Furniture Assembly & Storage in Garner, NC

What the wall is made of

Garner has a large stock of 1960s to 1980s ranches and split-levels, and their garages are built differently from the ones in the newer developments south and east.

A modern garage typically has framed walls — studs at regular centres with sheathing outside and often drywall inside. Finding a stud is easy and fixing into it is straightforward.

An older Garner garage frequently has block or brick walls. Sometimes bare, sometimes with thin furring strips and board over them. Either way there is no stud framing behind to fix into, and everything about mounting shelving changes.

Fixing into masonry

Three things matter.

Into the block, not the mortar. The mortar joint is the weakest part of a masonry wall, and an anchor set into it works loose under load, particularly under the cyclical loading of things being put on and taken off a shelf. Fixings go into the solid material.

Into solid material, not a void. Concrete block is usually hollow, with solid webs between the cavities. A fixing that lands in a void has nothing to grip. Either the fixing position is set to land in a web, or an anchor specifically designed for hollow masonry is used — those work by expanding behind the face shell.

The right anchor for the load. Shelving carrying paint tins and tools is a real load, and it is applied at the front edge of the shelf, which multiplies the pull-out force at the wall. The fixings get chosen for that rather than for what happens to be in the toolbox.

Where there is furring

Thin battens fixed to the masonry with board over them is a common finish on these walls.

The furring strips themselves are far too thin to carry shelving. Fixings pass through them into the masonry behind, which means longer fixings and knowing how thick the build-up is.

It is worth establishing rather than assuming, because a screw driven into a furring strip alone will hold for a while and then pull out.

The depth problem

The other Garner-specific issue, and it catches people out.

Older garages are smaller than modern ones. A garage built in 1972 was sized for a 1972 car, and modern vehicles are wider, longer and taller. In plenty of these houses the garage is already tight.

Build shelving eighteen inches deep along one wall and you may have made the space unusable for a car — which is a discovery best made before the shelving is built rather than after.

So the sequence is: measure the garage, measure the car, work out what depth is genuinely available, and design the storage to that. Shallow shelving along the whole wall is frequently more useful than deep shelving along part of it anyway.

Height helps. The space above bonnet height and above the garage door track is usually unused and it is where depth is available without costing anything.

Overhead racks

Where a garage has a finished or framed ceiling, overhead storage is possible and the structure decides what is allowed.

Where the ceiling is carried on roof trusses, load has to be spread across several rather than concentrated on one, nothing gets cut, notched or drilled through a truss member, and the honest guidance is that overhead is for bulky and light — seasonal decorations, luggage, camping gear. Heavy things belong on wall shelving.

Where an older garage has open rafters or an unfinished ceiling, we look at what is actually there rather than assuming, because construction of that period varies.

Garage door clearance is the constraint people forget. An overhead door and its track need their swing space.

Freestanding racking

Frequently the right answer in a masonry garage, because it avoids the fixing question entirely.

The floor slopes toward the door by design, so feet get packed with shims to bring the unit plumb and stop it rocking.

The top gets tied to the wall on anything tall, which does need a fixing — but one fixing into masonry rather than a whole run of them.

Indoors

The rest of this service in a house of this age:

Wardrobes and bookcases built in the room they will stand in, with the base levelled first — floors in houses of this age have settled, and a unit standing on a sloping floor is racked, which means the doors will not line up whatever is done to the hinges.

Anti-tip fixings into framing. The plastic plug in the box holds a picture, not a loaded wardrobe beginning to fall.

Closet systems. Closets in these houses are frequently small and awkward, and building to the actual opening uses all of it — including the full height, which kits rarely do.

Where walls are plaster rather than drywall, cleats and fixings go into the studs behind, because plaster holds by keying through the lath and will pull out under load.

Getting a price

For garage storage, photograph the walls and tell us whether they are block, brick or framed — a photo of a corner or an edge usually answers it. Measure the garage width and depth, and tell us if a car has to fit.

Garner is about half an hour from us, in the same bracket as most of our list.