St. John, Lake County
The storage does not leave when the basement gets finished
St. John has been one of the faster growing towns in Lake County for a while now, and you can read that straight off the houses. Newer builds. Bigger footprints. Three car garages that are honestly three cars wide. A full basement under nearly all of it. On paper nobody in this town should be short of somewhere to put things.
Then the basement gets finished. A family room goes in, maybe a bar, maybe a bedroom for a teenager who wanted their own floor. The drywall runs up to a line and stops. Everything that used to live on that open concrete has to go somewhere, and it goes wherever the drywall did not: the mechanical room, the pocket behind the stairs, and the third bay of the garage.
That is the St. John call. It is almost never a person telling me they have no room. It is a person telling me they have one room left and it is now holding the contents of an entire basement.
What I build here
One build, sized to whichever room got stuck with the job
Same system everywhere: 2x4 ledgers anchored into the structure, front uprights to the floor, cross supports, plywood decks. What changes is the room it goes in.
Utility and storage room shelving
The mechanical room, the unfinished corner left behind the finished side, the space under the stairs. Small odd rooms carrying more than their share. This is the one St. John asks for most.
See how it worksBasement storage shelving
For the half of the basement that never got finished, or the whole floor if you are shelving it before the drywall crew arrives.
See how it worksCustom garage shelving
Floor to ceiling runs down the long wall of a big garage, drawn around the door tracks and the swing of a car door in the bay next to it.
See how it worksWall-mounted and heavy-duty shelving
Doubled ledgers where the load asks for it. For the bay that takes the salt, the paint, the tools and the bags of softener salt.
See how it worksGarage and basement organization
The whole job. Work out what is actually being stored, build the walls for it, then give every tote and every seasonal thing a place it goes back to.
See how it worksThe rest of The Region
St. John is one of 9 towns I build in across Lake County. Same estimate, same build, same phone number in every one of them.
See the service area
The room that got left over
A mechanical room is doing the work of a whole basement
Finishing a basement is a good decision and I am not going to argue with it. But it moves a problem instead of solving one. The furnace room was never meant to be the pantry, the holiday closet, the camping gear locker and the place the paint cans go. In a lot of newer St. John homes, that is now its entire job description.
So it fills the way every unplanned room fills: in a ring around the walls, stacked to about chest height, with a narrow lane down the middle to reach the filter. Half the volume in the room is above the pile and completely unused, and nobody wants to stack higher because there is nothing holding it.
That room is exactly where fitted shelving pays for itself fastest. It is small, so the whole job is cheap in materials and quick to install. It is unfinished, so the studs are open and a ledger has real framing to bite into. And it is the room with the most wasted vertical space in the house. Utility and storage room shelving is the page to read if this is your situation.
The rules I build to in there are simple. Clear working space in front of the furnace, the water heater, the panel and the sump, because a service tech needs to get at all four and a shelf that blocks one is a shelf that gets torn out. Bottom deck up off the slab. Tier heights set to the bins you already own rather than to a number off a plan. And ledgers lagged into the studs, because a small room tempts you to load it heavy.
The third bay is not really a parking space anymore
The other half of the St. John call is the garage. Three bays sounds like an enormous amount of room, and it is, right up until the day it becomes the overflow for a house that has no attic worth the name and a basement that just got carpeted.
What usually happens is the third bay quietly stops being a bay. The mower goes in, then the bikes, then the pile that came up from downstairs, and a space you paid real money for is now a room you walk into sideways. The walls in a garage like that are almost always bare: drywall or open framing, high trusses, and nothing on them above waist height.
Going up the wall gets the bay back. A run of floor to ceiling shelving down one side takes maybe 2 feet of depth and hands you the vertical space of the entire wall in exchange. In a garage that wide, 2 feet is a trade you barely feel. Here is how the garage build works, and if the plan is to sort the whole house at once rather than one wall, that is the organization job.
St. John is never a scheduling problem
US 41, Wicker Avenue, is the spine of the town and it is a straight shot from where I live in Munster. So the drive is not the issue. But that is not why you will get a fast answer either.
The reason is that the estimate is a video call, not a home visit. You pick a window that suits you, we get on your phone, and you walk me around the room exactly as it sits. I will ask for a few rough measurements, ceiling height, wall length, how deep you can give up, and I will price the job before we hang up. There is no truck to get into the area and no week of waiting on a proposal.
It also means nobody tidies up first, which matters more than people admit when the room in question is the one they have been avoiding since the basement got finished. Show me the pile. The pile is the brief.
When I do show up, it is the day I build, and most jobs are finished in a day. It is me on the call and me on the ladder, and the work is backed by a workmanship warranty. Same for Schererville and Dyer next door, and for Highland further up. Book a time that works or call (219) 209-2484.
How it works
Three steps and about 10 minutes
Video call or onsite, your choice, and a real number there and then rather than a range that means nothing.
Text me
Text me your town, what you want shelves in, and a couple of day and time windows that work. Texting is the fastest way to get hold of me.
Video call or I come out
Your choice. Most people do a short video call from their phone. If you would rather I came and stood in the space, I will do that too.
Get your price
I price the job right there, on the call or in your driveway. No waiting a week for a proposal.
Straight answers
St. John shelving questions
We finished our basement and everything ended up in the mechanical room. Can you build in a room that small?
That is the most common job I do in St. John. A small room is a good room to shelve, because the walls are usually open framing and the payoff per foot is high. I keep clear access in front of the furnace, the water heater, the sump and the panel, then use every inch of wall that is not in the way. Most of these are a half day.
How much clearance do you leave around the furnace and the water heater?
Enough that a service tech never has to touch what I built. Filters have to slide out, burner covers have to come off, and the water heater needs room to be drained and eventually swapped. I plan those gaps on the call before anything gets cut. A shelf that blocks a mechanical is a shelf that comes back out, and I would rather not build it twice.
Can you shelve the third bay of the garage and still park in it?
Usually yes. A floor to ceiling run typically gives up around 2 feet of depth, and in a three car garage that is width you will not miss. We measure from the wall to where the vehicle actually sits, take the door swing off that, and set the depth from what is left. If the bay is already full of things that belong somewhere else, that is a different conversation and a good one to have on the call.
Our house is only a few years old. Are the unfinished basement walls framed?
In most newer builds around here, yes. The unfinished side is typically framed and insulated on standard stud spacing, so a 2x4 ledger gets lagged straight into real framing. If a section turns out to be bare poured concrete with nothing in front of it, that is fine too, it just gets masonry fasteners instead, and the front uprights still carry to the floor either way. I will tell you which one you have on the call.
Is it better to shelve the unfinished side before or after we finish the rest of the basement?
Before, if the choice is open. Shelving the leftover room first gives the contractor a clear floor to work on and gives you somewhere to put everything while the work happens. After is completely normal too, and it is when most people call me, because that is the point at which the problem becomes obvious.
Do you charge extra to come out to St. John?
No. The number comes from the job: how much wall you are covering, how deep the shelves are, and how many tiers. St. John is on the regular route and there is nothing added for the drive. You get the same price you would get in Munster.
Related reading
More on this, in plain English
The questions I get asked most, written down so you can read them before you ever call me.
How to Clear Out the Basement You Have Been Avoiding
A no shame method for clearing out a basement you have avoided for years: short sessions, four boxes, sentimental items last, and storage decided last.
Read itIs Custom Shelving Worth It Compared to Buying a Rack?
Is custom garage shelving worth it? Not always. When to buy the rack instead, when a built run pays for itself, and a decision rule you can apply your.
Read itGarage Shelving That Actually Fits Your Storage Totes
Why store-bought racks will not fit large storage totes, how to measure your bins in 2 minutes, and what shelf depth and tier spacing do to the same g.
Read itBook it
Let me price your St. John shelves on a video call
Show me the mechanical room, the unfinished side or the third bay on your phone, and you will have a real number before we hang up. Most jobs go in and get done in a day.