The DIY That Redefines Outdoor Storage Cabinets (& How To Recreate It In Your Yard)

Storage for outdoor essentials can often be a tight fit, particularly if you lack space in your garage, basement, or shed. Freestanding outdoor cabinets can be a great solution for stowing things like shovels, rakes, potting soil, and ungainly sports equipment. They are available from various retailers, and made out of everything from wood to resin that resists moisture. However, TikTok user @lizzyahlbrandt demonstrates how creating a DIY storage solution may be easier and less expensive than you think. The result is a large cabinet that sits right up against the house and stores things like balls, garden equipment, and anything you need to keep outside at the ready. 

This approach not only frees up space in the garage, which may be needed for cars, a workshop, or a laundry room, but also takes keen advantage of unused dead space between the front and backyard. The cabinets can easily be customized to fit your needs with shelves and other interior formats that help store whatever you need more space for. Even better, it looks like a much more expensive custom-made cabinet, albeit with easy DIY construction and a low price point. 

To create your cabinet design from scratch, build a framework out of 2x4s fastened together with 2 inch nails or pocket screws. The DIYer's cabinet is 70 inches tall and 20 inches deep, with wide shelves inside for storing larger items. The top of the cabinet is created with a 2 inch incline, which allows water to roll off easily and keep things inside dry. Once you have built the frame, cover the exterior with plywood. Install the front panels on hinges that open easily with small black handles and latches to keep them shut. 

In the tutorial, they paint the exterior white to match the house, and offer a nice contrast with the black hardware. Inside the cabinet, they add three sections with large shelves, some of which have a slender lip made from molding for keeping things like balls from rolling out. One compartment is left empty for storing taller tools like rakes and shovels.

This genius cabinet idea can be fully customized in size to fit your existing open spaces, and keep your yard and garden organized. You can even build it as an auxiliary to a free-standing shed to get a little more storage. Or, add the cabinet to a porch or deck. For a beautiful outdoor patio storage idea, you could add a smaller version to an urban balcony to tuck away things you'd like to store outside. You could also build it inside a garage to maintain a cleaner and less cluttered look.

The interior can also be customized for what you need to store, featuring shelves or more open closet-like segments. For even more storage options, you can outfit it to add sliding bins with drawer mounts on the undersides of shelves. Hooks on the interior can also be a great way to store rolled cords, hoses, and camping equipment neatly. Or build a single compartment narrow cabinet as a secure bike shed DIY project, or as a spot to store unused firewood alongside the house.