my own little place...

[koendd]

hey everybody!

I'm koen from Belgium, been car crazy since I can remember...
5 years ago I bought my first car. A 1977 Opel Kadett, been restoring it for 4 years and it's finished from around march this year.
Owned a golf mk2, but sold it cause I needed a diesel because of work changes so bought a golf mk4 tdi.

this is my kadett for the interested:

started of like this:

found a bit of this:

started blasting, cutting and welding!

anywho, lots of work... after many hours of sanding and painting, this is how it looks today:

but gotta go now, more on the garage tonight

 

[galooph]

Hi Koen,

Nice car! My first car was the UK version of that - the Vauxhall Chevette Pretty much identical apart from a slightly different front end.

Welcome to GJ!

Dan

 

[koendd]

thx Dan!

the story continues...

My first garage was at my grandparents house cause they sold their car...

was ok but no solid floor and very cold in winter! When the house was sold, found a new garage together with some friends:

we rented it for a year I guess, but got in some trouble with the neighbour so decided to look for a new place...

was the best one so far. And also the garage in which I finished my kadett...

But got a bit older and so decided to find our own place...

 

[koendd]

so, we found a house pretty quick not to far from where we live now!
it's a bit of a difficult situation. We live upstairs, and the driveway is our but has to be shared with the neighbours.

the garden with the garages, including the neighbours ones, so that's why they have to use our driveway. Our two garages are the ones on the right

so these are the garages when we bought it:

since we had to make a building plan for our house we couldn't start working on the house. And I had to rent something for my car, and all my equipment so we decided to get the garage renovated first.

The roof had come down in a few places, the brickwork had seen better days as well so away with the old!

garage door removed and all cleaned up

then we ordered bricks and new wood for the beams!

 

[koendd]

so we started constructing (with my father in law)

then made a hole to fit a window:

and started putting the beams up:

some more adjustment needed to fit the window:

dirty job..

made a new sill with spare driveway bricks

and fitted:

 

[koendd]

then we moved on with the garagedoor.
Because the garagedoor is on the longside it was difficult to get in left side of the garage with a car.

So bought a seconhand garagedoor with a rail. So we had the adjust the walls:

cut the concrete pilar away togheter with some bricks:

with lots of thinking we got the rail up on the wall:

and started laying out the ground rail (which was dubble the price of the whole garagedoor...)

 

[koendd]

finished the garage door:

then finally the roof panels where delivered:

together with some friends we fitted the whole roof in 4 hours

they forgot to deliver one panel but the roof was allmost finished so started on the inside work...

 

[koendd]

then started putting up shelvings, the work bench etc..

and made a mess...

bigger mess:

then they finally brought the extra panel:

with the roof completely finished I could move all my stuff inside:

that included the Kadett

 

[koendd]

then started digging a trench from the house to the garage for electricity and water:

then went shopping:

 

[koendd]

then got a free woodburner:

chimney might look dangerous but isn't not... haven't had any problems with it...

 

[koendd]

then started the electrical works..

also in the other garage:

off course, doing this involved having to move everything out of the way:

putting lights up (bought 13 for 100eur!)

then connected some wires...

for now, the wires are conected like this.. Will fit a fusebox asap...

fixed some holes in the concrete as well

and bought a new welder as my own christmas gift

 

[wornoutoldman]

Wow! Awesome shop! Great car! My first car was 67 Opel Kadett I paid $25 dollars for it. I was 12 years old! Welcome to GJ looking forward to more posts and pics!

 

[JimVonBaden]

Nice Kadett! Takes a lot of work to make them look that good!

My first car was a Manta:

I've had nine of these too:

Jim

 

[wornoutoldman]

JimVonBaden nice rides! My buddy had a Manta and I've owned two GTs myself.

 

[JimVonBaden]

JimVonBaden nice rides! My buddy had a Manta and I've owned two GTs myself.

Thanks,

A couple more:

Jim

 

[koendd]

that's a nice collection of GT's, they are quit expensive around here...

 

[68-camaro]

Nice job on the car and shop. Thanks for the pictures, always interesting seeing rag to riches stories.

 

[mypov]

looks great, man, it also looks soo much easier in the pictures than it does to actually go through the build process.

Nice Kadett - never heard of it, but looks like a cool car.

 

[koendd]

cheers guys!
has been quit a build indeed and very pleased with it!
but the biggest one still has to start, and that's the house itself...

 

[4StarCstms]

What a job you did on the shop and the car too!! My hats off to you for a superb job on both!

 

[rsa]

Congratulations of this stop of your garage journey!

I love side-sliding and around-the-corner-sectional garage doors. I don't see them often here in the U. S.

 

[dittle fart around]

Had an around the corner garage door in my house in Napa, Ca. The house was built in the 20's and had a single model T garage. This is the first door like it I've seen, way cool.

 

[bdkruger1]

Nice work !!!!! It's killing me to see that Duvel banner being cast aside though. Man, I love that stuff !!!!!!!!!

 

[KermitFrog]

Nice. I had an '82 Kadett. By far not the same type car as the '77 but I really liked it. Nice garage.

 

[galooph]

That's a great work space you've got - very jealous!

Dan

 

[dick k]

Very nice,looks good

 

[Thumper]

Very cool shop........I could dig the hell outta that place !!

 

[koendd]

cheers guys!

and bought something yesterday to fill in the spots of free time if I get bored renovating the house/garage

 

[jeffmoss26]

What a great thread. Very impressive transformation!

 

[koendd]

thx!

meanwhile the vw van has transformed as well

when I get a chance of cleaning the garage I'll post some pics as well!

 

[Tone-NY]

Awesome garage, congratulations. Love that garage door as well as the Duvel and Jupiler banners and the Primus sign, cheers!

 

[koendd]

here's one more on the garage...

[/IMG]

I know it's a mess...

As soon as that project car is finished I'll be having a huge clearout...
There's stuff everywhere...

Car I'm working on is a 78 opel Kadett C from a friend of mine. Has been here for more then one year...
But slowely getting there, mainly took so long because of all the work on our house... I'll post some about that later on!

 

[koendd]

After seeing al the great workshops on here, I got really excited about making my own garage better, easier to work in.

So I got fed up with my own pill of **** called garage...
So I started cleaning and throwing away all the things that were broken or that I had collected for when I might need them (probably never...)

so this is the result

it's not the "final" setup...
Will make a sandblasting cabinet as well and the blue boxes will move to the garage next door so I can get rid of the big shelvings and hang some cupboards to get more "floorspace"...

but first finish that blue car...

 

[Modern Jess]

Couldn't help but notice the smallframe chassis hanging from the ceiling. PK, right?

 

[koendd]

yep, that's right jess!

 

[Sunbimmer]

Nice place Koen, love the C-kadett it was my very first car I bought a 1200 cc.
Had lots of fun with that car .

Greetings from the Netherlands.

 

[koendd]

well it's been quite a while...

in the meantime the blue kadett is finished

and I've allready restored another kadett but a younger 80s model kadett d. It's in the paintboot atm so no finished pictures yet..

just a random shot of my two cars

 

[koendd]

but then the horror pictures... after a bit more then a year of working on project cars my garage ended up like this...

as you can see in the last pic I've allready got some supplies to change to outlay of the garage.

Started with painting the wall and moving the work bench and making cupboards

with a lick of paint

made the doors to fit the cupboards

It's allready much cleaner and brought loads of stuff to the scrap...
still area around the work bench needs sorting out and some stuff needs to go to my other garage in april.

will try to remember to take my canon to the garage to get some better pictures

 

[Fredriz]

thx!

meanwhile the vw van has transformed as well

when I get a chance of cleaning the garage I'll post some pics as well!

Salut
Le décor me dit quelque chose.....c est ou?

where is the place?

 

[Ajustable]

Hi Koendd, I have been lurking the garage forum, for a few days, Looking for Ideas for my new planned build. My last shop was vaulted like yours. I'm going to do a vaulted ceiling in the new place. your place sold me on it. Keep up the good work.
Chris