Garage Cubby Lockers

A pretty and functional Pottery Barn knockoff always gets my attention!

I know one thing I am always in need of is more organization. Are you with me?

Michelle from Chalkboard Blue built this set of lockers to tame the masses of coats, backpacks, and sports equipment that were taking over her garage.

I love this look with the doors that conceal all items inside, adding to a nice and clean appearance in the space they’re in.

Michelle’s inspiration came from the Vintage Lockers from Pottery Barn.

Unfortunately, Chalkboard Blue has gone offline. But below is Michelle’s original post for reference (thanks, Michelle!).

From Michelle:

I first started by sketching out the lockers and deciding on how much wood I would need to buy. I went and saw my buddy at Stock Lumber in the finish shop and loaded up and purchased all the wood I was going to need. I purchased really just two sizes of wood.

The wood that the main structure would be built out of was 11 1/4 inch wide x 8 feet. (I cut down the lengths once I got home). You can purchase wider wood for the lockers, I had to purchase this width due to the area and space I was going to be working with.

The other wood I purchased was just some hookstrip. Its about 3 in. in width x 8 feet. (I cut the different lengths when I got home.)

I used the hookstrip for my Back Braces of the lockers, some top shelf supports and for some of the sides of the walls for my younger girls lockers to place hooks on.

I then took some of the hookstrip and ripped it on the table saw down to 1 1/2 in. to make lower shelf supports for the walls.

**Special Note:

Now I know when I am looking at DIY projects on blogs, I like to see the before and after shots. So I’m going to post a picture of what this area looked like before the lockers.

I typically don’t like to do this because I am such a perfectionist, but I feel like we are getting to know one another by now so why not???

Ok so here is the “Before” space I had to work with. let’s refer to it as complete Chaos!

Ok and while we are at it, Here is the other reason why I built the lockers, the original set of garage lockers I first built us simply was not keeping up with the demands of 5 kids and all the sports and bookbags!

I did a lot of figuring of the space. So I next spaced out where each of the walls of the lockers would go. I started with a Back Board brace of where the first locker would go. Also remember that due to the narrowness of each locker I had to pre-paint each locker and have the hooks on it so it was completely finished as I went.

Otherwise I would not be able to get my drill inside each locker to screw in the hooks. 🙂 here is the first wall… I simply attached the wall of the locker to the back brace with a grabber screw on the side of the wall that you can’t see in this photo to anchor it.

Once the upper and lower shelves went in, it made the locker more secure. I would also note that you could do a lower back brace too down low to anchor the side wall to to make it even more secure.

Note: I already had my back wall existing, so I didn’t need to make a back board for this project. In fact a couple years ago, I put up some Bead board that I had left over and painted the garage.

Note also that the hookstrip and shelf supports do not go the width of the whole sidewall of each locker. They stop about 1 1/2 in short of the front of the locker walls to allow room for the doors to close into them.

On each wall, I had to figure where the shelves were going to be so I placed each of the shelf supports in their appropriate spaces…

As I stated before, the shelf supports do not go the whole distance of the width of the wall, because you have to allow room for the door to set inside the locker and for the door to close into the locker at the front. (In this photo, the wall is actually upside down.

These are the lower shelf supports that go at the bottom of the wall. On the left is the “front” of the wall where the door needs to set into the locker.)

Here are a couple walls drying with paint before I placed them… Notice some of the shelf supports here towards the top are wider.

That is the full width of the hookstrip because I use it to place hooks on it. The lower shelf supports are the hookstrip I ripped on the table saw.

Now the walls with hooks on them ready to go…

One Locker done!!! I have the top shelf and bottom shelves in and the hooks already on for the locker next door! For the shelves, it is simply the 11 1/4 in mdf I used for the walls, just cut to appropriate widths and lengths for each locker.

Two Lockers done!! With the back brace ready for the next locker all cut in place and puttied waiting for paint. I would simply anchor each wall on an angle with a nail gun to the back brace until I had the shelves in place to make each locker more secure. (Awww, here on the right I have some spectators… our HUGE Newfoundland dog Oscar and our little Yorkie, Addy checking out what I’m up to…)

3 Lockers done!

At this point, I’m exhausted because I have been up late the night before painting until way late into the morning, but feeling triumphant that I’ve gotten this far!

Oh wait, who’s that?? A little Stowaway up early in the morning, still in her jammies and sooo excited her locker is done! Here’s how the conversation went with a 23 month old…

Ivy: “Hi mum!” Youuze wookin on da Wachers?”

Me: “Yes sweetie, yours is done!”

Ivy: “Kankyou mommie!”

So now I have all 5 lockers up and have some finish trim on the top and bottoms of some. I next started building the doors.

Once I had the finish trim on a locker, I measured and cut each door. Each door was the width I bought the wood at, 11 1/4 inches wide.

All I had to do was cut the length and cut the grooves in doors…

I did this simply by figuring the width of the door and dividing it by the 3 panels which left me with a groove to be cut every 3 3/4 inches.

So I set the fence on the table saw at a distance of 3 3/4 in. from the fence to the saw blade.

Now I just want a groove cut in the door right? So I had to lower the height of the saw blade so it wouldn’t cut clear through the board.

I set the blade to where it would only cut into the board 1/4 of an inch.

Ran the door along the fence on the saw to cut one groove, rotated the door around to the opposite side of the board and repeated the same step.

Once I had all doors cut, grooved, primed and painted, it was time to start hanging the doors.

After I figured where I wanted the hinges, I placed the hinges and hung a couple doors then placed the remaining hinges on the rest of the lockers…

Once I did all of that, they were completed!

I cut some numbers on my Silhouette Cameo on contact paper to create a stencil and put numbers on each of them!

Now that they are ready, I just need to move the kid’s stuff in!

Here is a shot with some things moved in Ivy’s Locker…

I just can’t say enough good about these lockers and how fun they have been. When we are pulling into the garage and put up the garage door I’m often shouting “Woot! Woot! love them lockers!” It has really helped to keep down the chaos in the garage.

I still have some more projects I need to work on in the garage, but this is a good start! If you would like to see more pictures of these lockers you can see them here or by clicking on the image below.