team. That wasn't always the case. The first time we hung wallpaper together it almost cost us our marriage. We made a joint decision after that, for the sake of our marriage and our little ones, that we would never wallpaper together again. It was a wise decision. A couple of years later, we added "tile installation" to that list.  Fortunately, "cabinet installation" never made the list. Here's a few photos of our cabinet installation and some tips...

1. Take the cabinet doors off the cabinets. This will make them much lighter as you install them. Especially if you have to rely on someone like me (whimpy) to hold them up while the other person is securing them to the wall.

2. Install a ledger board underneath the cabinets before you start. This board will help keep the cabinets straight and make it much easier for one person to hold the cabinets in place as the other person screws them to the studs in the wall. Once you have one screw in place you won't even need to have someone hold the cabinet up if you've used a ledger board...

3. If you're like my husband you'll use a level to check every conceivable angle on the cabinets. If you're like me you'll stand back, eyeball it and say "it's good." Experts recommend using a level.

We're really looking forward to the storage space that these cabinets will provide. My husband is going to resurface his existing work benches and fit them underneath the cabinets to form an "L" shape.

The rest of the organization of the garage is up to my husband. I'll gladly help him if he needs it, but this is his domain, and he's looking forward to working out the specifics for the storage of all our "essentials." I'm happy to be done with my part.