Slat Wall Storage Tips

This post is sponsored by Home Depot Canada, but all opinions are my own. We shop their weekly regardless ;) Find all my policies right here.

The garage is officially DONE you guys and the first thing I’m sharing from that space is these slat walls! I’ll have a full tour up next week so tried to keep these photos… from sharing it all ;) This slat wall is a total game changer for us storage wise. All of these things on the walls have previously been shoved in closets, piled in the driveway, or leaned in a corner of the yard against the fence. Like… totally IN THE WAY and messy looking. This? totally tidy and organized. What a breath of fresh air!

I actually didn’t know about slat wall/ track wall when we started planning this garage. I was thinking pegboard would be a good way to get things off the floor but the things we wanted to store are pretty heavy and when Shane suggested this as an alternative… I loved the idea. In the past, we’ve looked at storage with DIY solutions. Build shelving, make our own hooks, do all the things! But there’s some things that are so awkward to store that this track wall has solutions for (like those bike hooks!).

So today I wanted to chat not just about what we’re storing on the slat wall but how we installed it and some things we ran into that might help you if you’re installing it yourself too! Ready? Let’s go!

The slat wall / track wall we used is this one from Husky, sold at Home Depot Canada. We got the Space Saver Bundle for over our work bench and this MAX bundle for the storage wall. It’s a beast. And it’s amazing.

WHAT CAN YOU STORE ON SLAT WALL?

What can you store on it? Pretty much anything your heart desires- ha! The big things for us were bikes, yard tools, and power tools (we have one panel above our tool bench. The rest was a bonus.

We do have a couple things packed away that we want to store on here like our double stroller and our Thule for the van. We’ll be looking at putting these on here once we can get to them (our basement is still full of boxes from our move!). The variety of hooks and shelves and everything else is amazing, so I’m sure you can find what you need to hang whatever the thing that you want to hang is.

I took a couple photos of the more heavy duty hooks to show you. They all clip in with that spring loaded clip at the bottom so they have way more strength than a standard hook/ peg. They also won’t flop up and down when you lift up your item (like the bike) making it easier to get your stored items off the wall. These hooks can hold a lot. This hook has three shovels hung on it and it could definitely fit a fourth.

Now how to install it? I’m handing this over to Shane… you’ll notice he’s much more of a perfectionist than I, which I’m sure you’ll appreciate ;)

HOW TO INSTALL HUSKY TRACK WALL:

•  Determine desired location (vertical and horizontal orientation)
• First piece to install is the bottom rail
• Once I had my height sorted out and marked my center point horizontally, I measured four feet to either side of the center mark and used a level to make a straight, level line to mark where the bottom rail would mount (ideally, with studs 16” apart, the ends of each rail would land on a stud

• Use a stud finder to mark out the stud locations, including the end of each rail. Inch markers: 0, 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96 for a total of seven studs on which you should be able to mount the slat wall (Colleen Here: see those numbers? That precision? I would never write that stuff. That’s why I called the perfectionist in!)
• When installing the bottom rail, do not screw into the two end studs yet, mount it onto the five inside studs only (you need the ends “loose” so that the side rails can slip in place)

• For side rails, overlap with bottom rail per instructions provided.
• Drill screw through the bottom rail and side rails on each end (ie one screw on each end of the bottom rail is now securing the bottom and side rail)

• I placed a level on the outside of the side rail to ensure I had it level / square, and then drew a pencil line on the wall all the way up the inside of the side rail (with only the bottom screwed in at this point, it is going to flop all over the place, so marking your vertical line inside the side rail is key)
• Screw in the top of each side rail, do not yet install any screws anywhere else on the side rails (so at this point the bottom rail is secured all the way across, and the side rails are secured with one screw each top and bottom)
• Now time to install the slats

• First slat will rest in the bottom rail (with the two channels being at the top of the slat); tuck one end of the slat into the side rail, you will then have to “bow” the slat slightly for it to fit within the two side rails so that you can tuck the second end into the side rail
• Each slat needs to be screwed in place at the same stud locations as the bottom rail.
• IMPORTANT: there are two channels that run length-wise at the top of each slat. SCREWS MUST BE PUT IN THE TOP CHANNEL ONLY, WHICH WILL THEN BE COVERED BY THE SLAT INSTALLED ABOVE IT. The lower channel will be exposed and this is where the hooks, shelves, bins, etc. will hook into
• The screws at each outside end of the slat will secure that slat as well as the side rail, as you will be screwing through both pieces
• Repeat steps for each remaining slat (slat will fit in place to cover the “screw” channel and leave only the bottom channel showing)

This is a photo of what those pieces look like from the side.

• Top edge clicks in place (there is a channel along the back of it that clicks into the top edge of the last slat)
• The MAX bundle is four slat walls put together. You can see this especially where they all meet in the middle. You just install it as two double high walls.

• WANT TO MAKE IT SMALLER? No problem, vertically, just leave out a few of the slats and trim your edge pieces. Width wise, you would need to cut each slat AND the top and bottom edge pieces. For the wall of four I had to trim my side rails to length, probably only because I didn’t have a full 8’ to work with.

• HOW TO CUT IT? We used snips/shears and they worked perfectly. We did this around the outlet as well.

Alright… I hope that this helped! I can’t wait to show you the rest of the space (and what this wall looks like allll together next week! It’s a total dream space for us. BIG thank you to Home Depot Canada for partnering on this project so we can write this post for you!

SOURCES:

Just want to know the specific pieces we used? Here you go!

• Space Saver Bundle for over our work bench
• MAX bundle for the storage wall
• 8″ heavy duty hooks
• Bike hooks
• All other hooks and baskets shown are included in the bundles