Garage in the not so deep south

[BAGN1T]

Here is a copy of my first post in my intro thread.

Hey everybody. Looking around here has been a new addiction for me. Hopefully I'll be able to get a lot of sweet ideas and motivation to take my little garage and turn it into something more useable. Here are some photos from before I moved in (still has the previous owner's stuff in it)...

Now its filled with a bunch of junk. I think step one is going to have to be getting a shed so I can move everything out and paint and finish up some drywall work.

The floor was sagging above the garage, so I had to have a large beam installed...I need to finish up drywall work and stuff from that...

These are the most recent photos I have. I had to take a shelf down for the beam installation. This was right after I was able to do a little bit of drywall work and put that shelf back up (its right above the toolbox in the first photo). I had the toolbox under the stairs before. I moved it to under that shelf because there is a lot better lighting over there.

That little bit created a lot more room to get around in there with the two bikes.

You may be wondering about the big wood things wedging the man door closed. Those are stands for my bike. I'm currently using them to keep that door closed because I installed stupid door handles that still turn from the inside even when they're locked. So about a month or so after I moved in, I locked myself out of the house. I hadn't hidden a key yet and the closest spare was about an hour away. It was about 12 degress out and I was in a hoodie. So I had to kick that door in. I have another door to replace it. I just haven't gotten a chance to do it with other projects around the house plus the fact that I have too much stuff to try to leave a path open to get to that door.

I'm planning to build a workbench and storage along the wall in the left of that last picture where the desk is. I'm hoping to build some sort of storage underneath the stairs and some more work space between the man door and the garage door. There is little foam "insulation" on the ceiling and the outside wall there. That is all going to have to come down. It is glued on, so there will be quite a bit of drywall repair to make the paint look ok. Then I will probably spray insulation in the ceiling. I'm hoping to put a compressor in the shed and run a line into the garage and have a couple of hook ups for it.

Thats all I can think of for right now. Its going to be a lot of work. But hopefully worth it in the long run.

Here was my original plan for the garage...haven't strayed too far from it...

 

[BAGN1T]

Well….after 6 years, I finally got to build my workbench. It isn’t 100% done…but it is darn close. Worked on it in the evenings this past week and Sunday. Started with this:

Where the work bench will go

Piles of wood

My first step was to go through and cut all the wood. I’m in a duplex and didn’t want to be running a saw late into the night to disturb the neighbors (I can’t wait to get into my own house in the middle of nowhere). Here is all the wood cut

Made some sawdust

Did all of this with a partially torn tape (it ended up finally breaking all the way off on Sunday…it almost made it the whole project)

Dogs in the way…as usual

Built half of it first…on the ground…piece by piece

Drawbacks of cheap lumber and cheap tools to make cuts…had to use some highly specialized tools

After the end of evening 1

Then I did the two other bench tops and shelf frames on top of the first frame and added the legs at the end. Then screwed it all together

Had to wait a few days to borrow a circular saw to cut the plywood as mine is packed away…somewhere. I got all of the plywood cut and installed on Sunday. I also built a fold down workbench for the shed. Unfortunately, it got dark before I was able to snag a photo of it. I was able to get all of the hardware on the doors and the eyes for the handles.

Turns out the floor isn’t perfectly flat, so when I opened the doors, they hit the floor…so I made an adjustment so it wouldn’t hit the floor and it was hitting the other door…so I need to do some trimming there but it is done enough now to go ahead and post this. I also picked up some Wall Control pegboard kits and put them up. Going to place an order for 8 more panels sometime in the next month or so and run it all the way along that block wall. PS-I hate drilling into concrete...just have my regular drill. Got it done anyway.

There aren't any outlets on that wall yet so I got one of those adapters where you can put an outlet between your light socket and the bulb and screwed a power strip to the ceiling because the cord for the shop lights isn't long enough to make it to the light that is already there. So I have a few light duty outlets in the ceiling for now. Will run some regular outlets at some point in the future just above the bench.

 

[BAGN1T]

I also finally got a new man door installed last night!

After that was done, I went ahead and bolted my lil vise to the bench so I'll be able to work on getting the door handles done.

 

[gilr]

Great start on your garage. I'll make a suggestion that has saved me many times from being locked out. Get a Schlage push-button electronic lock and you never have to worry about the stupid key again. I have them on every outside door and on the door from my garage and have never regretted it. These are not the ones that have wireless or internet access as they are not yet secure enough to suit me. These can hold multiple access codes and you can add one for a service person and then delete it, which is handy. The last one I bought was around $130 at Lowe's or Home Depot. A lot cheaper than kicking in a door!

 

[BAGN1T]

I've been thinking about replacing the knobs with ones that don't stay locked when you open them from the inside. Maybe putting one of the ones with the key pad wouldn't be a bad idea...but I just dropped a bunch on a new door...so something like that may just have to wait unfortunately...maybe if I get a promotion or something soon...we'll see. I have some lock boxes from my past life as a REALTOR...thinking about just using one of those (for now at least). I appreciate the tip!

 

[aleccolin]

Hooray for having a shed to put all the non-garage ****! And functional doors! Pretty awesome progress bro, that bench is bomb proof and it's going to look sweet af when it's done, but for now you've got some nice usable workspace which is half the battle. Just don't be like me and let your bench get cluttered in ******** so you wind up using a trash can with a piece of plywood on top as your primary worktop.

 

[BAGN1T]

lol that is going to be my primary goal...keeping the garage tidy so I can continue to use it properly. Looks like the rest of the pegboard is going to be around Christmas...that leaves some funds available to go ahead and get my cart here in the next week or so. I'm really excited haha. Looking forward to being able to roll all my tools out to the driveway nice and easily without having to walk all the way back in whenever I forget something.

 

[C_F]

You may be wondering about the big wood things wedging the man door closed. Those are stands for my bike.

Could you show a pic of those stands in action?

Nice progress on your garage, looking forward to more updates.

 

[aleccolin]

Looking forward to being able to roll all my tools out to the driveway nice and easily without having to walk all the way back in whenever I forget something.

That...sounds amazing. *Googling for tool carts intensifies*

The way you're doing that with your bench is making me re-think how I was planning to use that elevator door. Need to find some time to do a little work in Sketchup.

 

[BAGN1T]

Could you show a pic of those stands in action?

Nice progress on your garage, looking forward to more updates.

Thanks!

I actually do have some photos...even though I built those things a quite a few years ago...Here ya go:

They've spent the last 6 years blocking that door up...now they're down and I can use them again...but I really wanna get a lift now haha

 

[BAGN1T]

That...sounds amazing. *Googling for tool carts intensifies*

The way you're doing that with your bench is making me re-think how I was planning to use that elevator door. Need to find some time to do a little work in Sketchup.

http://garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137365

Have fun! I did. haha

I'm planning on darn near duplicating this one: http://garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2843055&postcount=308

 

[C_F]

Thanks for the pics of your bike stands, they look like they work great! Nice & stout, too.

 

[BAGN1T]

You're welcome...yeah...they were pretty inexpensive and got the job done...kept the bike up in the air for long term projects when I didn't want to risk leaving it on the jack...and it also allowed me to pull the jack out from under it to make engine degreasing a little easier without mucking up the jack.