A $1,080 Makeover Doubles the Storage in This Garage (It’s So Stylish!)
Contrary to popular belief, lockers aren’t just places to store your extra items at work, the gym, or at school. With the right approach, they can also make for great home storage solutions. Just ask Tiffany Tcheng (@tiffanytcheng), who created an 80-inch-wide locker system in her garage that serves as a full-service destination for her four-person family’s outdoor items.
“I wanted to add more storage to our home and create a drop zone for backpacks, shoes, jackets, and winter gear to live,” Tiffany says. “We don’t have a mudroom or laundry room that serves that function, so the entry to our home [gets] wet in the winters. I needed a home for all of this stuff.”
During the Spring 2024 One Room Challenge, Tiffany created her stylish locker system for the whole family for just $1,080. She had a bit of electrical help from her dad, who helped her move the garage opener switch from the wall where she wanted to install the lockers.
Scrap wood saved money.
Rather than shelling out hundreds of dollars to purchase pre-made lockers, Tiffany decided to make them herself using scrap wood. “I ended up doing it in pieces: the bench with the drawers, then the locker portion,” she explains. “It’s easy to get overwhelmed at the thought of building lockers, but honestly, you just have to do it in pieces. Everything is basically a box, so if you can build a box, you can build this.”
Although this wasn’t Tiffany’s first time building cabinets, this was her first time working with two key tools: a track saw and a router. She notes that the track saw “was an incredible help when breaking large sheets of plywood into smaller pieces,” while the router “helped me add small details that made the overall build look more professional and polished.”
The garage offered a safe space to go bold with color.
Before taking on her locker project, Tiffany had opted for a “very neutral” color palette for the family’s home, “because I thought that was what I liked,” she says. This marked the first time she incorporated bold pops of color. For the lockers, she went with a red and blue color scheme, using Behr’s Scuff-Defense paint, color matched to Farrow & Ball’s Blazer No. 212 for the red, and Sherwin-Williams’ Adrift for the blue.
When possible, Tiffany recommends using a paint sprayer to save time. “[Priming with a brush and roller] took a long time, and I felt like I was doing yoga with all of the positions I was in to paint every crevice,” she says. “I used a paint sprayer to put the final colors on, and it took minutes.”
A vintage detail makes the project feel special.
Tiffany’s favorite detail of her project is the collection of brass locker tags that she purchased on Etsy from the store The Old Time Junk Shop.“They are so cute and such a fun detail that really adds to the lockers and makes [them] feel personalized for each person in the family,” she adds.
Now, a neglected space in the Tcheng garage is a personalized, stylish stop for each family member to make their own.“I am so proud of how this build turned out,” Tiffany says. “Each of us has our own dedicated locker and hooks, so there are no questions about where things are and who they belong to.”
This project was completed for the Spring 2024 One Room Challenge, in partnership with Apartment Therapy. See even more of the One Room Challenge before and afters here. Inspired? Submit your own project here.