My standard 2-car attached garage...

[Duck tape Bill]

... so lets see what I can do with this thing.

So we moved into a new house back in July, and I'm finally getting around to fixing up the garage the way I want it. Today I started tearing out the old kitchen cabinets that the previous owner had used as a workbench.


...This is what it looked like when I started. (please excuse the mess)

Bench removal starting...

I have some big plans for this little space. It may take some time but hopefully this will be of interest to some people. I already have a long list of ideas I plan to steal from other GJ members, so I'd like to thank them in advance for allowing me to pilfer their cool ideas.

 

[Kevin54]

Hopefully you didn't destroy the cabinets that you took out. Lot's of people around that could use them in their garage.

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Hopefully you didn't destroy the cabinets that you took out. Lot's of people around that could use them in their garage.

...No, not at all. I plan to use some of them when I build a bar in the basement (hopefully this spring/summer) so I made sure not to bust them up. I know what you mean though, I plan to donate any I don't use to habitat for humanity, or a similar local group who's name escapes me at the moment.

Edit: ...or give them to any local GJ members who want them

 

[marty_p]

We can't wait to see your progress -- and your bar!!!

 

[PhantomEB]

Or just push them up higher to the ceiling, and put new doors on. Unless you got other reasons why not to.

 

[Duck tape Bill]

I'm just not a big fan of kitchen cabinets I guess. I prefer open shelves so I can see everything. I've also found that the upper cabinets in particular restrict what you can put in them too much.

 

[M-technik-3]

Take the faces off of them and make new ones. Not that bad. We kept our old ones for our basement for the laundry area and other storage.

 

[AaronH87]

i woulda loved to have cabinets in my garage when i moved in...

 

[IONH]

Subscribed. Always good to read people's refurb threads.

 

[NCAudi]

Look's like a great space to work with. Can't wait too see your progress.

 

[55cadillacking]

I also enjoy seeing what people do with their doubles. I can understand what you are saying about the kitchen cabinets in the garage. While they are completely practical, I just don't like it either. It's just a personal preference. If they are modern looking with a flat panel, I can dig that, but the 70's/80's style just don't fit my bill.

 

[Duck tape Bill]

So I got a little bit done...

Yesterday I stopped by my local HF and picked up one of the end cabinets to use under the workbench. I'm also going to take the casters off my my 42" box and put it under too.

Today I finished moving the old cabinets out and cleaning up the mess I made doing it. Spent a long time measuring and brainstorming exactly where I wanted things, and how to build the workbench. It's going to be 12' long and ~38" tall with the two tool boxes underneath and space for a shop vac and my compressor at the end. There's also going to be some shelving above and at the end... sorry I don't have a drawing, I did at one time months ago, but I can't remember where I put it, so the whole thing is just in my head at this point. I did start on the bench supports, so the one picture is of the 2x4s that will go across the front of the bench... I ran out of time because we had family over for dinner, so I should get the workbench finished tomorrow (I hope).

Here are a few pics of the progress today:

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Got the workbench mostly done yesterday... I'm putting the top on it now, but figured you all might like to see it before it gets covered up. The front of the bench is 4 2x4s screwed & glued together with 2 2x4 legs. The back 2x4 is screwed to the wall studs behind it. This thing is heavy and solid as a rock

The top assembled and ready to go in place.

Top sitting on the cabinets.

The floor isn't 100% flat, so I made the legs adjustable so I could keep the bench level without extra fitting of the legs. It worked pretty well, just slipped them in, lifted the top and put in the screws to hold the leg at the right height.

I'll get some more pictures put up tomorrow I hope, once I finish putting the top on it.

 

[mauls]

looks great so far, nice progress

 

[55cadillacking]

Looks like a fun project.

 

[NCAudi]

The bench looks great. Really clever idea to make the adjustable legs to get the bench leveled. Thanks for documenting and sharing your progress.

 

[FRS FAN]

Nicely done so far!

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Thanks! I hope you all enjoy watching this build as it goes along.

So the workbench is basically done, I got the top on it today and I put a coat of spar urethane on it. I was originally going to paint the whole thing, but I got a piece of maple plywood for the top and the wood looks too good to paint over and cover it, so I decided to urethane it instead... it's cold here, so it's going to take me a few days to get multiple coats put on it. Kind of ***** because I'd like to start mounting things like vises to the top, but I guess I'll just have to wait.

If you compare this picture to the others you will notice I doubled up the 2x4 front legs so they come out flush with the front, gives it a cleaner look and makes it more solid.

I think I'll paint the sides and legs, but I'm not sure what color yet. The next step is to take down all the wall cabinets and replace them with pegboard and some shelves. One of my biggest complains about the bench before was that the wall cabinets are too close to the workbench, I was constantly bumping into them or hitting them with whatever tool I was using.

 

[runsub5]

You do good work. Are those tool chests resting directly on the floor? I would be concerned about water rusting them out.

 

[Duck tape Bill]

You do good work. Are those tool chests resting directly on the floor? I would be concerned about water rusting them out.

Yea, they are on the floor, but I don't have any water issues so I'm not too concerned about it. I didn't want the top of the bench to be too high, that's why they are on the ground. Ideally I would have left the wheels on the toolbox, but that added almost 6 inches to the height, so they had to go. There is ~1/2" gap between the top of the box and the bench, so I guess I could put a small spacer under them, but I can do that anytime if needed.

 

[55cadillacking]

Bench looks great. Love how the boxes look flush. I'm looking forward to your next step with the pegboard and shelving. As far as the paint is concerned, what's your overall color plan for the garage?

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Bench looks great. Love how the boxes look flush. I'm looking forward to your next step with the pegboard and shelving. As far as the paint is concerned, what's your overall color plan for the garage?

right now the walls are drywall painted white. I think I'm going to paint the bottom 3-4 feet gray, maybe with a red stripe to match the cabinets. I think the bench will get the same treatment, gray legs with the front painted to match the cabinets. Like I said in a earlier post, the top will just be getting several coats of gloss urethane on it... but it's cold now, so it will probably take me a week just to get 3-4 coats on it. Hopefully I can sand it and recoat when I get home from work, then give it 24 hours before the next coat. I'll see tonight when I get home if that's going to work since I put the first coat on yesterday early in the afternoon.

I wanted to take the wall cabinets down this week too, and start on the pegboard, but with the wet urethane on the benchtop, the last thing I want to do is start taking down dusty cabinets right over top of it, so that will have to wait. I also need to figure out the spacing of the pegboard & wall shelves since I also plan to mount several electric outlets and a backsplash. Eventually I'm going to run a 100amp subpanel into the garage and add lighting/outlets all around... right now there are only two screw in bulbs and a single power outlet in the whole garage

 

[AndrewnTX]

Nice, solid top!! Looks good!

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Nice, solid top!! Looks good!

Thanks Andrew, hopefully I will get some more done this weekend, I just haven't had much time after work this week. I have managed to get 3 coats of urethane on the top though, so that's starting to look good. Hopefully I'll have some more pictures with some meaningful progress before too long.

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Well, I finally got a few hours to do some more work in the garage today. I added a set of shelves 3'x1' on the end of the workbench fro storing small things. It's nothing special, just some 2x4s with 1/2" plywood on 1x2 frames for the shelves. It's pretty sturdy and I think will support anything I can put on it. It was a relatively nice day (it hit 50 degrees) for January here in MD, so I did some painting too... got the 4th coat of urethane on the benchtop, put one coat on the tops of the shelves, and painted the bottom of the bench the gray color I plan to use for the rest of the garage (I notice looking at the picture that I missed a spot ) I also came up with what I think is a pretty cool way to hold things like spray cans onto a narrow shelf... I'll show you some pictures when I have a chance to put it together one day after work.

...anyway, here are a couple of pictures with the progress so far;

Selves...

Gray painted legs...with missed spot

 

[AaronH87]

lookin good. Are you going to paint the cabinets that were already there or keep them with the wood finish?

 

[Duck tape Bill]

lookin good. Are you going to paint the cabinets that were already there or keep them with the wood finish?

I'm actually going to take them down and use them when I build my bar in the basement, hopefully sometime this summer. I'm going to put a shelf above the workbench, the full length of it, with some lights under it. I'm also going to run some electrical outlets along the wall, and put up some pegboard above the bench.

 

[gsmornot]

Bench top looks good but for one detail, with no overhang you have no place to clamp things down. I like an overhang so I can use a C clamp to hold something still on the bench.

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Bench top looks good but for one detail, with no overhang you have no place to clamp things down. I like an overhang so I can use a C clamp to hold something still on the bench.

That's a good point. I do have two vises that will be put on the bench for holding things http://garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2790177&postcount=6856 but I do see what you are getting at. I had been playing with the idea of some kind of clamp system that attached through the bench top itself, but I haven't come up with anything yet.

...While sitting here typing this I did think of something akin to having a C-clamp on the side... I am planning to put a 2" receiver hitch for mounting a grinder or other tools too, maybe I could make some C-clamp like devise to put in the receiver hitch... I'll have to think about it, and see if anyone else on GJ has done that so I can steal their idea

 

[Zeke]

I'm just not a big fan of kitchen cabinets I guess. I prefer open shelves so I can see everything. I've also found that the upper cabinets in particular restrict what you can put in them too much.

I can't stand old dark stained kitchen cabinets in a working garage. A year or so ago I had some grand plans for finding and using some sort of high pressure laminate mounted on MDF and made into cabinet doors. There's stuff out there from diamond plate to Ferrari red gloss. With the right edge banding, they could be dynamite.

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Ok, so here's a little update of what I've gotten done;


I mounted the vise to the bench, it needs some TLC and maybe a full teardown & rebuild, but it's attached for now.

I think I promised someone a new storage idea that I came up with, I hadn't had time to put it together until yesterday, so here it is. If you look at the last picture you will see 3 shelves under where the vise sits (between the bench legs). These are just some 2x4's I put between the legs so I could hold spray cans out of the way. The shelves were not in my original plans for the bench, but it looked like a good use of space. The only problem I saw was that the cans might fall off if I was pounding on something in the vise, but I didn't want a solid piece of something to hold them in because I wouldn't be able to put taller cans in there (the shelves would need to be taller, and I could only have 2 instead of 3). So I came up with this; a spingloaded wire that goes across the front of the shelf to hold the cans, but stretches so that you can put tall cans in, and get them out easy.

There's a stop on the end of the wire for the spring to push against.

The spring & stop fit into a hole drilled in the back leg of the bench.

 

[madosta]

Nice, simple, effective solution!

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Hello everyone,

Sorry it's been so long since an update, I haven't had as much time lately to get much done in the garage, but I did take the old cabinets down, put up pegboard, mount the shelf brackets for the overhead shelf, and mount the electrical outlets. I also decided to run a piece of 1/8"x2" aluminum all the way around the edge of the bench so that I don't beat the edge of the wood up so badly. I also got my woodworking vise mounted.

 

[baggedcobra]

Looks great man. It has come along nicely.

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Nice, simple, effective solution!

Looks great man. It has come along nicely.

Thanks guys

I haven't had time to get much done lately, which *****, but I have put together a screwdriver holder for the pegboard. It's made out of 1/8"x2" aluminum angle drilled to fit various screw drivers. I also made a little section to hold driver bits of various sizes that I think is pretty cool. one section is 1/2" deep and the other is 1" so short an long bits will sit in it without falling over. I also added a strip of magnetic tape to the bottom of each to help hold the bits up. I figure that I'll be doing some pounding on the bench so I'm trying to make everything with that in mind, so I don't have to worry about things falling out every time I hit something with a hammer.

 

[black88coupe]

I haven't had time to get much done lately, which *****, but I have put together a screwdriver holder for the pegboard. It's made out of 1/8"x2" aluminum angle drilled to fit various screw drivers. I also made a little section to hold driver bits of various sizes that I think is pretty cool. one section is 1/2" deep and the other is 1" so short an long bits will sit in it without falling over. I also added a strip of magnetic tape to the bottom of each to help hold the bits up. I figure that I'll be doing some pounding on the bench so I'm trying to make everything with that in mind, so I don't have to worry about things falling out every time I hit something with a hammer.

Nifty!

 

[OJ Bartley]

Bill, I know this thread s old, but I like how you did your adjustable workbench legs, and that screwdriver holder is really nice too. I've been thinking of using something like that eventually. Looks like you chamfered your bit holder holes, nice touch.

Any recent updates? You must have made some changes since the last post!

 

[Duck tape Bill]

Bill, I know this thread s old, but I like how you did your adjustable workbench legs, and that screwdriver holder is really nice too. I've been thinking of using something like that eventually. Looks like you chamfered your bit holder holes, nice touch.

Any recent updates? You must have made some changes since the last post!

Hey Bartley,
The last year has been pretty crazy, and updating this thread just got pushed off my "too do" list. I have done a few things in the garage, and I'll try to get some pictures put up for you. To answer your question about the legs on the bench, it's pretty simple. as you can see in the pictures, I left holes for 2x4's to slip into when I put the support for the top together. I put the tool chests where I wanted them, set the frame on top and leveled it. Then the 2x4's just slip down in the holes and got screwed in from the front. That way it didn't matter if one leg needed to be 1/4" long and another 1/2" short, as long as the frame was level the legs could slip up and down as needed. I think you can see in some of the later pictures that after the first 2x4 was in place, I cut a second one and screwed it on the front legs for a little more strength. If I had it to do over again I wouldn't make the frame so heavy, there just isn't a need for four 2x4s screwed together like I did it.

The screwdriver/bit holder is just a piece of angle aluminum. It took a long time to lay everything our, and I used a step bit to drill the holes so I could fit each screwdriver as I went. I did chamfer the holes just a little, but using a step drill bit leaves a little chamfer anyway, so you might not need to if you do it that way.

The garage in general is a mess right now, but like I said, I'll try to get some current pictures put up.