GARAGE STORAGE
Garage Slatwall & Pegboard
Most garage walls hold nothing. Drywall, maybe a stud you found by knocking, and a couple of hooks carrying a rake that falls down every time you take the shovel off. The floor ends up doing the work the walls should be doing.
How Slatwall Works
Slatwall changes which surface stores your things. Panels run horizontally across the wall, and everything you hang clips into the grooves instead of screwing into drywall. Hooks, baskets, shelves, brackets. You move them by lifting and re-seating them, so the wall gets rearranged in about the time it takes to decide where things should go.
A garage doesn’t hold the same things in February that it holds in July. Snow shovels and a snowblower give way to bikes, hoses and patio cushions, and a fixed shelf built for one of those seasons is in the way during the other. Slatwall handles the swap because nothing is permanent except the panels.
It’s also the honest answer when someone doesn’t want to commit to full cabinetry yet. A wall of slatwall costs less than a run of garage wall cabinets, and it doesn’t lock in a layout you might regret. Plenty of our customers start with one wall and add cabinets later.
Where It's the Wrong Choice
Slatwall is open storage. Everything on it is visible, and everything on it collects dust. If you’re storing paint, chemicals or anything you’d rather your kids couldn’t reach, you want a cabinet with a door and a lock instead.
It also isn’t the right home for heavy, awkward items you lift rarely. Tires are the usual example. People ask about hanging four winter tires on slatwall, and our answer is generally that a rack or a cabinet base is a better idea.
Most garages we finish end up as a mix. Slatwall on the wall you use daily, cabinets for the things you’d rather not look at.
What We Hang On It
Hand tools, cordless drills and their chargers, garden tools, sports equipment, hockey bags, helmets, extension cords, folding chairs and the bin of things that currently lives on the floor by the door. Baskets handle the loose items that have no natural shape. Shelf brackets carry the things that need to sit flat.
The layout gets designed around what you actually own. During the in-home consultation we look at what’s on your floor, because that’s the real list.
The Ontario Garage Question
An unheated garage in Simcoe County swings through a wide temperature range across the year, and it takes on road salt and meltwater every winter that gets tracked in off the car and sits on the floor until it evaporates. That is a harder environment than any room inside the house.
It’s the reason we don’t specify garage storage the way we’d specify a bedroom closet. The materials that are fine behind a closet door, in a heated room, at steady humidity, are not automatically the right call on a garage wall. Wall-hung storage has one clear advantage here: it keeps everything above the floor, which is where the salt and the standing water are.
If you’ve had storage fail in a garage before, tell us what failed and how. That tends to be more useful than a spec sheet, and it changes what we recommend.
How It Works With Cabinets
Slatwall runs above and between cabinet runs, so the wall keeps working where a cabinet would be too deep. A common setup is a base cabinet run for the heavy and the hidden, slatwall above it for the things you reach for weekly, and a workbench in between.
If you’re already looking at garage cabinets and storage, we design both together so the heights line up and you aren’t reaching over a counter to get at a hook. Everything we build is made in Canada by our own team in Ontario.
We also build custom closets and custom Murphy beds and wall beds when the project runs past the garage door.
In a rental, slatwall earns its place because hooks and baskets move without leaving holes in the wall. There is more on that on our rental property storage page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can slatwall go on any garage wall?
Almost always. It mounts to studs, and we handle concrete and block walls too. We check wall construction during the measure.
How much weight will it hold?
It depends on the accessory and on how the panel is mounted, so it isn’t one number. Light and medium items hang off the panel itself. Anything heavy wants a bracket that carries the load back into a stud rather than into the panel alone, and we spec that at the measure. Tell us if you’re planning to hang something substantial, because that changes what we install rather than being something to find out afterwards.
Can I add to it later?
That’s the point of it. Panels can be extended along a wall, and accessories can be added at any time. Nothing about the first install prevents the second one.
Do you install it, or is it DIY?
We install it. Measuring, mounting and levelling a slatwall run is more finicky than it looks, and a panel that isn’t level shows immediately once you start hanging things.
Is slatwall covered by the warranty?
Slatwall installs carry the Homeowners Lifetime Warranty, the same as our cabinetry.
READY TO CLEAR THE FLOOR?
Book a Free Measure
We’ll come to you, look at what’s on the floor, and design a wall that gets it off there. No charge for the consultation and no pressure at the end of it. Dream Spaces, 73 Saunders Rd, Barrie.
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- You see the real number in writing.A written quote with the actual figure on it before you commit to anything. No call-for-pricing, and no discount that expires tonight.
- Backed by the Homeowners Lifetime Warranty.Hinges, slides, toe kicks and defects, for as long as it’s your home. Read the fine print
- Designed, built and installed by our own team.From our workshop at 73 Saunders Rd in Barrie. No subcontractors.
