WNY Handyman

Every year I run into the issue of poor garage storage space.  This year I am going to do something about it.  Well… that is what I have said for 5 straight years.  Each year I’ll add a shelf, some hooks, or a cabinet, but nothing seems to work.  My space needs have either grown, or my hodgepodge of shelving isn’t cutting it.

Garage Storage Unit

This year, my intention is to alleviate our issues by moving things up off of the floor and providing high storage with some custom cabinet storage along the entire wall.

This plan comes from The Family Handyman Magazine and is a terrific concept.  The lumber won’t be cheap, but if it helps to clean up my garage, then it will be mission accomplished.  It would be nice to park both vehicles inside the garage

Click on the image for the complete plan (pdf).  If the link is dead, please post a comment below and we will email you a copy of that file.

Have fun.

A $3 tube of adhesive caulk along with a few screws and a little elbow grease was all that was needed to repair my garage door support bracket.

Wayne Dalton garage door bracket

I have a Wayne Dalton garage door and the bracket ripped from the door yesterday morning.  Kind of surprising since the door bracket was hanging from a single screw.  I thought that I was going to be in for a hard to find part and a difficult repair.

Here is a view of the bracket. You can’t necessarily tell, but the bracket (also known as an Operator Reinforcement Bracket) has a crack just below the black bracket piece.  It was bending and that point and probably would have cracked completely with one more operation of the garage door.

I haven’t ever experienced this issue, so I did a bit of research. Immediately, I was able to come up with a replacement bracket for Wayne Dalton door for about $20.  However, that was mail order and I needed my garage door today. I figured I would give Lowe’s a shot to see if they carried a universal bracket.  They did not, however, the gentleman in the building materials department had an idea.

Flip it upside down and reattach!

Funny, but the simplest solution often passes us by when we are in the midst of a project or repair.  He was right. The only part of the bracket that saw any strain, was where the bracket attached to the garage door motor arm.  I simply created a paper template and copied the screw hole pattern on the opposite end. It was a mirror image.

To attach the bracket, I used the existing screws (4) plus the screws where the black arm bracket attaches.  The original installation utilized 2 beads of adhesive to attach. I went a bit overboard in this department and used adhesive wherever  I had surface contact. In addition to that I added screws wherever possible (why not over do it here?). After all, this door only has a 1/16″ aluminum skin along with a lightweight foam core.  There isn’t much holding power for a fastener.

Flip and Re-attach Garage Door Bracket

$3 later (I had the 1/2″ screws laying around the shop) and I have a secure door bracket once again.  Simple solution.