Garage Storage

I mentioned in a previous post that I wasn't comfortable having airplane parts and skins just laying around waiting to be stepped on or worse.  I searched the internet for some above the garage door storage ideas and apparently, it's not an original concept and there's some off the shelve solutions you can buy.  As with most things I did a build vs buy analysis and determined I could make something with more structure and sturdiness for cheaper and would take about the same amount of time to install.  It seems a bit silly to build a plane but shy away from some shelving.

So I drew out an idea on paper, did some measurements and came up with a BOM (Bill of materials). I wanted two 4x8 foot platforms using the existing garage door header on one side and some metal brackets for support on the other side.  Went with 2x3 for the frame and 1x6 boards for the decking.  The idea of going with a decking material over some plywood is that the storage area would be dark.  So dark that you would have to mount a head lamp and grab a ladder just to see what's up there.  The decking spaced by about 2.75" apart allows not only light to get up there but for you to see what's up there before you climb the ladder

Using the garage door header as structure for one side allowed me to mount some brackets for the opposing end.  This part was by far the hardest since each platform weighs maybe 50 lbs. and is a bit bulky.  Had to use several ladders to get the wall side above the garage door and mounted into the header.  I was then able to mount the brackets to the sides and the side to the top piece.  The other challenge was finding the stud to go into.  Even using a stud finder, I put a few too many extra holes in it.

The commercial ones said they could hold 600 lbs.  I'm not sure how much these will hold, I used pretty stout lag screws and the weakness part would be the middle outside of each platform.  I could strengthen that but adding another strut in the middle, but that's not really needed since I don't plan to live up there.  My very scientific method for testing them was to hang my 200 lbs off the side, there was some bowing, but it didn't come crashing down so passes for me!