Looking for tool storage ideas

[michael skehan]

I would like to better organize my power tools but haven't seen anything out there that I like or would work so curious if anyone could offer some ideas? Tools are things like circular saw, roto-zip, jig saw, power drill, etc. My original thought was something like a cabinet with slots for each tool, does this make sense?

Thanks

[Todd Burch]

Cabinet with slots is good. You can design the cabinet around the lowest common denominator - AKA, the biggest tool / tool box you have to store. I would add a door to that cabinet as well.

Todd

[Jamie Buxton]

The trouble with cabinet-with-slots is that some day you might want to get a tool that happens to be a little bigger than the biggest slot you have. You can fix that by making the slots bigger than you think you need, but then they're inefficient at storing the smaller tools. A more-flexible approach is just shelving without slots. Then you can pack it densely whatever the tools sizes happen to be, and continue to do that when your tools collection changes in the future.

[michael skehan]

Thanks for comments,

Shelves won't work because I don't want to see them when stored.

[Jamie Buxton]

Thanks for comments,

Shelves won't work because I don't want to see them when stored.

So you put doors in front of the shelves.

[Thomas Bank]

I picked up a bunch of file cabinets from an office that was throwing them out. Mounted them at the back of my shop - so there is a shelf above them under the slope of the roof to store things on and then I can store other things in the cabinets. Works pretty well for me.

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[Brian Tymchak]

Michael, I've certainly been in your shoes. I had tools stored in boxes sitting on the basement floor after we moved into our current home. This was my first project for my basement workshop.

I also wanted some "side bench" room along with storage so I built a couple 4' long base cabinet units out of 3/4" birch ply (inspired by the New Yankee Workshop Miter Bench and Storage episodes), attached laminated mdf tops and set them end-to-end. I opted for 2 4' units instead of 1 8' unit to facilitate moving them out of my basement if I move. In the cabinets, I have a total of 8 drawers on heavy duty full-extension slides, each about ~23"(w) x ~23(d)" x ~20"(h) to store my hand power tools (circ saw, routers and accessories, nailers, dremel set, jig saw, file box of manuals, etc). I also cut shallow dadoes in the sides/back of the drawer sides to slide in panels to sub-divide the drawer if I want at a future point. ( I have not yet done this.) Sorry, no pics. I'm at the office right now but can add them later if you like.

Above these base cabinets I have 3 wall hung cabinets to store all the hand tools, measuring/marking tools, electronic tools, etc. 2 cabinets are "clam-shell" style with deep doors to hang tools, styled after a cabinet featured in FWW. Sorry can't recall the issue. I hung a 3rd cabinet in between these that is longer than tall for more tools. This cabinet is open face, so it will store my often-used tools and saws when I get around to getting the hangers built. Technically I have a 4th cabinet on the wall, with the door of the cabinet made up of 4 stack-on units for hardware storage. Behind those bins, is a shallow cabinet that stores rarely used tools like wrenches, sockets, etc.

[Mike Ontko]

Michael, I'm in the same boat (figuratively speaking), still considering storage designs for my own shop-to-be. And you're right--there don't seem to be many ideas out there apart from plain old cabinets or open shelves.

Currently, all of my smaller power tools (drills, sanders, rotozip, etc.) are lumped into a big Rubbermaid container. It's a bit of a hassle when I need to fish something out, but for the time being it makes it easy to keep those items in one place. My larger items (7-1/4 hand saw, recip saw, routers, biscuit cutter, etc.) are still in their original cases, which keeps the dust off the tools at least.

Similar to the file cabinets that Thomas is showing you could find something second-hand or create a "lawyer's" style case that provides one or more shelves with pull-out/drop-down doors.

Another direction to go, if you're considering standard base cabinets, would be to create slideout shelves sitting on full-extension rails. If memory serves, Norm (NYW) did something like this using a short-sided box (sides were just a little taller than the extension rails) with a full sized drawer front.

Personally, I'm leaning towards the standard base cabinet option, just because I want to keep all of my doors and drawers looking the same.