Just overheard a guy at Home Depot saying French cleats are overrated

I was grabbing some 2x4s and this older carpenter was ranting to his buddy about how French cleats waste too much wall space for small shops. Made me rethink my whole garage layout plan. Anyone else ever ditched a popular system after hearing someone's real world take?

3 comments

3 Comments

william_torres29d ago

Guy's got a point for sure. French cleats eat up a ton of vertical space if you're not careful. Seen too many garages where half the wall's just wasted on the cleat rails themselves.

grantp2829d ago

Ngl, that carpenter wasn't totally wrong about wasted space if you space your cleats too far apart. But saying French cleats eat up half the wall isn't quite right either. Tbh, a proper cleat setup only uses maybe 4 or 5 inches vertically including the mounting rail and the tool holder. The real trick is making your holders tight to the wall so you don't lose usable space above and below. Lots of guys stack two rows of cleats with just a few inches between them to double their hanging area. So the waste is more about bad design than the system itself.

susan13017d ago

Will the wall police show up if I leave an inch of wasted space above my cleats? Guess I'll just have to live with my shame and my tidy tools.