Say Goodbye To The Eyesore Of Garage Trash Cans With A DIY Built-In Solution

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Even when hidden inside your garage, those big, city-issued garbage cans have the potential to look like an eyesore due to how big and bulky they are. Aside from this, their girth takes up a lot of room that could otherwise be used for storage in an often already-overcrowded space. Thankfully, the solution to both the trash can storage issue and the blight they cause on your garage's interior landscape can simply be a clever use of a couple of metal cabinets and some made-to-fit boards. With these materials, you'll add shelf space on top of the cabinets and create a cubby area where at least two of those big trash cans will rest seamlessly. It's a no-build storage solution that allows you to utilize every inch of the cabinet storage in your garage and then some, while ensuring that your trash cans don't stand out like a sore thumb.

You'll need ready-to-build metal cabinets for this solution. Yizosh Metal Storage Cabinets with Lock are good options. They're wide enough to fit the three 1-inch by 6-inch boards you'll need to make the shelves on the top of the unit. The metal shelves are also sturdy enough to hold the sometimes heavy items that fill our garages. If you already have a similar set of hardy cabinets that you want to use for this project, just make sure that the tops on the cabinets are strong enough to withstand the weight of some fairly heavy tools, like leaf blowers or chainsaws. This garage storage DIY also calls for some paint or stain for the wood and a few paintbrushes.

Most people have two big cans, one for house garbage and one for recycling. Those two cans will sit side by side between the two metal cabinets. To make this project safe, use boards that are long enough to fit from the end of one of the cabinets to the end of the opposite cabinet. Since the cabinets are each 36 inches wide and the largest of the big bins are around 29 inches wide, you should use one-by-six boards that are about 11 or 12 feet long to make this garage storage solution work. If the boards are any shorter than that, they may not stretch far enough, creating a risk of falling shelves.

Assemble the cabinets. Then place them against the garage's wall, leaving 5 to 5.5 feet of empty space between each cabinet. Once the cabinets are set up, treat the one-by-sixes with a coat of paint and allow them to dry. You can paint them to match the cabinets or choose any other color you like. After they dry, place the three boards on top of the cabinets, making sure that the ends of the boards go all the way to the farthest edges of the cabinets. Slide the trash cans into the cubby space created by the cabinets and the makeshift shelf above. 

If the cans are still eyesores, you could get something like a VAMFUTRE Single Panel Room Divider with Caster Wheels to keep them hidden. Its wheels make it easy to move when you need to toss dirt into the trash cans. Then simply slide the divider back in front of the cans so they keep staying out of sight.