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Plastic Storage Bin Storage Rack for the Garage (12 bins x 27 Gallon)

Melensdad

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
The lovely Mrs_Bob has found a new project for me. :smileywac

Make a 2x4 lumber wooden rack system for Plastic Tote Bins.

Screenshot 2025-10-27 at 2.15.48 PM.png

Actually she was very helpful and found a website that has all the layouts, cut lengths, everything you need, to size it out and do the calculations for me. It even has a "how to" video and lots of photos and helpful tips.

Free DIY Tote Storage Rack Configurator and Plans by Ana White | Ana White

Pin For Later!
www.ana-white.com www.ana-white.com

SO WHAT COULD GO WRONG? :hide:

Well let me count the ways. First I don't have enough spare lumber so the lovely Mrs_Bob finds a "deal" on Facebook Marketplace, conveniently located an hour drive to my west in Illinois. OK. The lumber listed for sale is a full dollar and a quarter cheaper, PER BOARD, than what I can get locally, so I reach out to the seller. I get a zip code. He sends me some photos, looks like he has a small lumber yard. Yup, it's an hour away. Even with gas costs, it is still a bargain, I need about 14 or 15 sticks, but plan to pick up 30. I have a few errands, need to go to the bank for cash, guy said he will send an exact address when I'm on the road.

So I'm on the road and I get the address, plug it in and drive to a TRAILER PARK that doesn't look like the photos the guy sent. WTF? I start looking around, drive around the block, don't see any lumber or even any racks for the lumber as per the photos. Text the guy asking where he is. No answer. F' this, sensing personal danger I skeedadle out of town and get a text saying the guy has arrived. Well sorry dude I'm on the highway home.

So off to Home Depot and I am now stuck in traffic. 4 hours round trip and I picked up 16 pieces of lumber.

AND THEN THERE ARE THE BINS :hammer:

The lovely Mrs_Bob would prefer a 12 bin storage rack. Problem is that I have 11 bins at the house that APPEAR to be the same size. Turns out that 8 of them are 1 size. 3 of them are a SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT size. As you can tell from using common sense and observation, the bin rack requires all the bins to be the SAME size.

So the lovely Mrs_Bob finds 7 bins that match the 3 bins, for sale on Facebook Marketplace. Only 1 hour northwest of me, in Illinois. And this is when the fighting started. WTF am I going to do with 10 bins when she wants 12 and what am I supposed to do with the 8 I already have? And she proceeds to educate me on how I should just modify the plans and go drive 2+ hours to try to get another Facebook Marketplace deal . . .

I compromised. I did what I wanted to do. I drove to the fencing club, where we have excess bins that EXACTLY MATCH the 8 bins I already own. I picked up 4. Of course I replaced those with 4 random bins that we had, because the club doesn't need exact matching bins. And that was only a 1 hour round trip including the time I spent swapping the bin contents.

So now I have 12 matching Storage Bins.

And I have all the lumber, in fact, I have a few extra full length pieces (always handy to have) because I was able to use some left overs for some of the short pieces I needed.

In any case, I have it all measured, all the cuts have now been made. Still have to assemble. But I have fencing this afternoon so no time to assemble today. It will get done tomorrow or Wednesday.
 
So I made a couple mistakes. None tragic. No divorce papers are pending.

But I intended to use a mix of left over 2x3 and 2x4 lumber as the rails or stringers that the bins rest on. Absolutely no reason that won't work. But it does throw off the spacing. And since the video and plans (linked in the OP) have instructions to cut 2 pieces of scrap wood to use them as "spacers", I found out very quickly that those spacers totally screw up the spacing because they don't account for the size difference between a 2x3 and a 2x4.

So tossing the "spacers" aside I went with the tried and true method of using a RULER and drawing LINES. That worked.

So we are at the 3/4th completed stage of the project but the dogs decided they wanted to go outside, and I was getting thirsty, so here is the progress so far. And if you watch the video, she suggests using a drill driver and screws. I have a framing nailer and in the time it takes her, on the video, to sink 1 screw, I can 'pound' a half dozen nails. So if you have a framing nailer and want to save time, use it.

IMG_7217.jpegIMG_7218.jpegIMG_7219.jpegIMG_7220.jpeg


None of the center sections are actually nailed in place, I just set them in there so I could get working on the layout. Just for jollies I squared up on piece and dropped in 3 bins, as I wanted to confirm this was actually all spaced correctly. Fortunately for me, using the ruler and drawing straight lines to replace the "spacer" seemed to work. Looks like this will be good to assemble after I chug down some water and take a bit of a breakfast break because now I am hungry too.

IMG_7221.jpeg
 
Looking at all the pics, these racks are hanging things by the lip of the tote at the lid side.
How much weight can you put in the tote before the lips break off?
It also looks like they're made for a specific tote. E.g. in your last picture, bottom right is a blue tote. I'm guessing it won't fit on the racks and if you do try to hang it, it'll break the lip off.
 
bczoom said:
Looking at all the pics, these racks are hanging things by the lip of the tote at the lid side.
How much weight can you put in the tote before the lips break off?
It also looks like they're made for a specific tote. E.g. in your last picture, bottom right is a blue tote. I'm guessing it won't fit on the racks and if you do try to hang it, it'll break the lip off.
Click to expand...

How much WEIGHT?
Damn good question, but I would suspect that any idiot who overloads it will find out pretty quickly that these are better suited to storage of Christmas Ornaments, Yarn and Craft project pieces, sweaters, kids toys, and not things like car batteries. Basically bulky stuff that is not too heavy.

SPECIFIC TOTE:
Yes and no. Pretty much any tote with a solid lip will work. Totes that have curved/bowed sides probably would not work. But any rectangle tote should work fine with the link in the OP. There is a "configurator" where you plug in your tote size, very specific measurements, and you simply build to the specs that pop up on your screen for the brand of tote you are using. The "configurator" does assume that all the totes in your rack are identical. So I had the availablility to get 12 of these identical totes and built this for those 12 specific totes.

As for the blue tote you noticed, no, that will not fit in THIS rack. I think I have about a half dozen just like it, so in theory I could make a tote rack dedicated to THOSE specific totes.
 
OK, maybe I'm being cynical but why these racks?
Why not just build some 2' deep shelving (by whatever length & height you want) and just put the totes on the shelves? That's what I do and the shelves don't care about the width, height (within reason), weight or otherwise.
 
bczoom said:
OK, maybe I'm being cynical but why these racks?
Why not just build some 2' deep shelving (by whatever length & height you want) and just put the totes on the shelves? That's what I do and the shelves don't care about the width, height (within reason), weight or otherwise.
Click to expand...

How long have you been married?

Happily?

I'm going on 41 years here.

She has her own guns.

This is not the hill on which I choose to die.

And oddly enough, this tote rack will be located under a bunch of shelves on the wall that have what on them? Uh, those shelves that will be above this tote rack are already loaded with TOTES. Go figure.

So when the lovely Mrs Bob says she wants a tote rack,
and since we have an abundance of totes
and since I already had the tools,
and since I already had some of the lumber needed . . .

:laugh:
 
pixie said:
Because I am cautious and break a lot of stuff... I would be adding a diagonal piece to the outside of the frame on each side.
Or screwing an angle bracket to the back and the wall.
Click to expand...

That is actually suggested for larger units at the link in the OP. There is a youtube video there that talks about various things not covered here. If I was going 4 bins tall I would definitely add diagonal brace, or possibly just attach it directly to the wall studs for more stability. Only going 3 tall I'm not too terribly concerned with a diagonal brace.
 
Melensdad said:
How long have you been married?

Happily?

This is not the hill on which I choose to die.
Click to expand...
At our house, she has her garage, I have mine.
In HER garage, I'll put in whatever shelving she wants and have already done so. I've told her no re-do's unless realllyy needed.
In MY garage, I have 100% say in what shelving gets installed. ;)

Oh, and most of our shelving is from commercial entities. In my garages/buildings, it's mainly the shelving that came out of K-Mart (warehouse & retail areas) from when they went out of business. In her garage, it's steel pharmacy shelving with sliding glass doors but we do have some of that wire shelving that you use in closets.
 
We share 1 3 car garage, then I have the 5 car/workshop garage. This is in our shared garage.

Most of these bins are empty, even some up on the wall are empty. More work to do but I wanted to move it into place. I've got a miter saw set up and a bunch of trim wood I need to work on and that is keep me from getting the truck back into the garage. Some of the stuff in the left corner and on the left side of the photo are going out to the trash.

It is currently more put away and organized than you see in this photo. All the bins have painters tape labels on them. The lids have matching painters tape labels. The red bid you see on the floor has been put on a shelf. 3 of the smaller bins on the top of the wall shelf have been removed. The bike can be parked in front of the bin rack and I can still fit the pick up truck into the garage . . . if not for my tools and wood that are only there for a couple more days.

IMG_7227.jpeg
 
Bob - My wife and I were just sitting outside for an hour or two chatting.

I mentioned that she needs to stop looking at facebook and coming up with "projects"... especially for me.

I told her that a friend of mine is building this rack for totes because his wife saw it. She laughed and said she knew the exact video, color of the totes... She said "I wouldn't ask for that".

She then said, "Oh, by the way, I saw on facebook info about security and insulation". Now I have to replace the garage door opener, the insulation around all the doors (sides and bottom), all exterior locks...

I feel for you buddy. We'll all go down together.
 
bczoom said:
Bob - My wife and I were just sitting outside for an hour or two chatting.
. . .
She then said, "Oh, by the way, I saw on facebook info about security and insulation". Now I have to replace the garage door opener, the insulation around all the doors (sides and bottom), all exterior locks...

I feel for you buddy. We'll all go down together.
Click to expand...

It always starts with an innocent 'chat' and then the bottom falls out beneath you and you didn't even know there was a trapdoor under you.
 
You guys just need to learn to say no... Yes honey I'll be right there. Just give me a minute I need to finish this post. I'm hurrying I'll be right there. Sorry guys I got to go. 😄
 
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