Loose plastic totes stacked on a garage floor are hard to search and easy to trip over. This cart solves that directly: a low, wide, cubby-style rolling cart built from OSB and framing lumber, sized so four 27-gallon tote bins each get their own dedicated slot instead of a precarious stack.
The Build, Stage by Stage
The cart started as a bare lumber skeleton: a rectangular frame cross-braced down the center to create two side-by-side cubby bays, each sized to hold a stack of totes.
Before committing to a final skin, the frame got a test-fit with a couple of totes in place to confirm the cubby proportions actually worked at real-world size.
With the proportions confirmed, casters went on the underside of the frame. That’s the deciding factor that turns a stationary shelf into a cart that can be rolled wherever it’s needed and tucked back out of the way.
OSB panels went on as the outer skin, with a sheet-good top capping the whole cart and a taped seam down its length. The two cubby bays stayed open-fronted rather than getting doors, keeping the totes easy to slide in and out.
Once the paneling and casters were both done, the cart stood complete and empty, the two open bays ready to be loaded.
Finished and Loaded
Finished, the cart holds four 27-gallon HDX tote bins (two per cubby bay, stacked), each hand-labeled with blue painter’s tape so contents are identifiable without opening a lid. One reads clearly as “Finishes”; the others are labeled by category of shop supply in the same system.
A closer look at the loaded bays shows the totes are a consistent, matched size. A “14G & 27G” compatibility label is visible on more than one lid, which is exactly what makes the cubby dimensions worth planning around rather than guessing at.
Back in the driveway alongside the rest of the shop equipment, the cart’s low profile and open bays make it easy to see at a glance which tote to grab, and the casters mean it can roll out of the way just as easily when it’s not needed.
Design Considerations
The whole design is built around one decision: size the cubbies to the totes, not the other way around. Two bays, each holding a stack of 27-gallon bins, keeps the footprint compact while still corralling a meaningful amount of shop supplies. Leaving the bays open-fronted (no doors, no drawers) trades a bit of dust protection for speed: grabbing the right tote takes one motion instead of opening a door first. Casters were part of the plan from the frame stage onward, not an afterthought, which is what makes this a cart rather than a fixed shelf.
What Isn’t Documented
This project folder captures the build from bare frame to loaded cart, but it doesn’t include the planning side: no cut list, no dimensions, and no notes on lumber size or fastener choice.