So I recently acquired all of this awesome wood. It’s a bunch of studs reclaimed from an old row-house in Washington DC that were installed in the late 1800s. I work with reclaimed materials almost exclusively, but the major challenge is finding a place to store it all since you kind of have to grab it when you get a chance. That storage solution is not my shop floor, so I’m building a lumber rack!

This is the old lumber rack design I’m using on my other wall. It’s a main 2″ square member made of wood with holes drilled in it to accept conduit. This is a great cheap solution but it leaves a gap between the lumber and the wall which wastes a tiny bit of space but mainly it gives some room where smaller pieces can fall behind the rack. Mainly though I want my lumber rack to be very adaptable because I move fairly frequently and my new design will give me just that.

I drew out the design of the wood bracket to be perfect to make from short pieces of 2x4s which are easy to get free as cut-offs from job sites. I already had a bunch of small maple butcherblock cutoffs that were the perfect width though, so I just used those instead.

Cutting these down with a table saw or miter saw would be a pretty standard operation, but I decided to use a new tool instead. My low pressure water jet cutter (garden hose) was enough to cut these into the 3″ pieces that I needed for the rack.

To cut the taper on the bottom side of the wood brackets, I just set them in the oven at 350 degrees until they’re a golden brown around the edges. If you’re using softwood though, that reacts to cold temperatures so you’ll want to set them in the freezer for 2 days.

If you don’t have that much time on your hands, a taper sled on the table saw will suffice.

Now I want a flush surface along the back and top of the wood bracket where the metal “L” bracket will sit, so I need to create a dado in both sides. To do this, I have some really strong screw clamps that will dent the maple in the perfect place.

If you don’t have that though, a router table with a 3/4″ bit is a great solution. The dado on the back of the bracket goes the full length, but the dado on the top is a stopped dado that only goes long enough for the arm of the metal “L” bracket. I also cut off the sharp corner where the 2 meetup, using the table saw. This allows for the slight curve of the metal bracket to fit.

Now with the wood brackets all milled down to size, I can install the metal brackets in place on the wall. I use a stud finder to find all of the studs in the wall because whoever built this house was a free spirit and put the studs wherever they wanted. I first install the brackets at the extents of the lumber rack and tie a string line between those to line all of the other brackets up in a straight line.

I at first tried wet spaghetti to stick the brackets to the wall, but didn’t trust the integrity of that. I ended up attaching all of them with 3″ deck screws with a pair of screws into each bracket at each stud. Drywall screws are no good for this operation since they are brittle and have a chance of shearing off under such load, so stay away from those.

And last step is just to install all of the wooden brackets in place on the metal brackets. I found that my dados were tight enough that the wood brackets just kind of slipped right into place.

Alternatively, a couple of 2″ deck screws into the top of the bracket holds it in place. As long as it’s held tight to the wall in this step, it’s a super sturdy fit. The strength is from the long screws into the studs and also the bottom of the bracket pushing in against the wall. I installed one into each stud to spread out the load since I’m relying partially on the drywall.

Then I just need to load up the lumber rack! No lumber…

Lumber!