It surprised me the other week to find out that it's been a year since me and my dad built this
summer house together. And once we moved here, I had to quickly find a way of storing all of my
tools because I didn't have anywhere else to put them. So this week I'm going to show you
all of the easy tool storage ideas that you can do in your own shed. And some footage is from
last year, and the other half is from more recent weeks where I've had to try and use
as many off-cuts as I could, to get things off the floor, get things out of boxes and just
get sorted. Oh and I'll timestamp everything just in case you need it. And here's when the
workshop had just been built. And it's completely empty. It's five metres long,
so I wanted to take full advantage of this nice stretch. And my dad always knows where to get
cheap kitchen laminate worktops. And once I worked out a comfortable height for me,
I drew underneath with an offcut which was roughly about the same thickness. Then I could cut a lot
to the same height of that and use that to make the same height on every spar along the back.
And I also used some staircase spindles so I could still keep the maximum amount of space under that.
Once the worktop went on, I propped it up with those spindles.
Pre-drilled and screwed the back sections to the baton
and use some skirting board as an upstand to stop anything from rolling off to the back.
Right - back to those spindles! After positioning them where I wanted them,
I marked where it was under the worktop.
Removed it, then drilled a small hole to house the head of the screw.
And after getting it level, I drilled and screwed it to the floor as well, but on an angle.
Although I'm going to quickly fast forward - another thing that you could do is screw some
noggins from the supports and that gave me another shelf at the back of the worktop for extra tools.
For the shelves, I used two different types. My favorite - a twin slot system because they're
adjustable if I ever want to change them around. And they're really sturdy. Then come back later
and slot brackets in and use the longest OSB strips I could find for shelves. But I ran out
of them for the narrower side of the shed. That was okay because I also had some London brackets.
These aren't adjustable, but again, they are really really strong. I've used them
for years and they've never bent. I'll leave links to everything I'm using below, but these
specific ones are from Screwfix. Okay, so it's now a few months on, I've officially moved in,
but i'm in desperate need of sorting out this workshop. Let's continue with some roof storage.
I really don't like to throw any offcuts away and that does get me into trouble. And also, old
parts of furniture, just in case. I found more OSB offcuts to screw to the spars to suspend things,
like table legs and spirit levels so they're still within easy reach.
Then I needed to find a place to store clamps. But because I've only got a handful, I found this
narrower section of spars and I cut and screwed a strip of wood and fixed my clamps to them.
But I've always found storing my two sash clamps an absolute pain in the bum.
So I used the same method. But the strip was halfway down to hold them in place,
but also allowed me to take them out when I needed. Next I did the same to hang my pliers.
I also seem to have a growing collection of screwdrivers. A basic way I initially stored them
was again, cutting another offcut because I have too many. And drilled a series of holes,
zigzagged to allow for the handles and screwed between the spars. I love this simple method,
but later a few more turned up, so I'll be changing this later in the video. For my flatwood
drill bits - exactly the same method. And then my hundreds of drill bits because they were painfully
all mixed together, all loose in a box. There - that's a bit better. Next was jigsaw blades.
I had some old pipe that I'd cut on an angle and glue gunned a scrap piece of wood to the bottom.
And drilled and screwed that to the spar.
So now it's another few months later. And a few more pounds off the waste,
later!! And I'd found some new motivation to sort this mess out.
So, we'll start with how I'm going to clean this workshop. A while back, I did some filming for
Evolution power tools. And as a thanks, they gave me this wet and dry workshop hoover.
And it's obvious I should have bought one sooner. I don't think I need to do a review on
this as there's enough YouTube videos out there. But there's a few different attachments - an
extension pole. It sucks, it blows like billio. But what I felt it needed was wheels. I screwed
some caster wheels that I'd saved and onto a piece of wood for a platform. And it could then move
around with me when it's not stored or attached to my mitre saw. I'll fast forward again though,
because I later screwed some lips on top of it to keep it from slipping off.
Now for sandpaper organization. I used to have a terrible habit of throwing all of my sandpaper and
sanding blocks into a large box. I'd also saved these solid cardboard boxes, just in case. And
started using them to divide all of my stuff. Then for a shelf, I cut up some contiboard that
was from the old bookshelf from the narrowboat we bought recently. And just a quick thanks to
Stealth for sending me one of their masks to try. It's really comfortable while being snug at
the same time, where there's no gaps to let wood through. And after making a few repetitive cuts,
I screwed the main box together - made sure it was square and temporarily screwed some
plywood gussets on two of the corners before screwing the shelves in between.
This is another project I later added caster wheels to onto. The next messy box I had to sort
out was all of my PPE. And there were individual gloves scattered around in there like a maniac.
Which, by the way, I used a tip from Andy of Tales From The Tinkerage. And that was to pair
them up with bulldog clips, and I've got plenty of those. But I didn't have any spare boxes for
these and I decided to dismantle the Love Your Weekend plant stand project that I'd made for
demonstration purposes. And it was the two side supports I wanted, so I could make some drawers.
I found as many similar width strips of OSB that I could find. Albeit, they were quite thin. And
cut four sides. You'll notice I didn't even bother cutting them to wall the same height.
I just wanted to make sure they were square, then glued and nailed some supports to the front and
back pieces, but leaving some clearance at the bottom to allow to glue and screw some bases on.
And after making four of these, I added more supports to the frame to make it stronger.
And used offcuts as runners. There's nothing special about it,
but it keeps all of my stuff in order while making my offcut pile a little bit lighter.
The next job on the list was to sort out all of my silicones, spray foams and WD-40s. For these,
I decided I wanted to house them again between the shed spars. But the CLS was
a little bit too shallow. I hand-sawed some strips and screwed them from the inside.
For the top piece, I pocket holed and screwed that on.
However, the hardest part of this job was to get the right angle and space you're happy with
to stop things from falling out. And where it would look consistent as I went. To save
you a lot of time, I spaced the offcuts every 10 centimetres at a 45-degree angle
using a sliding bevel. But definitely make sure that the depth of your shelves
aren't too narrow to prevent smaller products from falling down the back.
As for the bottom piece, I also had loads of silicone nozzles
and turned this into a shelf with an angled off-cut, which I thought was quite cool.
If you were worried about the weight, you could also screw a batten along the bottom
to take pressure off the side screws, but at the moment, I'm not sure it needs it.
Next, this was the job I was dreading the most. And that was organizing this jumbled heavy box
of screws. Instead of making custom boxes or recycling milk bottles, I wanted to sort it out
NOW and bought loads of Really Useful Boxes. But here's a heads up. As cool as they look,
it gets really expensive. And addictive. And after a day - yes an entire day of sorting this out,
I wanted to make another shelf system in the spars. Originally I started using some fake
Jenga blocks as supports. Then screw OSB offcuts on top. But I didn't like how much
space the blocks took up. And I was worried about the shelves possibly bowing. So after removing it
and screwing more OSB to the spars, I cut and screwed more contiboard i had lying around
to use as shelves. And I had a few of you ask on Instagram for me to do a review of my new
Stihl bluetooth ear defenders. So I thought I'd do a very quick one here. I bought them
over a week ago and so far, I love them so much. The battery lasts hours. Apparently,
38 hours. And I've worn them most of the day, each day and not had to charge them yet. Although,
my husband and many other people in reviews say they're really tight. And some people say they get
a headache or a sore ear after wearing them for half an hour. Luckily, I don't have that problem.
But I did find them much cheaper from independent sellers as opposed to amazon. So with the saving,
I decided to buy mine with a clear visor. Anyway, once I filled the shelves, I also added
a lip where I felt it needed one to prevent any things like recycled glass jars from falling off.
Now, remember earlier on when I said that the back shelves were great for moving around where
you want to? Well, I got tired of seeing nothing but shelves on the back wall. And I felt I needed
a little space for my most-used hand tools. Right now, I'm reshuffling things to try and make room
for a Carpenter's Daughter logo, top centre. But I quickly realized that the top space was better to
store all of my really long offcuts, because that was another messy pile under the worktop that I'd
like to put some more storage underneath. And I no longer needed the twin slot rail dead centre.
And after removing it, I screwed more offcuts of CLS pieces to the existing spars.
Then screwed more OSB offcuts to them to create an easy tool wall,
inspired by Rob at Spend Time Save Money DIY. I'll leave a link to his video below,
but that also sadly meant that I needed to remove last year's screwdriver and drill bits holder.
I gathered as many tools that I wanted to have at hand. And hung them all
using screws. I started with my PPE. Hammers. Drilled any holes in handles where I could.
This time, a mini bucket for the screwdrivers. I know it's not ideal, but I can re-jig these
whenever I want to. For my tape measures, I cut down a strip of metal and drilled holes on either
side. And to create a gap, I also screwed through these rubber washer things that I'd acquired.
And once you've finished that, you could draw around them so you know what should be there when
they're missing. But I'm going to leave mine for now just in case anything else turns up.
So I'm going to have to leave it right there, but the next thing i'm going to
have to sort out is an area for this corner because I need a house for all of my glues,
my rolls of tape. And I'm not quite sure about this area. I was going to use it as
a cup holder. I always drink coffee from a flask. But yeah, hopefully, I've inspired someone to just
organize something in your shed. And hopefully, I'll see my next one. Thanks for watching. Bye!
[Bloopers] Oh and I'll typed... errrr!! And I'll type stump. Arggh!
Drink
Um