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I have this big wooden box in my garage:

Big wooden box, holding a folded Dahon Speed D7

The current position makes it a bit cumbersome to park the car. Is there a way to make the box easily "liftable" or "raisable" up to the ceiling (or as high as possible)? How would you go about it?

I thought maybe this could involve ropes, a pulley, and little wheels attached to the box (on the wall side).

I'm looking for a really simple solution since I'm pretty much useless at doing anything more complicated than tightening a screw.

The contents of the box weigh around 26 lbs ~= 12 kg.

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Why not install shelves? Heck of a lot easier then designing some pulley system – Steven Jan 14 '12 at 18:18
The box opens at the top and has a bicycle inside. I need it to be at floor level to take it out, and high up when stored. – Alvaro Rodriguez Jan 14 '12 at 18:30

1 Answer

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From your comments, I see you want to store a bike. You also do not want to build/install anything too complicated.

Rather then trying to raise/lower the box, I would recommmend just buying a Bike Lift:

Bike Lift

This particular one is $25USD at Home Depot. I doubt you could build something yourself much cheaper. This one is rated for 50lbs so you don't have to worry about it crashing down on your cars.

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I live in Uruguay, there is no Home Depot here nor anyplace I know of selling that marvelous lift. Also the box is important because we leave near the ocean, and the garage is open to outside air, so metallic stuff left there tends to rust. – Alvaro Rodriguez Jan 14 '12 at 22:24
2  
I'd adapt the design of that lift to lift the box... looks like it would be easy enough to duplicate out of a decently supplied hardware store. It won't give you a lot of mechanical advantage, but for a 26lb box you shouldn't need much anyway. You could mount castor wheels to the wall face of the box, and the lift system just slightly off-center towards the wall to prevent sway. – RBerteig Jan 15 '12 at 0:43

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