Garage Update: Family Bike Storage

The garage is coming along swimmingly and I have been going nook by nook to clean, create zones, organize and label.  Last week I shared my excited over our new outdoor toy storage system.  Today, I am sharing our final solution for our bikes.

You can catch up on our garage story and progress here.  Long story short, the entire space is getting brand-spankin' new storage so that it is simple to maintain.  We built in boatloads of overhead storage which I will share when I finish installing the hardware and organizing the contents.  The upper cabinets we built have gotten many of the larger items up and off the floor and tucked away out of sight.  All we want left out on the walls are the items we use daily; such as lawn toys / games, sports equipment and bikes.

In the past, we have hung our bikes from the ceiling with simple hooks found at the hardware store {seen here}.  Don't get me wrong, those little hooks were rockstars for us for years!  They held the bikes securely off of the ground and did their job giving us floor space.  Problem was that the kids could not get their own bikes down, so they were not hung up high.  Even I struggled safely removing my bike on my own, which really limited how often it was being used during the warm months.  We really wanted a solution that would allow us to keep the bikes off of the floor, yet be easy for the entire family to access at a moment's notice.

A few years ago now, we were given the opportunity to try out the Monkey Bar Garage Rack.  We had been using it to store many of our garden tools and it worked wonderfully for that.  This year, we have been making an effort to streamline how we use our spaces, so we moved everything garden related to our garden shed.  Hello empty garage storage rack!

The Monkey Bar system comes with a variety of attachments depending on the types of items you are attempting to store.  Because we already had the rack portion, we just needed to locate some updated hooks designed for hanging our five bicycles.  You can purchase the entire kit here, however, I just needed five hooks so I turned to an online auction site to pick them up at a fraction of the price.

Installation was pretty straight forward and simple, the most important piece being that you need to locate studs to support the weight of the bikes plus the system.  The rack offers some flexibility to allow for the brackets to be placed into studs without compromising available storage. 

The hooks clamp onto the bar, yet slide back and forth when no weight is applied {they do not slide when objects are hanging from them}.

Label fanatic Jen came out to play and whipped up some simple hanging tags for each hook.  We have found that placement determines the ease of removing the bikes from the hooks, so I created a label for each hook based on each family member and their bike size.

The labels were created from Martha Stewart metal rim tags {purchased at Staples} paired with vinyl numbers cut with my Silhouette, although any sticker would work!

The labels are hanging with twine and are visible from both ends of the rack as I labeled both sides of the tag.

Although the bikes are still heavy, this girl right here was able to get them all hung on her own!

This is not a sponsored post, but I am sharing a product we use so here are a few pros and cons:

• Con: Bikes are heavy no matter how they are stored, and this system still does not allow my youngest to retrieve his own bike.
• Pro:  I am cool with that because he does not have permission to ride it unsupervised anyway.  And the rest of the family can simply remove and put back their bikes without too much effort.
• Pro:  The bikes are now accessible year round; keeping them off the lawn and garage ceiling and protected from the harsh Wisconsin elements.
• Con:  The hooks do tend to slide a little when placing the bikes on the rack.
• Pro:  When you release the weight of the bike onto the hook, it doesn't move at all.
• Pro:  The rack is heavy duty and I trust the installation and strength.
• Con:  The individual hooks were not easy to locate for purchase.  I was happy to find them on an auction site, but I didn't see them made available without re-purchasing the entire bar kit or spending a hefty amount on a set of three {here are two options}.
• Pro:  The bikes seem to take up far less room up on a wall than scattered all over the garage floor.
• Pro:  Our garage is starting to look amazeballs, with the exception of my spray painted floor.

Here is what we still have left on our garage to do list:

• Finish step and door for house entry
• Touch up paint/Touch up trim work
• Install updated lighting
• Organize and label upper cabinet contents
• Organize and label floor cabinet {not pictured}
• Finishing touches and details

It is very exciting to see this list shrinking daily!  I am so ready to have this project coming to an end after two years of dreaming!