How to Build Your Ultimate Dream Gear Room
It's no secret that I romp around in the outdoors every spare minute I have. And with that (and my partner’s career in guiding) comes with a ton of different types of gear for all kinds of outdoor recreation. I used to be able to fit all the outdoor gear I owned into a corner of my tiny closet in my downtown Seattle highrise, but that’s next to impossible now.
We moved to Lake Tahoe in April this year and we now have a garage with super high ceilings where we have created our dream gear room — honestly, it’s both mine and Connor’s favorite room in the whole space! This is our second gear garage we’ve put together and I finally had the time to put together details on our storage solutions to share!
Before I break down each section of the space, it would be helpful to note that we have gear for the following outdoor pursuits: rock & alpine climbing, skiing (resort and backcountry), trail running/hiking, backpacking/camping, and biking (mountain and gravel).
The Gear Wall
The gear wall is probably my favorite section of the garage - it’s where we store all of the gear that typically comes out with us on most of our trips. For us, it’s all of our climbing gear, harnesses, and ropes. We utilize a pegboard system to hang most of our things up so it’s easy to grab the gear we need for each trip and also to store it away when we get back home.
This is organized by sections:
Helmets - this is for all of our sports (protect that noggin! you only get one!)
Sharp tools - ice tools, ice axes, ice screws, crampons….pretty much all of our pointy things
Snow protection - ice screws and pickets
Climbing protection & hardware - cams, nuts, draws, slings, carabiners (locking & non-locking), pulleys , tiblocs, etc.
Avalanche safety - shovels and probes
Harnesses
Rock climbing shoes
Ropes
Poles
The pegboard is my favorite way to configure a gear wall. It’s relatively inexpensive to built out (just a couple of 2x4s for support and cuts of pegboard) and can be organized in infinite ways.
The easiest way to mount a pegboard is to measure the area you want to mount, grab some 2x4s that are cut long enough to run up most of the height of your pegboard and screw the 2x4s into studs. After you do that, mount the pegboards with some screws into the 2x4s. This allows your pegboard to be secure and have enough space behind it to put the pegboard hooks through.
Bike Storage
To save space, I like to hang my bikes on the wall. We currently have 3 bikes (2 mountain bikes, 1 gravel bike). A sturdy and easy-to-mount option is this bike rack from StoreYourBoard. I was able to install this in 10 minutes by myself! It holds up to 5 bikes, but I think it more realistically holds 3-4, depending on how creatively you can arrange your bikes.
Skis & Surfboards
Connor and I both love skiing in the winter (and, for me, year round really) which means we typically have 4-5 skis in each of our quivers for different uses and objectives. We prefer to keep our skis stored horizontally, even though it probably takes up more space than storing them vertically. I purchased the ski racks from ProBoardRacks off of Etsy. I went with two of the 5-slot options because we typically have around 10 pairs of skis at any given point in time. ProBoardRacks also makes storage options for snowboards and skateboards!
Pro tip — if you store your skis horizontally, you can put the climbing skins that correspond with the skis right on top of them so you never have to dig through a bin and wonder if it’s the correct pair of skins.
Connor also grew up surfing and keeps a few of his surfboards around so they are also mounted horizontally closer to our ceiling since he doesn’t use them as often. The storage for the surfboards also from ProBoardRacks.
If you have a narrower wall space, or want to store the skis vertically, I really love GravityGrabber as a ski storage solution.
Roof Box Storage
When I lived in Seattle, I was driving a lot and spending lots of late nights sleeping at trailheads in my car and also carpooling with friends to the ski resort, so I often had a roof box on to be able to store my gear while I was on the road. Now that I live in a mountain town, the commutes are typically shorter so I don’t need to use my ski box as often. To help burn less fuel, I remove my box and store it when it’s not in use instead of driving around with the ski box on. I use a pulley system that hoists the box off and stores it on the ceiling from StoreYourBoards.
I’m not going to lie - this was probably the most complicated thing for us to install. It took both of us and was extra challenging because we have tall ceilings in the garage and had just moved in so didn’t have a ladder. It took some creative thinking to get it mounted but we did it! The instructions it comes with are pretty clear, but it’s definitely a “read twice before you do it” kind of thing.
Once it’s mounted, the pulley system is amazing and simple to use. We like to store our ski bags that we travel with in the roof box when it’s not the season for ski travel.
Backpacks
I’ve been super lucky to have been supported by Osprey over the last several years, so I have amassed an insanely large backpack collection. Backpack storage and organization is crucial to prevent me from keeping things in backpack after trips to rot forever (just kidding, Connor never fails to empty out my pack for me always)…and to be able to grab and pack my backpacks when I decide to do an objective last minute.
My favorite way to store backpacks are on a garment rack. I use this one but you can use whatever you have or find one that fits your space the best! The best way to actually hang the backpacks though are to use S-hooks rather than regular hangers. They orient your packs the correct direction and saves a ton of weight/space.
Work Bench & Drawers
To store some of our smaller items, we utilize a workbench as well as the Container Store’s Elfa system.
I purchased this Husky workbench as it made the most sense for our space and what I was utilizing it for. I do keep tools in the large top drawer and one of the smaller drawers. However the rest of the drawers are utilized for the following categories: sunglasses, goggles, ski tuning equipment, miscellaneous gear parts, stuff sacks, first aid, and electronics. We also keep a 2-pair boot/glove dryer on top of the workbench. This bench is awesome because we can plug our boot/glove dryer as well as all of our electronics that need to be recharged directly into the power strip that is on the workbench.
In our Container Store Elfa drawer system, I keep extra climbing chalk and baby wipes in the top drawer, Connor’s gloves in one drawer, my gloves in another drawer, and miscellaneous water sports and biking equipment (such as small dry bags/boxes, bike repair kit, etc) in the last drawer.
A workbench can be pricey and not necessarily the best solution for everyone. Other suggestions for storage similar to this could be a few of the Ikea Alex drawer units put together, a dresser, even an old baby changing table station, and any drawer system would really work in the same way.
Boot Rack & Camping Shelves
We own an insane number of boots between the two of us and all of our sports. We have enough ski boots and mountaineering boots to fill up the whole rack. The rack is actually a heavy duty shelving unit, which was an idea I got from my friend Reid when I lamented that the shelving in a regular shoe rack wasn’t tall enough to fit that many boots. The benefits of having a heavy duty wire shelving unit like this is that it’s easily customizable to the height of all types of boots and allows for any mud or dirt to fall on the ground instead of caking on the shelves.
We use a second one of these shelves to store bins for smaller camping items (such as fuel, tent/bivy accessories, camp kitchen equipment) as well as where we stack all of our tents, car camping mattresses, and sleeping pads.
The additional benefit of having wire shelving is that we can hang the S-hooks that we used for our backpacks on the top shelf of our boot rack to dry out our
What you don’t see…
Now there are two critical pieces of outdoor gear we don’t keep in our garage gear room: our sleeping bags and our guidebooks.
We like to keep the sleeping bags in their cotton/mesh sacks uncompressed in a wardrobe indoors where it’s dry and cool to maintain their longevity. Our guidebook collection also lives indoors on a bookshelf that is mostly dedicated to guidebooks so that it’s easier to pull when we’re doing route research on the computer.
The Takeaway
Creating a dream gear room, gear closet, gear gear wall or even just a gear corner/shelf may seem absolutely daunting but there are so many creative solutions out there! This is just what works for us and I hope that it inspires you to create a storage solution for yourself that makes it easy to pack and unpack for your adventures.
Also just a reminder that it storage solutions don’t have to be expensive! We took a long time to get our gear to this point, collecting storage solutions anywhere from Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Amazon, and Home Depot along the way.
Product Links
Bike Rack (up to 5 bicycles)
Ski Rack (horizontal storage from ProBoardRacks)
GravityGrabber (vertical ski storage)
I only recommend products I currently use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links and I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.