Shop Wall Storage

Convinced that I’m going to need every square inch of wall space in my half-of-a-two-car-garage shop, I put my sub-panel in the wall instead of surface mounting. I didn’t want to hang a cabinet over the box and make it hard to get into, so I hinged a section of pegboard over it. Now I can remove two (rather sloppy, first attempt, homemade) star knobs and have access to the panel, as well as being able to remove a section of OSB and have access to the wall cavity next to it that backs up to my main breaker.

I also picked up these bins at Harbor Freight (less than $7) and, being in the early stages of shop layout, I didn’t want to mount them directly to the wall. So it seemed like a good excuse to finally put a french cleat on the wall, and mount the bins to a piece of 1/4” ply. The next obstacle was how to screw a thin piece of plastic to a thin piece of plywood—I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a 1/4” screw with a 1/4”Ø head. And the rails look like they really need a screw in every hole to prevent torque from eventually snapping the rails. I still don’t know what made me think of if, but it felt like a lightning strike when I realized that pop rivets would be perfect here—50 3/16”Ø x 1/2” grip rivets was about $5 and the rails all feel nice and solid.