New guy looking for sage advice

[Ceezer]

Hey, y’all. I have a 2-car attached garage that has been plaguing me for years as it seems I can never get it organized enough to stay organized for any period of time. I also don’t enjoy spending time in it as much as I wish I did, so I try to motivate myself to go out and create a space that I can call home, but then I get overwhelmed by how much work is needed and I don’t know where to start, so I put it off and go find something else to do.

I’d like to have separate (or at least coexisting) space for working on my project car(s), working on wood or other hobby projects and for hanging out, but I don’t know if I have enough room for all. The project car is currently parked in the driveway, but the garage is cluttered with miscellaneous lawn equipment (riding mower, push mower, chainsaw, weed eater, hand tools, etc), gym equipment that is not in use, and bikes and various sporting equipment belonging to myself, my wife and my daughter.

Through reading as much as I could prior to posting, I see the first suggestion is to remove all the lawn equipment from the garage and put it in a shed. I’ve wanted a shed for a while so that stuff would have its own space, but one issue is that I live in a hill. My back yard is approximately a 30 degree incline while my front yard declines at more like 45-50 degrees. There is one spot in the upper back corner of my back yard that I think would be easiest to level off (after I relocate the Magnolia I planted there several years ago) and place a building on. Any recommendations on building type? I’ve heard steel praised over wood due to the fact that the cooling and heating of wood structures can lead to splintering and splitting, but I don’t know if that would be an issue here in SC.

Another issue with the garage is that in the summers, when it’s 97 degrees out and the heat index has it at 110, it feels 3 times that in my garage. I know my doors are contributing to this (they’re the cheap non-insulated single-layer steel doors), but they both have damage and will be replaced in time. I have to wonder if my exterior walls are insulated. I have a closet off my garage that doesn’t have drywall and the 2 walls there that are exterior have no drywall stuffed between the studs, so I don’t know if the ones in the main area of the garage were insulated before finished off. I’m going to try and find somewhere inconspicuous to cut a hole and check. But aside from that, any tips for heating and cooling an existing garage? There are no windows for an AC unit. I saw one garage in the gallery that had a ceiling fan, and I have 2 overhead lights that might good locations for fans. I’ll have to check for clearance between that and the garage door, though. Plus two of the only three outlets in the garage is on the ceiling next to those lights (for garage door openers), so that actually probably eliminates the possibility of putting fans in.

I also have uneven floors. I guess water getting in the garage (because it runs off the back yard and pools up in the driveway right in front of the garage doors, where it’s semi-level) was an issue with a previous owner so he built up the garage floors to keep it out. Instead of raising the entire floor, just the front part of the garage is, and then it ramps down about halfway through… One of my top priorities would be to level this off, possibly throwing a finish on it. What kind of preparation would be needed to the existing floor to lay more cement on top of it, or is that even possible?

It’s also a nuisance that there is only one ground level outlet. I suppose that if I find out there’s no insulation in the walls and I have to tear the drywall down then I can run some more. On the other side of the garage I have an extension cord hanging from the ceiling outlet. I’ve just never seen a ‘finished’ garage with so little thought put into it as this one apparently has…

The cabinets are what I was able to salvage (they were built in, and not done very well either…) from a kitchen makeover. Some of the doors were lost in the mix so I just left them all off as open storage. The base cabinet also has some damage from where I had to cut it up to get it out the door, but I plan to repair that. Do you guys think these look ok, or should I save up for some more appealing cabinets? I could probably put these in the closet, if I needed to.

I know I’m going to have to figure out and do this on my own, but I guess what I’m asking for is advice or suggestions before embarking on this journey

 

[Ceezer]

Looking at the pictures it doesn't seem to be that bad, but it's a much more daunting task in person. Maybe because I've been chipping away at it a bit at a time I can't see the progress I'm making, and it seems like I've been buried in it for so long.

Here are a few shots of the closet/storage room

 

[rsanter]

first problem I see is that you need shelving
verticle storage is better than horizontal

bob

 

[Ceezer]

first problem I see is that you need shelving
verticle storage is better than horizontal

bob

If you look to the left of my chimney there I have some shelving that has turned out to be pretty sturdy & heavy duty. I bought a second set of those this past weekend, I just haven't put them up yet. I have that set split into 2 separate sets of shelves, side-by-side, but I believe they can be stacked up into a single unit. Should I put those on top of each other, and then put the other set next to them?

 

[nadogail]

In my opinion you will be well served by getting the "stuf" off the floor. Improving the lighting will also help, your pictures are very dark. Shelves and cabinets with doors will help. A project like this could be compared to eating an elephant, it can be done but it will be done one bite at a time.

My background is electrical and mechanical, not building; I am sure insulation can be blown in without ripping out your drywall. Electrical can often be done with minimal drywall damage. Drywall repairs easily, if the electrician is careful. I think you can add insulation to garage doors by gluing on Foil Backed Foam Panels. In an industrial garage I would run conduit or Wiremold on the surface, if you want a Showplace garage you and I are in different leagues.

All of these can be done a step or partial step at a time. Can you envision what you want? Then determine what is possible and within your means? The next step would be to determine what seperate steps will bring you to this goal. Start the steps.

 

[Jack Olsen]

I had most of the same issues you had. My advice would be to set aside a weekend, for starters, and get every single thing out of the garage. Then look at what you've got, and think about what you want on hand in the garage and how you want to work there. Everything that isn't part of the way you want to use the garage should go someplace else. In my case, that meant only one car in the garage, with the other half devoted to work space.

I think you've got to find another place for gardening stuff and bicycles and toys. (I still want to find another place for the step ladder in mine.) But make sure that other family members' storage is nice and functional for them -- don't be selfish -- just try not to let their storage overlap with a place where you'll be actively working. It's too much of a pain to have to spend 20 minutes moving stuff out of the garage when you want to put in some time on a project. You'll end up (like you said in your post) doing something else instead.

Also: really think about what you want a work space to look and feel like. Some guys are great with white paint, fluorescent bulbs and bare concrete. But that wasn't for me. So I've got inexpensive tile and three different wall colors. My garage wasn't a big-dollar project, but I still smile every time I open the door to it.

________
weed news

 

[Ceezer]

In my opinion you will be well served by getting the "stuf" off the floor.

The majority of the stuff taking up floor space are large items like the gym equipment and lawn equipment. I plan to clean up the home gym stuff and put an add in the trader. As for the lawn stuff I'd really like to get it out of there all together.

My wife is off this weekend and was wanting to go shopping to get our daughter some new clothes, so I can utilize that time to look around at some sheds. Does anyone know how the sheds purchased at Lowes/Home Depot fare against those that are sold by smaller (and sometimes independent) retailers? What about having one delivered already constructed versus purchasing one as a kit and setting it up myself? Cost is an issue, but I see that the big-box stores offer buildings in sizes around 10x12 for less than $1000, which I can handle. I could probably even go as high as $12-1500 on a shed, if it's deemed worthy (quality/space/etc).

Once I have that big stuff out of the way then, like Jack advised, I'd like to pull everything else out and start from scratch to determine what fits and what can go.

I am sure insulation can be blown in without ripping out your drywall.

Would it be more expensive to have someone come in to do that than to rip the drywall down and stuff it with some Pink Panther myself? I've done a little drywall work before, so I'm not worried about that, but I'd like to be as cost efficient as possible.

I know my lighting is an issue, and I'd like to have the place lit up when I'm working on something, but I won't alway want it that bright as I'd eventually like to get a TV and seating out there for hanging out (especially during football & race season). Would I be better off installing, say, 2 sets of overhead lights and then turn one off to dim the garage a little, or just 1 set of overhead and supplement that with lamps?

Jack, your cabinetry in that picture is awesome. Did you build those?

 

[dooley t from okc]

im in the same boat and it seemes somewhat over welming to me also. i have several shop rooms and they all get clutterd to a stifiling degree,my advice is an inch at a time with the end result to be a clean work space. just dig in and before you know it you will have a new space to work, also if you havent seen it in 6mos or more stoe it or give it to another shop that needs more junk yhan you do. youll always know where it is . my stuff is scatterd to five diffrent buddys shops . the dwn side is i have their stuff to look at a rotating veiw helps ,goodluck

dooley t okc

 

[Kevin54]

First off WOULD be get the lawn and garden equipment out of there. Secondly a shed is in order. A wood structure would be fine as probably 90% of the sheds are wood. Even though your ground slopes, you can level off a spot and add a shed. What it sounds like to me is just a matter of getting it in gear to get it done.

I also don’t enjoy spending time in it as much as I wish I did, so I try to motivate myself to go out and create a space that I can call home, but then I get overwhelmed by how much work is needed and I don’t know where to start, so I put it off and go find something else to do.

You have to FORCE yourself to get motivated. If you don't enjoy spending time out there, then you will never get anything done to fix it up. You're in a "Catch 22" situation. Get a buddy to help you out. It would make things go a little easier. Once you get past the first step, the other steps will come easier. I'm sure there is one or two that could give up at least a day to help out.

 

[Jack Olsen]

Cost is an issue, but I see that the big-box stores offer buildings in sizes around 10x12 for less than $1000, which I can handle. I could probably even go as high as $12-1500 on a shed, if it's deemed worthy (quality/space/etc).

Especially without a flat slab to set a pre-fab shed on, you might want to consider the advantages of building your own. My materials cost was under $500 for this shed, which is 19' long, 4-1/2' deep and about 5' tall. There's more time involved in building your own, but it can free up money for other stuff. I needed something short enough not to block the windows and long enough to make use of some wasted space alongside my driveway.

I know my lighting is an issue, and I'd like to have the place lit up when I'm working on something, but I won't alway want it that bright as I'd eventually like to get a TV and seating out there for hanging out (especially during football & race season). Would I be better off installing, say, 2 sets of overhead lights and then turn one off to dim the garage a little, or just 1 set of overhead and supplement that with lamps?

My whole garage was done on the cheap. I had time, since my union went on strike for 100 days. But that same strike also made me really cautious with the budget. Most of my lighting fixtures are just 'trouble lights' that were already lying around the garage. The only place I think you should have a light source pointed 'at' something is when it's directly over a work bench. Other than that, I think it looks a lot better to point the light at the ceiling and have it bounce down to fill the room. That way you don't get harsh shadows and reflections. I have one set of lights for just walking around in the garage (triggered by motion sensors, so you never have to remember to turn them off), and then the two bigger halogens in the center that I switch on when I'm working for longer periods.

Jack, your cabinetry in that picture is awesome. Did you build those?

A carpenter would call my cabinetry a joke, I'm sure. But it looks all right in the pictures and it does what I need it to do. I was trying to only use lumber that was already lying around in the garage. The big cabinets above the car date back to 1925 when the house was built. Everything else was quick and dirty shelving I put together -- and then covered with particle board doors because the un-covered shelves filled with stuff looked really ugly. The broad shelves in front of the car are hollow-core doors I'd saved from an old closet. The two standing bookcases are just Ikea ****, with old lumber set between them for additional shelf space and particle board doors added to make the whole thing less ugly.

The shelves next to the tool box and underneath the drafting table are wrought-iron things I had sitting around from an old apartment. With some new paint, they look okay.

I also put some broad flat shelves up above the garage door. It's space that's usually wasted that can store a lot of stuff. Since I was working alone, I had to rig up a crude pulley system (I think I used extenstion cords) to slowly raise the shelf units up long enough for me to fasten them into position.

One good rule of thumb is to try and not have anything touching the floor. It makes cleaning the place up a lot easier, and discourages you from thinking of the garage as convenient short-term storage for the daily stream of life's clutter.
________
vaaapp vaporizer

 

[Ceezer]

Especially without a flat slab to set a pre-fab shed on, you might want to consider the advantages of building your own.

That's something I considered, once I read some reviews and found the $1000 big-box sheds were junk, then got some quotes and found a decent 10x12 shed delivered was going to run around $4000...

By building my own, I'm also not confined to a standard rectangle structure. My side yard is unused space (aside from the heat pump) because it's a small, odd wedge shape due to the tree line (and because of the coverage, grass won't grow well there). I wonder if I could build something there that was deep and wide enough to accomodate my riding mower.

How much room would I need to leave my heat pump? I see yours has adequate space. I wonder if I could dogleg around it, with the structure blocking in the right side and front of the heat pump, leaving just the left side exposed. Your shed, by the way, is simply amazing. I'm really, really impressed!

Would I need to pour a slab, or just frame in some well-inforced flooring?

I have one set of lights for just walking around in the garage (triggered by motion sensors, so you never have to remember to turn them off), and then the two bigger halogens in the center that I switch on when I'm working for longer periods.

That actually sounds like an excellent setup. Especially the motion detection lights since my wife and daughter tend to leave lights on all over the place, all the time.

I also put some broad flat shelves up above the garage door. It's space that's usually wasted that can store a lot of stuff. Since I was working alone, I had to rig up a crude pulley system (I think I used extenstion cords) to slowly raise the shelf units up long enough for me to fasten them into position.

That also sounds like a good idea. Do you happen to have any pictures of this setup, so that I could see how it looks from the inside and your method of fastening them in?

Thank you, all, for your replies. It's starting to come together a little in my head, now I just need to put it in motion (especially before it starts getting *really* hot, because despite how hard I force myself, when the heat & humidity build up in the garage it's enough to sap the motivation out of anybody).

Another question I had: If I build a workbench in the garage using 2x4s, do I need treated lumber? Or is it ok, since it's 'out of the elements'? Is treated lumber only needed when directly exposed?

Again, thank you everyone!

 

[Ceezer]

Nothing like a year and a half bump...

I've been working on this a little at a time, as I found it (at one point it seemed to get much worse - after buying a shed and moving all lawn equipment to it, I somehow amassed a pile of **** right in the middle of the garage), and finally got the garage "clean" enough that I can pull my VW back in and actually have room to work on it.

However, despite looking the best it has in 6 years, it still feels cluttered. I may actually have *too much* storage now... I don't get to browse these forums nearly as much as I'd like, so I thought I'd ask for suggestions.

 

[Ceezer]

Sorry, long day... (got electrocuted at work today, which also melted my favorite knife)

Here are the pictures:

 

[Jack Olsen]

Well since I commented before, I'll say it looks pretty good. The corner with the bench and the kitchen style cabinets looks like it's almost a workshop.

Looking at my picture from a year and a half ago, I noticed that I used to have a lot of 'shelf' type storage -- where the thing you were storing was in plain sight, but was organized on a shelf. I know that in the intervening time, I did two big things to my garage. The first was to turn most of that into concealed storage -- even when it was just putting a cabinet-style face in front of existing shelving. I think this reduces the visual clutter effect pretty dramatically. It also keeps everything you're storing from getting coated with sawdust or metal shavings.

The other thing I did was a little 'design-y.' I thought about a single line dividing the top and bottom halves of my garage and even got some aluminum stock to make the line clearer. It gives the new version of my space a little more simplicity when you look at it. I don't want to get too artsy-fartsy, but fewer lines and fewer colors are a little more relaxing to look at than a random assortment of colors and lines.

Right now you've got painted walls and then some bare brick and wood. In your shoes, I'd think about using some wood (it can even be particle board) to make doors and covers for a lot of the storage, followed up with a single color -- maybe red to match the compressor and tool box, or maybe something else. You could even do the old stand-by flood-line painting of that color below 42", or whatever it is guys do -- in the same color you paint your storage.

In any case, I think it's a huge step to have the bikes and mowers out of there. It really gets your mind lined up with 'doing stuff' in the garage more than it does with 'parking stuff.'

 

[dumper]

My garage wasn't a big-dollar project, but I still smile every time I open the door to it.

and, opening the garage and seeing a Porsche that goes 200mph should help with the smile as well! Hahahahhaa.

 

[crewchief888]

nearly everything in my garage, with the exception of tool boxes, was leftovers, scrap, salvaged, or bought from a thrift store.

crappy4 ft wide workbench freebie at the curb
4x4x18" deep steel cabinet freebie at the curb
shelf brackets salvaged channel, and angle iron from my old garage door
more shelf brackets $0.25 ea at a thrift store
2x12's old concrete forms salvage from jobsite dumpsters
1x12 wood shelving leftovers from various places we lived
light fixtures salvaged from various jobsite dumpsters

i have a tendency to not throw things away, and pick up "stuff" when i feel the need for it.

my garage is only 19x22, when stuff is put away where it belongs, i can get the wifes saturn, my s-10 blazer off roader, my harley, lawn/garden stuff, 2 sets of toolboxes, welder, air compressor, assorted parts, hardware storage, and my larger halloween decorations.
it's dark, cramped, cold in the winter, hot in the summer.
once or twice a year i pull everything out, and toss the stuff i dont need, and reorganize.

 

[Painter123]

I was running out of storage space in my garage and did the math for the size shed I would have needed,
turned out to be cheaper to buy an 8x20 conex box and have a crane for 2 hours set it in the back yard
In a matter of a few hours my garage was all cleaned out

Living on a hill might make that a bit tougher but it might be an option
The 8x40 boxes are cheaper than the 8x20, mainly do to surplus but not everyone has a 40' space to set one either

 

[v7guy]

it looks like you're moving in the right direction... looks worlds better.
As Jack mentioned, closing in the shelves will help drastically from a "visual clutter" perspective. I've already thought about closing in the shelves in my garage.

In regards to the insulation, I had sheet rocked walls and no insulation when we purchased the place and ended up ripping everything out to run electrical and insulation. It was probably the best decision I made as I can heat the garage with the space heater in half an hour to t shirt temps.
Shelving and cabinets vertically really help too. A lot of my storage is open and after an evening of cutting marble for a backsplash everything was covered in dust. Enclosed is better.
Look forward to more updates and hope the accident wasn't too bad.