DIY French Cleat Tool Wall With Battery Station

Every shop reaches a point where the tools outnumber the flat surfaces to put them on. This French cleat tool wall was the fix for that in Jeremy’s garage, a wall-mounted system of interlocking plywood cleats that turns the whole back wall into modular, rearrangeable storage. The base wall went up first, empty. What’s grown on it since is the more interesting part: a dedicated shelf for a cordless track saw and its batteries, a full drill and battery charging cubby, a vertical bar clamp rack, a hammer-and-pry-bar till, and a removable extension cord holder, every one of them a separate module that lifts straight off the wall.

Wide view of a fully loaded French cleat tool wall with a cordless battery station, clamp rack, and hammer till — The finished French cleat wall, fully loaded with tools and storage modules.

What a French Cleat Wall Actually Is

A French cleat is a pair of matching strips, each with one edge cut at an angle (45° is the standard most build guides use), installed so one strip is screwed to the wall and the other is screwed to the back of whatever you want to hang. Set the angled edges facing the same way and the two strips hook together, and the hanging piece can carry real weight, but it also lifts straight up and off whenever you want to rearrange, add a module, or pull one down to work at the bench. That’s the whole appeal over pegboard or a fixed shelf: nothing is permanent.

The base wall here is a full grid of horizontal cleat strips spanning one bay of the garage, installed before anything was hung on it. From there, everything is a module: plywood boxes and racks, each with its own cleat strip screwed to the back, built to hold one category of tool.

Empty grid of horizontal French cleat strips installed across one bay of the garage wall, before any modules were hung — The base cleat grid, installed and empty, before any modules went up.

A closer look at the empty cleat strips.

The Cordless Tool and Battery Station

The centerpiece module is a stepped plywood shelf unit that does three jobs at once: a top shelf sized to park a RIDGID cordless track saw, a middle shelf lined with DeWalt and RIDGID batteries and chargers, and a lower row of individual drill cubbies so each cordless drill and impact driver has its own slot instead of getting tangled in a bin. A second, similar cubby module holds more drills and batteries lower on the wall. Both are built from what looks like birch plywood; the light, straight-grained look and visible ply edges match the birch plywood Jeremy has used on other shop-storage builds.

Stepped plywood shelf module holding a RIDGID track saw on top and DeWalt batteries and chargers on the middle shelf — The stepped shelf: track saw on top, batteries and chargers below.

Close-up of the RIDGID cordless track saw parked on its dedicated cleat-mounted shelf — A closer look at the track saw’s dedicated shelf.

A second cleat-mounted cubby module holding drills and batteries lower on the wall — The second drill-and-battery cubby module.

A few details worth calling out because they’d be easy to miss in a wider shot:

A power strip is mounted directly to the side panel of the shelf module, wired in place, so batteries can charge right where they’re stored instead of running an extension cord across the shop.
A wooden peg on the same side panel gives the extension cord somewhere to wrap when it’s not in use, instead of coiling loose on the floor.
A dedicated cord holder, its own small cleat-backed panel, carries a full coil of heavy-duty orange extension cord, and lifts off the wall exactly like every other module, which makes it easy to pull the whole cord free and take it outside.

Power strip mounted directly to the side panel of the cordless tool shelf module, wired in place for charging — The power strip, mounted right on the shelf module for in-place charging.

Close-up of a wooden peg on the shelf module's side panel used to wrap the extension cord — A simple wooden peg keeps the cord wrapped and off the floor.

Back of the removable extension cord holder panel, showing its own French cleat backing — The cord holder’s own cleat backing; it lifts off just like every other module.

Extension cord holder mounted on the French cleat wall, loaded with a coiled heavy-duty orange cord — The cord holder in place, carrying a full coil of extension cord.

Clamp, Hammer, and Hand Tool Storage

Elsewhere on the same wall, a vertical rack holds a full set of DeWalt bar and parallel clamps standing on end, a common French cleat use case, since clamps are awkward to store any other way and take up very little wall footprint standing vertically. Next to it, a small compartmentalized cubby holds fasteners, tape measures, and other small parts, and below that, a purpose-built till holds framing hammers, a rubber mallet, chisels, and flat pry bars, each dropped into its own slot rather than piled in a drawer.

Vertical French cleat rack holding a full set of DeWalt bar and parallel clamps standing on end — DeWalt bar and parallel clamps stored standing on end.

Wide view of the clamp rack, small-parts bin, and hammer till mounted together on the cleat wall — The clamp rack, small-parts bin, and hammer till, all on the same wall.

Cleat-mounted till holding framing hammers, a rubber mallet, chisels, and flat pry bars in individual slots — The hammer, chisel, and pry-bar till, each tool in its own slot.

A wall-mounted TV sits above the main cordless tool shelf, framed in the same light wood as the rest of the build, a nice touch for a shop where projects sometimes run alongside a game on in the background.

Evening shop view of the clamp rack and small-parts storage on the French cleat wall — The clamp and small-parts storage, in everyday use.

Build Process

The photos document two clear phases. First, the cleat strips themselves were prepared: stock was glued up and clamped, then the individual strips were clamped to the bench and pre-drilled for their mounting screws before going up on the wall. Once the bare cleat grid was installed and confirmed empty and level across the bay, the modules started going up one at a time: the drill cubby first, then the track-saw/battery shelf, then the clamp rack, hammer till, small-parts cubby, and cord holder, each built and hung as its own separate piece rather than as one built-in unit.

Wall patch kit and primer set out on the shop bench, used to prep the wall surface before the cleat strips went up — Patching and priming the wall before the cleat strips were installed.

Cleat strip stock glued up and clamped on the bench before being cut to length — Cleat strip stock, glued up and clamped.

Individual French cleat strips clamped to the bench and pre-drilled for mounting screws — Pre-drilling the cleat strips for their mounting screws.

Side view of a plywood shelf module under construction, showing its French cleat backing — One of the shelf modules under construction, cleat backing visible.

The cordless tool and battery station fully loaded with drills, batteries, and the track saw — The cordless station, fully loaded and in daily use.

Wide shot of the entire French cleat tool wall loaded with all of its modules and tools — The whole wall, every module loaded and in use.

Dimensions & Specifications

Exact dimensions for the overall wall and the individual modules weren’t available from the project photos.

Materials

Plywood (appears to be birch plywood) for the shelf, cubby, clamp rack, and hammer till modules
Solid wood cleat strips (species not confirmed from photos) for both the wall base and the back of each module
A RIDGID power strip, mounted directly to one module
Screws/fasteners for cleat assembly (specific hardware not confirmed)

Exact species, plywood thickness, and cleat stock dimensions weren’t confirmed from the photos.

Tools Stored on the Wall

The wall currently holds a RIDGID cordless track saw, multiple DeWalt cordless drills and an impact driver, a DeWalt reciprocating saw, a DeWalt circular saw, RIDGID and DeWalt batteries and chargers, a set of DeWalt bar and parallel clamps, framing hammers, a rubber mallet, wood chisels, flat pry bars, safety glasses, and a RIDGID wet/dry shop vacuum parked on its own small shelf beside the station.

Lessons Learned / What Worked

The modular approach is the clear win here: because every accessory, the drill cubby, the saw shelf, the clamp rack, the cord holder, is its own cleat-backed piece, the whole layout can be rearranged or expanded without touching the base wall. Building a charging station directly into a storage module (power strip mounted to the shelf itself) also solves a problem a lot of French cleat build guides don’t address: batteries need power, not just a shelf.

Specific challenges encountered during the build, total build time, and material cost weren’t documented in the available photos.

Need somewhere to keep cordless tool batteries charged that isn’t just an outlet strip on the floor? See our plywood cordless tool charging station build for a dedicated, wall-mounted charging setup.

Looking for other tool-storage ideas for a home shop wall? See our wall-mounted tool storage panel for squares, levels, and saws and our DIY OSB tool storage cabinet for cordless power tools.