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One of the biggest investments in my garage is the purchase of a garage cabinet system. While I was shopping for a cabinet system, I knew that I wanted a more budget-friendly option as I usually try to find the best bang-for-the-buck type of deals. This led me to one of two options, either the Husky Garage Storage System from Home Depot, or the New Age Garage Storage System from Costco.
Both options offer decent quality cabinets and a variety of options for customizing the cabinets to fit your space. Even cost was on par with one another. There are a lot of different configurations, so it’s hard to try to compare the pricing structure. However, you should generally expect to spend a few thousand dollars for a full wall of cabinets if you’re going with one of these options. These garage storage systems usually include components such as full-height cabinets, wall cabinets, base cabinets, cabinet drawers, workbenches, and more.
The New Age Cabinets is enticing because of Costco’s amazing return policy, but ultimately it was the occassional, but spectacular sales discount of the Husky Cabinets at Home Depot that got me. At times throughtout the year, Home Depot slashes the prices of select cabinet systems by 30-60% and so it’s prudent if you’re shopping for one to keep an eye out for these deals.
I purchased two sets of the 4-Piece Husky Heavy Duty Steel Garage Storage System from Home Depot, so that I could construct them side-by-side in order to create a full width of cabinet space of about 15 feet. This version is the Heavy-Duty version of the Husky cabinets and are made of 20-gauge steel costing $2,100 at regular price, but I got these at 50% off. I also purchased a 15-Drawer Husky Workbench Tool Chest, which would fit perfectly underneath a pair of wall mount cabinets from the storage system I got.
You can choose to pick-up in store, or pay a fee for delivery. I had these delivered to my home for a fee of $50 for what you see below. Obviously, it just makes a ton of sense to have something of this size delivered directly to your door rather than picking it up at the store.
Husky Garage Cabinets Damaged On Arrival
You can’t talk about Husky Garage Storage Cabinets without talking about how common it is to receive your cabinets damaged on arrival. There is such a high likelihood of your cabinets arriving damaged that you should just expect it to happen. Look at any reviews online, unboxing videos, discussion forums, etc. It’s comically sad how often this happens, and I am not an exception.
I ordered two of these cabinet systems and had it delivered to my home. These cabinets are shipped on pallets and are covered in minimal packing material. If you’ve unpacked one of these, you’ll see why these often come damaged during shipment. The cabinets are wrapped in plastic and have a thin piece of cardboard surrounding the whole cabinet.
You might think, “let me just order it and see what happens” which is totally fine, but just take a look at the video clips below, and I think you can see what kind of frustration that you will personally experience. You’ll be spending the money and time on ordering, waiting for shipping, spending time to open the product to find damage, dealing with returning to Home Depot, then repeating the cycle all over again to find damage again and again and again.
Here are a couple parts to the same video of someone’s garage makeover going over the unboxing of their Husky Garage Cabinet. You can feel the anger and frustration especially with that second clip (I believe they ordered 3+ times to get their cabinets and eventually decided to keep the last one out of frustration even though it was dented.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuNOy4lGWbs?&start=320
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuNOy4lGWbs?&start=493
So in my experience, I had several cabinets come in with damage and it was incredibly frustrating. If you think that shipping it to the store for you to pickup might be easier because you can open it in the store to inspect it, and then reject it there at the store, it’s not going to be easier… trust me. First, you don’t have the ability or working space to open the whole cabinet at the store. And second, you can easily process a return even if you get it shipped to your home; the only thing is you’ll need to pay for the shipping fee. My advice? Fork out the additional shipping fee; it’s worth it to not have to deal with all this at the store, let alone having to load, transport, and unload it back home.
Now, the way to mitigate the pain of receving these cabinets DOA is by ordering extra quantities. Honestly, with the majority of these coming damaged, I would recommend just ordering extra cabinets and having it all delivered under the flat shipping fee. Then, open them all up, install the ones that are either undamaged or minimally damaged, and then return the others. That way you only have to deal with the return process once and you don’t have to deal with all the waiting with each step of the way. When you process the return, you do it through Home Depot and they will arrange for a pickup at your address.
Installing the Husky Garage Cabinets in my Garage
Tools Used for this Job
Wheel Dolly: Simpli-Magic Steel Hand Truck Dolly
Stud Finder: Zircon Multiscanner A200 Electronic Wall Scanner
Utility Knife: Amazon Basics Folding Utility Knife
Power Drill: DEWALT 20V Max Cordless Drill/Driver Kit
Tape Measure: CRAFTSMAN 25-Ft Tape Measure
Screwdriver Set: ROTATION 6PC Magnetic Tip Screwdriver Set
Wood/Deck/Construction Screws: PRIMESOURCE 2GCS1 1LB 8X2 CONST Screw, 8 by 2″
Level: WORKPRO Torpedo Level, 3-Piece
The cabinets aren’t packaged with much padding on the outside, hence the reason why so many of these come damaged on arrival. Because of the weight of these units, even the slightest bump during transport and handling will cause damage.
They do package the additional components inside of the larger outer cabinet, safely and securely. While unpacking and moving the pieces around, you might find that the larger locker full-height cabinet is incredibly difficult to move by yourself; I recommend having another able person to help you move it. Doing it by yourself risks further damage to your cabinets if you’re not extremely careful.
Another thing to consider is measuring your space to make sure your cabinets will fit once you install them. Aside from the typical measurements of width and depth of the space, you want to consider things like the height, especially around obstacles like the garage door tracks. Because of the low clearance on my garage door tracks, I had to put the threaded feet setting on the bottom of the cabinets to the lowest setting in order to get them to fit.
Once you bring the cabinets into your garage, they install pretty easily. You can pivot and slide them into place once the rubber feet are all installed (they simply thread into the bottom of the cabinets.) The workbenches and base cabinets are light enough to be moved around and are installed the same way. Wall cabinets install slightly differently as you need to mount them on the walls.
As you can see below, the wall mounted cabinets simply hang on these wall brackets. From this view from the backside of the wall cabinet, you can see how the cabinet hangs on the wall bracket once it’s mounted on the wall.
To install the wall mount cabinets, use a stud finder to identify the studs in the wall and mount the wall bracket with wood/deck/construction screws through the bracket to the studs. It’s nice that there are many mounting holes on these brackets so that you can install two screws to each stud along the wall. There’s an included magnetic level, but its use is limited. I suggest using a larger torpedo level to make sure the bracket is level and that it is level with the other included wall bracket if you’re installing wall cabinets side-by-side.
To ensure that the top of your wall-mounted cabinets are installed at the same level as the rest of your full height locker cabinets, you’ll need to measure the distance from the top of your wall cabinet down to where it will hang in order to determine the final mounting height of the brackets. You can remount the wall bracket if you initially installed it at the wrong height; the drilled holes won’t be seen as they will be located behind the wall cabinets.
The rest of the accessories can then be installed after all your main cabinets are in. These include the shelf brackets and shelves, drawers, drawer liners, etc. Most everything has a nice fit and the quality is good. My only complaint is that even with the “heavy duty” garage cabinets, the 20-gauge thickness steel (0.0359 inches thick) still seems a little thin. If you purchase one of the regular duty garage cabinets made by Husky, you’ll get ones that are 24-gauge steel (0.0239 inches thick), which are even thinner. In the end, I’m content with the heavy duty cabinets as they do have a nice overall fit and finish to them.
There are LED light bars that come with the Husky cabinets, which are magnetic and easily mount under the wall cabinets to produce an underlighting effect. The wiring connects the light bars to each other and then to a switch and outlet plug. The wiring kind of just hangs there after it’s installed, so it’s not easily tucked away in a neat way.
The lights are pretty bright if you’re working on your workbench. For the ease of their installation, the lights are more than adequate for most work on the bench. There are an odd number of lights included however. For example, for a pair of wall cabinets, they include 3 LED light bars. Maybe you’re supposed to install two of them and have one as a spare? I don’t know, but I wish they would just give you four light bars so that you’d have two per cabinet. Luckily I found someone giving away their lights locally so I ended up installing two LED light bars per wall cabinet (pictured below).
The doors and drawers all open very smoothly and close with a satisfying magnetic close. All doors are lockable as well, which is nice to have for security.
In addition to the fact that you can score an amazing deal on the Husky Garage Cabinet System, the matte black look of the cabinets with the lined gloss black handles gives off a classic, but bold look. I really like the contrast of the black with the wood top workbenches too. Although they are only 1/2″ thick wood, I’m really happy with the overall look and feel of the table top.
I think it’s totally worth it to keep an eye out for the sales at Home Depot to purchase these. Of course, the main thing you have to be aware of is what I mentioned earlier about these units coming damaged. It’s not a matter of if, but how many of them will come that way. If you can afford the time to order what you need, inspect, and then return and exchange as needed, then by all means order exactly the quantity you need. If you can afford the funds to pay for multiple (extra) units, inspect and keep the ones you need, and return the rest, it’ll save you a ton of pain and suffering if you do it this way.
If you plan to go with the Husky Garage Storage System, I think you’ll be happy as long as you get them on sale and follow my advice on ordering so the hassle of the damaged units doesn’t cause you much pain and suffering. Personally, I’m quite happy with how it turned out and it has given me a ton of space to store my tools, car detailing supplies, and other products. Over the past year, this has probably been one of my favorite additions during my garage renovation.
