How to Make Your Locker Hold More Stuff

I rented a locker at my local TechShop location so I can keep project materials and various personal tools conveniently located.  The lockers are tall and narrow so everything accumulates in a pile at the bottom.

I whipped up a simple shelving system to organize the clutter using scraps for the shelves and some left overs long plywood pieces to support the shelves.  I made this at the San Jose TechShop location. For more info on TechShop, see their website at:  http://www.techshop.ws/

Step 1: Materials & Tools

MATERIALS

• 3/4" plywood, 1' wide by at least 4' long
• 3 or more pieces of 1/2" plywood at least 12" wide x 18" long
• 4 @ 48" shelf standards
• pack of shelf clips
• 4 @ small magnets (optional)

Tools

• Panel saw or table saw
• Chop saw
• Band saw
• Router
• Drill press
• Hammer
• Needle nose pliers
• Tape measure
• Speed Square
• Pencil

Comments

[Polyhistor]

Excellent! I used to do a similar thing in my school lockers ...

... I know, dating myself again ...

[TimS124]

Schools out here seem to have gotten rid of lockers. My kids ended up carrying a giant backpack daily with everything they'd normally stash in a locker. I'm sure lockers will make a come back…and when they do, we can all tell our grandkids about the cool locker projects we used to build. :-)

[Musicman41]

Most schools have lockers, but most students choose to not use them. Schools have homework from the textbooks, as well as classwork, so you end up carrying your books back and forth. Most schools have lockers, but it is a hassle to stop by when you only have 5 minutes between classes.

[PhantomOfHeat]

If the locker has a built in lock you can usually "fix" it so you do not need to enter the combo, the locker will stay unlocked this way.

1. Enter Combo
2. Pull handle up and hold it.
3. When holding the handle to open the locker turn the dial about a 1/4 turn or till it sticks. The handle will not drop all the way keeping it from locking but allowing it to stay closed.

To reverse turn dial back.

[static]

When I went to school we never tried to go to our locker between classes, just carried our morning stuff around, exchange it for afternoon stuff at lunch, never needed anything to carry the stuff with. We never had to carry as much home as kids today do.

[TimS124]

The public schools my kids went to only had lockers in the gym for use during P.E. class. There was nowhere to stash books, etc.

Students were sometimes issues a book for home…it went home and stayed until the end of the year. That way, they didn't have to carry text books around.

The classrooms had more copies of the textbooks to use during class. So their backpacks mostly hold notebooks, calculator, etc.

There were some classes that didn't have enough copies of the textbook to keep one at student's houses. Those classes had the students lug the textbooks around all day…which caused plenty of complaining from students.

When I was a student, we got our first locker in Middle School (6th and 7th grade) and from then through the end of high school.

No such luck for the schools my kids went to…somebody had the bright idea of getting rid of lockers…

[ramses]

At my high school, we have lockers and are not allowed to carry bags. Apparently, they think we'll carry guns, bombs, and drugs around. Lockers are easier to search than bags.

And I go to school in a fairly wealthy rural neighborhood. I wonder how they do this stuff in the inner city...

[static]

Good work, but where would I hang my winter coat? to secure it, and the contents of the pockets.

[TimS124]

If you use shorter shelf standards, you'd have more room for your winter coat. I used 48" standards because that's what I found close to home (and they were deeply discounted).

Rockler.com carries shelf standards as short as 24" though that doesn't leave much room for stacking project supplies.

Winters out here are usually pretty mild so I can get by with a light sweatshirt (which stuffs nicely into any open spot in the locker) or I can leave my jacket in the car since it's a very short walk from the parking lot to inside.

For truly cold weather, I'd probably compromise and remove the top shelf and lighten up for a couple months on how much stuff I cram in the locker.

[Mosby1863]

Nice work, Tim!!

[TimS124]

Thank you.

[ndln2]

So nice! I wish I thought of this when my kids were in high school and complained about losing stuff. Then everything showed up when they had to clean out their lockers.

[TimS124]

I don't miss the days of thinking I'd lost something only to discover it at the end of the school year buried in the debris at the bottom of my locker! :-)

[kerns]

Very nice. Your space considerations and removeability/non-marring needs reminded me of another narrow-space shelving project: http://www.instructables.com/id/Pressure-Fit-Screwless-Shelves/

[TimS124]

Thanks for the link…interesting solution but I like the adjustable shelving that I came up with (OK, I'm probably biased a bit). I expect I'll need to move, add, and remove shelves over time as the things I'm storing and working on change which is why I went with traditional shelf standards (and I hadn't seen the project you mentioned before today). :-)