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Where do you store all the stuff that's in your garage?
Hey there. I'm Jeff with Home Repair Tutor, and in this video I'm going to share with
you how to build a wall storage unit like this one so that you can find things like
paint, old stain, glue, anything that you're looking for that you just can't seem to find
on a regular basis when you're doing home repair projects. So stay tuned. I think you're
really going to like this storage unit. And you're going to learn about a whole bunch
of different carpentry skills that'll serve you well in the future. So let's get started.
So the general concept of this unit, this shelving unit, is going to be the back of
it using this ½" birch plywood and then 2 pieces of ¾" birch plywood.
What I'm going to do is cut a dado or a U-shaped crevice into this wood using a router. You'll
see that the dado is really slick because what it's going to allow me to do is position
the back portion of the shelving unit into both sides of this ¾" plywood. But I'm also
going to be using a cleat to hang the shelving unit onto the wall. And that cleat is about
¾ inches think. So the cleat is going to come out to right about here. So I want to
make my dado start at roughly ¾ inches in from the back of this ¾" plywood. It's all
kind of fuzzy right now but it will make sense as we move along.
And it's always good to practice on a scrap piece of wood with your router just to see
what it's going to look like and if you have the speed set to the right setting.
So this looks a little bit choppy here so I'm going to actually make the setting be
a little bit higher to see if I could get a better look.
All right. That's a square cut using the trim router and it's going to add a little bit
more structural integrity to the wall cabinet once I get it all assembled.
One tip here. You can see how I set the router depth about an eighth of an inch. Well this
is ¾" birch plywood, right? So I don't want to exceed the depth of the plywood by more
than 1/3 of the width. So in this case, if it's ¾" plywood, I don't want to cut the
dado cut in there by more than ¼ inch. That way I can still get my structural integrity
with my wall unit but I'm not going to compromise the strength of the ¾" plywood.
Okay. I have my straight edge in place. It's clamped down. I measured over enough so that
I know that my trim router will be just to the left of this line here that indicates
the depth of the cleat. So the first pass with the router, the depth
of the bit was 1/8 of an inch. The second pass I adjusted the depth down to ¼ inch.
Now you can use the Kreg shelf pin jig to create shelf pin holes in the vertical pieces
of your unit. Since the tallest thing that I'm going to be storing is a 12" high silicone
tube, I want my shelves to be about 12½ - 13 inches high. So I'm going to use this 5" piece
of wood. And I'm going to butt it up against the Kreg shelf pin jig. So as you can see,
my silicone caulking tube is going to fit perfectly on that shelf. So with the depth
on the drill bit set, according to the Kreg instructions, I'm just going to go ahead and
drill a hole. All right. It's as simple as that.
Then what I'm going to do the rest of the way is just line up this piece of wood with
the top of the hole here, the shelf pin hole that I just made—it's not an exact science.
I don't need it to be an exact science but I need roughly 12 inches between every single
pin so I got this piece of wood lined up and I'm going to drill my next hole.
Since I'm only going to have three shelves that I need to install, I'm going to create
three separate holes. Obviously I got to create a hole on the other side, too, and I'll do
that next. So I flip the Kreg jig over I'm going to create
my second hole that partners with this one here.
All right. There you go. Now you've got two holes that you can hang your shelf on. And
you want to do the same thing for the second vertical piece.
Okay. What you can do next is take some Titebond II wood glue and place it into your dado.
Now the slightly tricky part—and you may want to get a partner for this—is to put
the ½" piece of plywood that's going to serve as the back of the shelving unit into the
dado. Now you can apply some wood glue to the other side of the ½" plywood. Then insert
the second vertical piece of wood. And one other tip. Make sure that the pin holes in
this vertical piece line up with the pin holes in the first vertical piece. Use your router
square to make sure that this vertical piece of wood is actually at a 90° angle to the
back of the wall unit. And you can use a Brad Nailer or finish nails to secure the wood.
All right. So we're almost done. Here's what the unit looks like without the top and the
bottom pieces. But all you have to do is cut some of those to size.
Add wood glue to the top just like what you did to the sides. Took a little chunk out
of this piece of plywood so I'm going to put it to the top. I'm going to wipe off some
excess glue there. Then I'm going to pin this top board to the rest of the unit.
I will say this. If you don't mind spending some extra money, buy some clamps. Glue everything
together, clamp it, then Brad Nail it. That'll make this unit a lot stronger.
Because of the size of this wall cabinet, I decided to hang it on a cleat. So a cleat
is just a piece of wood that you hang on the wall so that it's a lot easier to hang the
cabinet. I did this using ¼" x 3¼" Tapcon. And Tapcons
are really just fancy screws that you can drill into concrete or cement.
Of course it also helps to have a hammer drill. I highly recommend having a hammer drill if
you're going to be drilling into concrete. Trust me, it will be a long day for you if
you try to drill into cement or cinder block with a regular drill.
All right. Now it's time to take off my clamps. Let this cabinet sit overnight and hopefully
the wood glue set up. All right. So the cleat is going to make hanging
this cabinet so much easier. All right. At least I've got this on the wall now and what
you can do next is drill into the cleat and secure the cabinet to that cleat.
And if you're not satisfied with just one cleat, you can add a second one at the bottom
so that the cabinet will be super secure. I always like to pre-drill holes and then
put my screws in when working with cleats. So it makes it a lot easier. All you have
to do is go zoom, zoom, zoom, and your cabinet will be attached to the cleat in no time.
And of course, do the same thing for the bottom. If you use the Kreg shelf pin jig, you need
the 5mm shelf pins. But keep in mind that there is some depth to the shelf pin. So what
I did is I cut my shelves 1/16" - 1/18" shorter than the width of the wall cabinet. So it's
really to install, the shelf pins. Just slide them into the hole.
And then you can take your shelf and just lay it on top of your shelf pins.
Oh boy! As you can see here, I made a little bit of a mistake with the shelves. They're
not level. But this is not a problem. Mistakes happen so it's easy to fix this. All you need
to do is to raise the shelf until it is level. And I'm going to make a mark indicating that
level spot. And I'm going to make a mark on the side of the cabinet indicating where I
need to put the new shelf pin holes. And since I can't use the Kreg jig to make
the new shelf pin holes, I just put a piece of tape on the drill bit indicating the depth
that I want the drill bit to go. Okay. That's a lot better. It's not perfect
but, hey, that's pretty level. I'm happy with it.
You can attach these little screw eyes to the front of the cabinet. First you'll have
to drill a hole. The reason why I'm doing that is I'm going to attach bungee cords to
the outside of the cabinet. And this will prevent stuff from falling off, yet it allows
you to easily see what's in the actual cabinet. You can move things around easily to find
what you want. All right. That's it. That's how you make
a super cool wall storage unit like this one here. I'm really happy with the results. Of
course it's not perfect but, hey, you know what? Nothing's perfect. So just live with
it. Anyhow, I hope that you learned a few really
awesome carpentry tips like how to use a Kreg jig, how to use a router, and the different
options that you might have for other carpentry projects. So that was really my goal is to
not only show you how to make this wall unit but to introduce you to some new carpentry
concepts. So that's it for today. Remember, if you haven't
already done so, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel. Just head over to YouTube, if you're
not already there right now, and just hit the subscribe button. And every single Friday,
I come out with a new video or a new tip on home repair. So you can get notifications
about that by setting up for the email newsletter over at HomeRepairTutor.com.
Until the next time, I hope you have a great day. Thanks for joining me. I really appreciate
it. Take care! [Outtakes]
I don't know if you can see this but my breath is visible in this garage because it's probably
about 20°. It's freezing here in Pittsburgh! My gosh! It was like -20° last week. Woohoo!
It's cold!