Between 265 & 485 SQ/FT Colin's Small Suburban Double 17'x19'x8'

[Colin Len]

2025 UPDATE:

6/3/25: Kinda let this thread die over the past handful of years as plans stalled and life got in the way. Also, I used to host my photos on Flickr but not doing that anymore so all my photos in this thread are gone

But, starting to get some more traction on forward progress and figured I should start making some updates again.

New updates start here: https://www.garagejournal.com/forum...an-double-17x19x8.346824/page-3#post-11204441













ORIGINAL POST from 2016:

I've been wanting to start a garage thread for a while but have been dragging my feet. So... I'm just gonna dive in and get something posted and build from there. A little about me: I grew up in a motorsports-centric family and caught that bug as soon as I got my license. My dad was also pretty handy around the house and is a jeweler by trade so I grew up working with him in his shop. As a result of this I love working on projects, building things, fixing things... just general tinkering. I also have a bad habit of starting more projects than I have time/money to finish and/or trying to work on too many things at once.

About 6yrs ago I got my first garage - a small single car that came with my rented apartment. I didn't want the limits of a small garage to limit my ability to build and maintain my track car (1992 Acura Integra GS-R) so I did some minor improvements (mainly stuff that was cheap/free). Here's a before/after.



Added a fold down bench with vise, some cabinets and got as much storage up off the ground as possible. Also doubled the storage of my black HF tool cart.





It was crammed but I managed to do an engine swap in my car, including a full overhaul of the engine bay from the firewall forward. Even setup a makeshift paint booth to paint some parts.









I was there for about 3yrs. Then 2.5yrs ago I was finally able to buy my first house in a nearby suburb. Buying home had been a lifelong goal of mine and took nearly 10yrs of saving to make it a reality. The house was built in 1942 and is/was a fixer - but it has a [very small] 2 car garage, which for me was like a mansion compared to what I had been dealing with. Albeit, a mansion I have quickly outgrown But regardless, finally getting my own house and garage was a dream come true. As many others have, I underestimated the costs, hassle, and time involved in being a homeowner (or at least one who doesn't have much $$) but I still couldn't be happier that I finally have my own place.



Happy 1st time homeowner!



And the most important part - the garage!



The first thing I brought to the new house was my track car



Being that the house is a fixer I've spent more time in the past 2.5yrs working on the house than on/in the garage. So be prepared for a lot of "house" content to at least catch us up to right now. And at some point I hope I can stop working on the house and start working in the garage more and specifically on my car. To give you a little teaser... here's what is probably my favorite thing I've done to the house/garage up until this point - probably because it looks like it cost a lot, but didn't actually drain my wallet much.



I've got tons of pictures I've taken over the past couple of years so I'll start making some more updates as soon as I find the time.

 

[eoncloud]

Dude i feel your pain on the rented one car garage im currently living that life. Love the clean GSR and thats an awesome garage door lol.

 

[Colin Len]

Dude i feel your pain on the rented one car garage im currently living that life. Love the clean GSR and thats an awesome garage door lol.

Thanks! It was a big improvement from nothing, but man was it crammed! I was just looking at your benches in the workbench thread - great work on those, I particularly love the fold down welding table.

 

[eoncloud]

thanks, it weighs a metric f**k ton but it is SOOO convenient.

 

[HSpencer]

Congratulations on the home purchase!

That is a very nice looking home and I love the garage. I am sure you will have it looking very good as you move tools and parts in as you want them. Everything is looking great!! Keep us posted on your improvements both home and garage.

Best Regards
Herb

 

[Colin Len]

^Thanks!

The first things we did to the house was to go through the interior and refinish the walls, fresh paint, new light fixtures, new outlets/switches, new HVAC registers...etc.

Living/Dining Before




Living/Dining After
Untitled by Colin, on Flickr






My neighbor is a painter and helped paint our built in cabinets. I then added some new pulls/handles and refinished all of the original hinges. I'm not a huge fan of all the scroll work on this built in, it's not our style. But I do kinda like keeping some original things from the house. Plus I didn't want to put more money into it. He also refinished andpainted all of my doors for me and I replaced all locks and hinges.



Bedroom Before



Bedroom after (but before I got some artwork up and found a replacement fan)



The bathroom was a nightmare. Paint began to peel, and peel and it was a mess trying to refinish these walls. In addition to paint I refinished the fiberglass shower/tub, added a new shower door, new lights, new fan/heater, new toilet, and a new medicine cabinet.





Unfortunately the only "after" pic I have.



That's all I've got for now. More updates to come.

 

[Colin Len]

Alrighty, lets get some garage content in here! This is what the garage looked like when I bought it (but before the previous tenant moved his stuff out).










It had been VERY roughly finished at some point. The drywall is all 1/4" and wasn't finished very well, they just barely covered up the seams and nail heads. Eventually I want to rip it all down, redo all of the electrical, insulate and then hang some heavier weight drywall or possibly OSB.

There were some cool aspects to this old garage though too. One was an old bench that someone had built at some point. And the previous owner didn't know what he had so he left a 3" Wilton Bullet attached to the bench - woohoo! It's a bit tiny and could use some cleaning and a fresh coat of paint, but overall it's in good condition. I'd love to get a matching 4" as I think that'd be a bit more useful for me.





The first thing I needed to do in the garage was clean it up - the previous owner left a ton of **** up in the rafters. Plus, he'd rigged up some bench tops made from commercial corner desk tops and this configuration wasn't very suitable for me.



High school yearbooks and dental molds



There was definitely a rat problem at some point





I had some leftover paint from the inside of the house so I decided to paint the old workbench. I also redid the wiring so that the outlet, switch and fluorescent light worked again. I added some new hardware too but I don't have any pics of that. I also painted the bench on the opposing wall and changed that hardware as well.



At this point I needed some more storage. I did some craigslisting and found a handful of cheap/free stuff. The cabinet and shelf got a fresh coat of paint.





Then I found some more storage...



And I received an HF 44" box from my mother and decided to build it into one of the workbenches.





A bit messy in these pics but eventually I got things a bit more organized, things hung on the wall, all tools had a "home" somewhere instead of just being strewn about...etc. Up until this point I hadn't really put any money into the garage. Everything was cheap/free on Craigslist or simply stuff I had laying around and was able to repurpose. I figured this was a great Phase 1 - garage was organized and usable although lacking lots of improvements I would someday want to do when the time and wallet allowed. Basically the house was the priority in terms of my time/money and the garage would have to play second fiddle.

 

[Colin Len]

Then came time to put a new roof on the house and garage. And with that came some structural changes too. The previous owner had build some overhead "attic" storage in the garage and due to this (and probably some other factors) the roof of the garage was sagging. The ridge was bowed with a low spot in the middle. You can see this in the pics in my first post. The curve is exaggerated a little from the lens but not much.

Unfortunately I don't have any "in progress" pics, but basically I tore down that old storage and hired some guys to come in and shore up the roof. They added a 4x14" paralam beam and then used that to brace the roof. I guess they needed to jack the ridge up nearly 2" in the center and each side of the roof also needed to be jacked up 1-2" in the center so it was flat again instead of concave. I'm not terribly happy with how it turned out because it looks ****** but it is what it is. I didn't have the money and didn't want to deal with the permit needed to do what I really wanted which was to replace the ridge board with a beam and end up with a vaulted ceiling. Instead, the paralam sits on the top plate. At least the roof looks better now.



Long term I'd like to finish the ceiling. I could do a flat ceiling but I don't really want to lose all of that space. I think I can remove or change some of the bracing that was put in place and create some storage up there. Shelves off the beam or something like that. Or maybe do something like a partially flat ceiling with some open areas to allow access up there to store things. If I stay here long enough I may want to get a lift, perhaps a MaxJax so keeping part of the ceiling open could be useful. As is now I think I could almost get MaxJax to full height with my Integra even with the beam there. The lift may be a pipe dream though, especially a maxjax since it's such a small space and I'm not sure if I want to deal with having the posts in place, moving them or having to store them somewhere. Ideally I'd go with an in-floor scissor lift but then we're talking $$ and that's probably not the wisest use of money in my situation. A guy can dream though.

 

[53PontiacSD]

Nice job on the garage Colin. Goes to show you don't have to dump a bunch to have something functional. Keep up the good work. Billy

 

[morshane]

Nice place !! And awesome work on your house ! !

 

[SnowB0und]

Looks great reminds me of my house when we first got it. The same thing happened to me with the vise, previous owner left the same vise on an old work bench.

 

[Colin Len]

Thanks everyone! Hopefully I can find some time for another photo-update pretty soon

 

[Colin Len]

The biggest transformation so far has been my cabinets. What you see in the previous pics of the built in tool box was what I thought to be a "finished" setup. Well, by that I meant finished until I could save enough to do a "full" garage remodel (insulation, new electrical, new cabinets/storage, plumb water and a sink, flooring, maybe a lift...etc) which I expected to be at least 3-5yrs down the road.

That changed when I saw an ad on craigslist for some vintage metal kitchen cabinets. The seller put the ad up for just the upper cabinets but his photos showed a lot of lower cabinets as well. He was afraid that his demo guys would damage the lowers when they removed the counter tops. And since he wasn't using them he didn't want to pay them extra to take their time. He was asking $350 for the uppers + one full height cabinet but was willing to sell ALL for $450. Needless to say, I did everything I could to make that deal happen! Overall I ended up with around 20' of uppers and 12' of lowers. They definitely weren't "kitchen" grade anymore as they were a little beat up and had flaws here and there. But for a working garage, like mine, they were PERFECT.

Here's a pic of the upper cabinets after I cleaned them (some were pretty darn filthy with laundry room and kitchen (oven/hood) type grease and dirt).



This pic is the full height cabinet plus the lowers and maybe a couple uppers in there as well.



I kept seeing guys with digital designs and wanted to give it a try myself. I actually know how to use AutoCAD and work for a company that does as-built plans - so this should be easy. The problem is I don't have AutoCAD - except on extra computers at work. So I figured I'd try my hand with Sketchup. I'd tried year ago and was too frustrated to continue. It's extremely un-intuitive if you're using to the way AutoCAD works. I spent some time watching youtube videos and eventually was able to figure it out enough to try out some different configurations. Here's my last design, I made some other changes so the end result isn't exactly like this, but pretty close.



I'll update some more when I get a chance.

 

[Cris B]

Great score on those kitchen cabinets!

 

[Colin Len]

Great score on those kitchen cabinets!

Thanks! I was pretty excited to find them. As much as I really hadn't planned to tackle any kind of garage refresh it was definitely the right choice to jump on the deal.

If you continue to follow this thread it'll eventually become evident that I have a hard time keeping things simple and instead drift towards making projects more than they need to be. And in standard form this cabinet project was no different. My original intention was to remove the old stuff and install the new stuff and add a bench top - that's it, but at each step of the process I started adding more items to the to-do list.

One of the worst parts of any project like this is the clutter and disorder. I live on a small property so there's only so much room for stuff when you need to clear out a room or area for work.



Took down some of the other cabinetry and tore into the wall so that I could clean up some the sloppy electrical.



Next I started laying out the upper cabinets and used a 2x4 lagged to the wall to help make this a 1 man job.



Untitled by Colin,


After the uppers were mounted I mocked up the lowers to see what it would look like and how they would fit. This entire time I was also obsessing over bench top depth, whether I should level the bench, and whether or not I should shim them up to match the height of the sill plate.



All cleaned up



In September my girlfriend and I went down to San Diego to visit my mom and step dad who was racing at the Coronado Speed Festival. He was originally set to race a Speedster but during practice they blew a diff. The owner then called to have one of his 911's brought out instead. So my step dad ended up racing the white/green 911 pictured here.



I had been scouring craigslist for weeks looking for a bench top for my new cabinets and I just happened upon the deal I was looking for while we were down in SD. A very nice young couple was getting rid of five (60"x30") Ikea butcher block tables with legs that had casters on them for $100. They were very new and in good condition other than the fact that they'd never been oiled so a couple were starting to split. This wasn't a problem since I only needed a total of about 12 linear feet.



Again, wasn't originally planning to fix drywall and add outlets but it happened. The drywall that was in here is only 1/4" and wasn't finished well - basically just taped seams and a thin sprayed coat of primer.





I found out about www.cheappegboard.com here on Garage Journal and ended up splurging.



To finish the drywall as cheaply and easily as I knew how I did some sanding on the mudd I had applied and then thinned some mud and used a nap roller to roll the mud onto the wall. Poor man's texture. Then I rolled on some primer I had and finished with a coat of semi-gloss (or eggshell?) white paint that I also had laying around leftover from a house project.



To finish the bench top I used a 1:1:1 ratio of boiled linseed oil, polyurethane, and mineral spirits. I put on at least a few coats and didn't do any sanding or anything - just brush it on, let it soak in, and then wipe excess off and repeat when dry.



Basically all done

 

[hoho98925]

Love the blue cabinets

 

[jhn9840]

Big difference. A little elbow grease and it looks fantastic .

jhn9840
John

 

[racestatus]

those cabinets and top turned out damn nice. I love it also I love the integra. just sold my ITR track car this past year

 

[uberschall]

Man, those cabinets were a score. How did you mount the butcher block? Looks like there's plywood between the base cabinet and the top.

 

[Colin Len]

Love the blue cabinets

Big difference. A little elbow grease and it looks fantastic .

jhn9840
John

Thanks guys!

those cabinets and top turned out damn nice. I love it also I love the integra. just sold my ITR track car this past year

Thank you. What prompted the selling of your ITR? I've been hooked on these 2nd gen Integra for almost 20yrs now. It's getting harder and hard to justify, especially now that I'm a homeowner with fewer funds for automotive expenses. This particular Integra I own now has been progressively moving from a weekend canyon cruiser to "street legal" track car. Now that I don't have time to take it to the track I've been feeling I wish it was a bit more street friendly so I could drive it more. Previously I didn't really care about that because all I cared about was lap times and improving my skills.

About 2yrs ago I took the car to a BBQ with some car friends and on the way there I was hit by an SUV. Luckily I was able to keep the title clean as that was my primary worry - it's a GS-R model which is getting rare so the value of the car is tied to that a bit. A year after the accident I finally got it to the body shop and it's been there for 10 months now. I have purposefully not been pushing the guy to finish because I wanted the car off the property so I could do some stuff to the house without it being in the way. So I'm looking at it as nearly a year of free storage Now that those house projects are wrapped up I'm trying to get it done and back within a couple weeks.

Here's a pic from Buttonwillow back in 2012



And a more recent pic from the body shop. It ended up being more of a project than just the collision repair and a full respray. At some point I'll post the whole project in this thread.

Man, those cabinets were a score. How did you mount the butcher block? Looks like there's plywood between the base cabinet and the top.

I waffled on this a bit deciding what to do and then after asking for help here decided to try to do it "right" even if it was a bit more complicated. I knew I wanted a plywood underlayment so that the top was thicker (and also higher). After asking here I found that there could be problems if I just glued/screwed the whole thing together. The butcher block apparently needs room to expand/contract and needs some air space as well.

I laid down a layer of 7/16" plywood over the cabinets. Then cut up some 1/4" ply to make some shims or furring strips if you will. And then the butcher block went on top of that. The way the top is screwed on is in a "floating" configuration so that the wood can expand/contract a little as needed. Here is the plywood with strips on top. The strips are glued to the first layer of plywood.



Here you can see the large holes I drilled through the plywood, this is what allows the counter to "float". I used screws up through the top of the cabinets, thru these holes and then into the butcher block. It was a bit of a PITA to do it this way but hopefully it means the butcher block will have a longer lifespan.



I don't have pics, but I later on added some quarter round molding under the counter to cover up the gap between the counter and underlayment. You can still see a little of the plywood because I couldn't find large enough quarter round. But it's not too noticeable and isn't a big enough of an issue to dedicate more time to considering all the other stuff I'd like to do.

 

[Grumblebum]

Great start to your thread mate, those blue cabinets look great.

Cheers GB.

 

[uberschall]

Cool, I suspected it was a "floating" mechanism but wanted to be sure. Thanks for clarifying and nice work.

 

[widerberg]

Looks awesome. I love the blue cabinets and the fact that they were a Craigslist score. Always fun to see old cabinets repurposed for the garage.

 

[Cris B]

The cabinets maketh the garage. Looks great!

 

[53PontiacSD]

I too love the blue cabinets. Gives a new twist from the normal gray, black and red. Nice score.

 

[jgschroeder99]

Nice!

 

[APEowner]

The shop look great!

 

[HSpencer]

Great Work!!!

So where is the beautiful Wilton Bullet Vise from page one? I have yet to see it on the fantastic new bench.

Again, great job!

Best Regards
Herb

 

[Colin Len]

Looks awesome. I love the blue cabinets and the fact that they were a Craigslist score. Always fun to see old cabinets repurposed for the garage.

The cabinets maketh the garage. Looks great!

I too love the blue cabinets. Gives a new twist from the normal gray, black and red. Nice score.

Nice!

The shop look great!

Thanks for the kind words everyone

Great Work!!!

So where is the beautiful Wilton Bullet Vise from page one? I have yet to see it on the fantastic new bench.

Again, great job!

Best Regards
Herb

I've been lagging on installing a vise, mainly because I'm a bit uncertain of which to install. I love the vintage Wilton but it's really small and doesn't have pipe jaws. I also have a cheapie Craftsman that has a larger jaw and pipe jaws as well (although definitely a more flimsy and less precise vise) and that is often more practical than the Wilton. I did think about just having holes for both. Still uncertain, but I'd like to make a decision and get something mounted so I can start using it. I'd also really like to refinish the wilton, just haven't had the time.

 

[racestatus]

Thanks guys!


Thank you. What prompted the selling of your ITR? I've been hooked on these 2nd gen Integra for almost 20yrs now. It's getting harder and hard to justify, especially now that I'm a homeowner with fewer funds for automotive expenses. This particular Integra I own now has been progressively moving from a weekend canyon cruiser to "street legal" track car. Now that I don't have time to take it to the track I've been feeling I wish it was a bit more street friendly so I could drive it more. Previously I didn't really care about that because all I cared about was lap times and improving my skills.

About 2yrs ago I took the car to a BBQ with some car friends and on the way there I was hit by an SUV. Luckily I was able to keep the title clean as that was my primary worry - it's a GS-R model which is getting rare so the value of the car is tied to that a bit. A year after the accident I finally got it to the body shop and it's been there for 10 months now. I have purposefully not been pushing the guy to finish because I wanted the car off the property so I could do some stuff to the house without it being in the way. So I'm looking at it as nearly a year of free storage Now that those house projects are wrapped up I'm trying to get it done and back within a couple weeks.

Here's a pic from Buttonwillow back in 2012



And a more recent pic from the body shop. It ended up being more of a project than just the collision repair and a full respray. At some point I'll post the whole project in this thread.




I waffled on this a bit deciding what to do and then after asking for help here decided to try to do it "right" even if it was a bit more complicated. I knew I wanted a plywood underlayment so that the top was thicker (and also higher). After asking here I found that there could be problems if I just glued/screwed the whole thing together. The butcher block apparently needs room to expand/contract and needs some air space as well.

I laid down a layer of 7/16" plywood over the cabinets. Then cut up some 1/4" ply to make some shims or furring strips if you will. And then the butcher block went on top of that. The way the top is screwed on is in a "floating" configuration so that the wood can expand/contract a little as needed. Here is the plywood with strips on top. The strips are glued to the first layer of plywood.



Here you can see the large holes I drilled through the plywood, this is what allows the counter to "float". I used screws up through the top of the cabinets, thru these holes and then into the butcher block. It was a bit of a PITA to do it this way but hopefully it means the butcher block will have a longer lifespan.



I don't have pics, but I later on added some quarter round molding under the counter to cover up the gap between the counter and underlayment. You can still see a little of the plywood because I couldn't find large enough quarter round. But it's not too noticeable and isn't a big enough of an issue to dedicate more time to considering all the other stuff I'd like to do.

honestly I was just bored of the car. it was always needing way to much money for a car I could only drive on the track now. I missed having a street car and there was way to much money ******* into it. plus also living in ct close to ny all the ricers and knockoff parts guys were taking over everything and I couldn't deal with the scene anymore lol I dunno call it getting older? so I parted the whole car got a ton of money and got one of my child hood dream cars. a foxbody mustang lol

 

[Colin Len]

Spent some time in the garage over the weekend and tackled a few little projects.

First up was to fix a kitchen cart for my girlfriend's boss who owns Long Beach Creamery. They put sheet pans on this cart and the pans hold up buckets of ice cream ingredients.



The front of the cart has started to bow apart and I found it to be nearing an inch wider in the front than in the back.



This lead to the sheet pans fitting poorly and sometimes even falling off of the cart. As a fix I cut a piece of 1" aluminum angle to length and riveted it into place after using a ratchet strap to pull the supports back to square.



Second was to disable the beeping from my 888LM MyQ door opener control. Vintageveloce was kind enough to post his tutorial on this forum so I just copied his idea and removed the speaker.



Last, I installed some trim around the window in my garage. I'd never done anything like this before, the window was installed/finished previously it wasn't conducive to adding trim, and I didn't have a table saw handy so it's [objectively] a pretty poorly done job. But hey, it's a LOT better than it was. Still need to go back see if it needs anymore caulking before putting a coat of paint on.

Before



After

 

[Dirtydan69]

Really nice work! Love the fact you have a Mac in there. Bold move with the white keyboard.

 

[Colin Len]

Really nice work! Love the fact you have a Mac in there. Bold move with the white keyboard.

Thanks Dan! I hadn't planned on having this computer in there, was actually going to setup a PC I got that my work was throwing away. But in the end I decided to move my iMac out of the home office (which is mainly for my girlfriend and her business) and into the garage. I couldn't be happier with that decision. The keyboard got dirty even before it was in the garage, luckily it's easy to clean and I don't care all that much - it's a bit old and it's a tool so I'm fine with it.

 

[Colin Len]

Big day for me yesterday, FINALLY bought my car back home from the body shop. 2yrs ago an SUV backed into my tail light / quarter panel. 1 yr ago I got the car hauled off to the body shop and finally she's back in the garage. Now I just need to find the time to re-assemble.








Before I get started with the reassembly I have a lot of organizing, cleaning and sorting of parts to do and I think that means I need to organize the shed too.

 

[Boosted1]

Nice job on the garage and the car.
Cute dog.

 

[idriveahonda]

Keep working on that car Colin!

I've moved my DA 24 miles in three years. Hate having an ugly car, so I never drive it. Tons of great parts, but just ugly.

Working to get mine in the booth soon, so then at least it is a pretty garage decoration!

 

[Colin Len]

Thanks for the encouragement idriveahonda! That project has been pretty stalled, I was really excited about it a few months back but it seems every time that happens it's short lived. Mainly I have the choice of putting time/money into the car (not getting any of that $$ back from this money pit) or putting that time/money into my house (which is hopefully an appreciating asset). So that's typically an easy decision to make.

Taxes were not kind to me this year so I'm on a more strict budget than expected. As such I won't be building the patio cover I had wanted but still want to focus on our yard/landscaping. I have some pavers I need to install and then I'll be switching gears to do the garage floor (VCT). After that there are a couple smaller house/yard projects but perhaps late summer or fall I should be starting on the car again. At this point I'm thinking I'll be lucky to have it reassembled and on the road by the end of the year

Any pics of your DA? Your screen name is familiar but I'm not sure if I've seen your car.

 

[idriveahonda]

Probably talked a couple times on g2ic or something like that.

No pics, not worth it. Has a great wheel/tire setup on it though (17x9 CCW Classic Race + 225/45/17 Falken Azenis) as well as Fortune Auto 510's and all new bushings. Just need to get some Raxles ordered and it's ready to roll (albeit ugly). Like to get a main hoop, harness bar, and rear x to strut towers done for a small cage.

Such fun, great handling cars.

 

[racestatus]

ah man I love when this thead pops up. I really like the cabinets in this place lol

 

[M-technik-3]

Awesome remodel job look forward to future updates.