When you get started with DIY and begin to build furniture or tackle home improvement projects, your tools quickly accumulate. Without a dedicated spot to organize your power tools, they can easily get misplaced and become difficult to find…and there’s nothing worse than spending half of your project time searching for the tool you misplaced.
In this post we’re going to show you a budget-friendly storage solution for your power tools. Not only does this thing store any battery-operated tools, but you can also use it as a battery charging station! That way, your power tools and their corresponding batteries always have a home and are ready to be used.
You can use this garage organizer for more than just power tools and batteries. We also use ours to store commonly used DIY supplies like clamps, a rubber mallet, and a level. Get creative and use it to organize pretty much anything you want!
Since it hangs on the wall, it takes up minimal space in your garage. Though we’re showing a pretty large example, we’ve also used this same technique to make a much smaller organizer for just a few tools.
Alright, let’s dive in and start building this ultra-customizable and budget-friendly garage wall organizer.
How to Build a Power Tool Wall Organizer with a Battery Charging Station
Recommended Tools:
- Drill with ¾” forstner bit
- Circular Saw or Table Saw
- Kreg Jig (depending on which customizations you choose)
- Measuring Tape (new to DIY? Be sure to check out this post with measuring tips)
- Safety Equipment
Shopping List:
- ¾” plywood (we used a leftover piece of red oak plywood that we had from another project – it was approximately 4’ x 5’)
- ¾” dowels
- Optional: 2×4 (we used this for clamp storage)
- Wood glue (this is our favorite type)
- Sandpaper (220 grit)
- 1.25” Wood screws
- 2” Wood screws (depending on which customizations you choose)
- 2.5” Wood screws
- Optional: 1.25″ softwood Kreg screws (depending on which customizations you choose)
- Options: 2.5” softwood Kreg screws (depending on which customizations you choose)
- Painter’s Tape
Dimensions
The beauty of this organizer is that you can make it as large or as small as you want to! Ours is approximately 4’ tall and 5’ wide.
STEP 1: DETERMINE THE LAYOUT
If you have a specific size that you want to use in mind, you can start by cutting your plywood down to size. If you aren’t sure about the exact size, you can work on the layout first and then cut your wood down accordingly.
Arrange the items you want to organize on your plywood. There’s no right or wrong way to organize them. Think about which ones you will be using the most often and make sure that they will be at a height that is easy to grab off the wall.
Once you’re happy with the layout, place some tape behind each object that will hang on dowels. Drills, nailers, saws, hammers, mallets, levels, etc. Just because we don’t have our jigsaw or circular saw hanging from our wall organizer, doesn’t mean you can’t hang yours!
STEP 2: DRILL FOR DOWELS
The tape we added in the previous step will help reduce tearout as we drill through the plywood.
Using a ¾” forstner bit, mark where the holes will need to go. We started the holes with the items in place to get the right placement.
Once we got the placement of each hole marked, we removed the items and finished drilling the holes all the way through the plywood.
Now that you have the holes for the dowels drilled, go ahead and cut your dowels to the right length. You’ll want to make them slightly longer than you actually need to give them room to poke through the back of your organizer for even more stability.
Your sizes may vary based on your particular items and makes/models, but here are the lengths we used as a guide:
- Nailer dowels: 5.5″
- Drill dowels: 4.5″
- Stapler dowels: 4″
- Hammer dowels: 2.5″
- Mallet dowels: 3.5″
STEP 3: MAKE OTHER ACCESSORIES
This is where you can really get creative and make this storage organizer completely custom. We don’t just have to store things on dowels, we can also add shelves and other things to organize the exact items we want to.
Don’t feel limited to the three things we have listed below. They are just examples to help get your wheels turning.
CLAMP STORAGE BAR
The main clamp storage area is very, very simple. All it is is a 2×4. After we stain and/or paint everything, you simply install it to the plywood with glue and 2” wood screws.
LARGE CABINET CLAMP STORAGE
We have a few large cabinet clamps that we installed separately from our quick-grip clamps. For the large clamps, we cut (2) 2×4 pieces. We cut one side at an angle for a more polished look, but that detail isn’t required.
To install, we’ll use glue and 2.5” Kreg screws. I know, I know. 2.5” will be so long that it’ll poke through the back of the plywood!
As we installed the French cleat to hang the organizer, we positioned it so that it would be behind this large clamp storage. This way, the plywood is doubled-up at the point where the French cleat is installed and now the screws aren’t too long!
STORAGE SHELF
For our storage shelf, we cut out two pieces of plywood. The bottom piece is 5” deep and the front piece is about 1” tall. We used glue and 1.5” nails to secure the front piece to the bottom piece to create a lip. This lip helps keep our small clamps in place.
Create one, two, five, ten–however many shelves you want to! You can make them all sorts of different shapes and sizes to fit your needs. Just don’t make them too terribly deep or the screws may not be able to support the weight of your items on the shelf.
To install, we secured them to the plywood using glue and 1.25” Kreg screws through the bottom of the shelves.
STEP 4: STAIN AND PAINT
Finish your garage organizer with whatever style and design you’d like. We first sanded ours with 220-grit sandpaper.
We stained our plywood with Minwax Water-Based stain in Weathered Oak and finished it with Minwax Water-Based One Coat Polyurethane in Satin.
We spray painted all of the accessories and the dowels with Krylon Fusion All-In-One in Matte Black.
STEP 5: MAKE AND INSTALL FRENCH CLEAT
A French cleat is a great way to hang something heavy. To make your own, cut some scrap ¾” plywood at 45–degrees long ways. You’ll use both sides of the angled cut, so once you cut the first piece, flip back to cutting at 90-degrees and cut the second piece.
As you’re cutting the French cleat, you’ll also want to cut another strip out of the same wood. This will be attached to the bottom of the organizer to prevent it from swinging and hitting the wall.
First install the French cleat to the back of the organizer using a generous amount of wood glue and 1.25” screws. The narrow side of the French cleat is what should be touching the back of your plywood and the wider side should be facing up.
This gap is what will allow you to “hook” the plywood onto the wall.
Next we need to install the French cleat piece on the wall. Mark the studs and then install the second French cleat piece into the studs using 2.5” screws. Make sure it’s level as you’re installing it. The narrow side is what will be touching the wall.
STEP 6: INSTALL ACCESSORIES
Install the accessories according to the instructions mentioned in step 3. Each of the accessories we created were installed with slightly different methods.
If you can line up the clamp storage bar with the French cleat, you can install it with 2.5” screws instead to make it even stronger.
STEP 7: ADD BATTERY CHARGERS
You’ll have to check with your specific brand of battery chargers, but our DEWALT ones have notches where you can use screws to hang the charger. To transfer the placement of these notches to our plywood, we placed a piece of tape on the notches and poked a pencil through to indicate where to drill the holes.
We lined this piece of tape up on our plywood and used it as a guide and added some screws through the holes on the tape.
Next we need to drill a hole all the way through the plywood that will be used to feed the charging cable through. We used a 1.5” forstner bit for this.
We lined the top of the hole up with the top of the screws. The exact placement doesn’t necessarily matter–you just want it to be low enough that the charger covers the hole so it’s not visible once installed.
Once the holes for the battery charger cables are drilled, flip your plywood back over and install the other strip of wood you cut in step 5.
If your cables are going to pop out the bottom of your organizer, install this scrap piece of wood right above the cable holes.
If your cables are going to pop out the side of your organizer, you can place the strip close to the bottom of your plywood. You don’t need to have a precise placement here.
Install with glue and 1.25” screws.
STEP 8: HANG AND ORGANIZE
We recommend installing your dowels before hanging your organizer. They should hopefully be a very tight fit, so a rubber mallet may be required.
Once you install the dowels, you may find it easiest to feed the wires through and install the battery chargers now rather than when the organizer is already hung up.
Now that your accessories and dowels are installed, it’s time to hang the organizer up.
Because we used the French cleat, the installation is very straightforward. Hook the French cleat pieces together and you’re good to go!
If you want some extra security, you can also add some screws through the extra bottom board and into the wall, but this shouldn’t be necessary.
Once the garage organizer is hung up, you can start hanging all your power tools and other items!
There you have it! Now you know how to build a pretty and versatile wall organizer! This garage organizer can be used to give things a home and get them off the ground. It’s much easier to be organized when everything actually has a place!
If you’re interested in more garage ideas, be sure to check out our Ideas for the DIYer’s Workshop Guide. It has ideas for workshops of all sizes (including a mobile workspace/collapsible workshop), as well as the plans for our DIY miter saw stand with fold out wings and our DIY workbench.
Now that organizing is on your mind, be sure to check out our other organization posts:
- DIY Pegboard (this is great for gyms, garages, offices, and kids’ spaces)
- DIY Drawer Organizer with Adjustable Drawer Dividers
- DIY Pots and Pans Organizer
- DIY Cookie Sheet Organizer
- DIY Pull-Out Drawers for Cabinets
