Windsong Valley Garage (v1.0)

[rmckee]

Hey there!

Long time lurker with a few random posts here and there. After 20+ years in Boston, fiancé convinced me last year that moving to North Carolina would be good for us. Less snow? Say no more. We closed on a new house on March 24th, went back to Boston to pack up our life, got married on May 31st, and moved our world 700 miles south on June 4th. Heck of a way to kick off a life together!

I felt exceptionally lucky to have a very small (18x17) 2-car garage in our 110 year old Boston house, but despite having plans for big improvements, I never actually made much happen beyond new electrical, some LED ceiling fixtures, and recessed speakers. The old doors were manual sliders which were heavy as heck and only opened one side at a time, and the door height was 6.5' which made it quite difficult to fit most of our cars in... so the garage ended up being a woodworking space and long-term vehicle storage more than anything else.

Our new home is a beautiful 10-year old residence on an acre just outside Raleigh, and came with a 2-car garage as most seem to below the Mason Dixon. We didn't want to be too far out in the country as I travel for work and need an airport semi near by, so we walked a tricky line between finding a good sized lot and not being in no-mans land. It was a non-negotiable requirement to buy a property that surveyed large enough to build a detached garage at what is hopefully a not much later date, but for now I am furnishing the attached one to hold me over!



New House! by 2180miles


I don't have a huge amount of plans laid out for this garage, but will start off with a fire extinguisher, some tool organization, fresh coat of paint, and some additional lighting. For those that might remember my past threads, I have hand made a variety of vintage Coca-Cola and petrol signs which I will hang on the wall. General purpose will be some woodworking, general maintenance for the stable of vehicles, and frequent sampling of cold local IPAs. Eventually it will get turned over to be wife's garage for her daily, and I will relocate to the other side of the property.

Look forward to keeping track of changes, and figuring out what works and what doesn't in a regularly used garage! More pictures to follow.

- Ryan

 

[rmckee]

Since everyone loves photos, here are the ones I took during our initial walk-through when the space was completely empty... needless to say after moving in it has not been empty again, but we're slowly working towards restoring sanity in there.



Rear Wall by 2180miles


Left Wall by 2180miles


Right Wall by 2180miles


Garage Door/Left Wall by 2180miles

 

[Paul_VR6]

One of my favorite smaller airports, good call. Look forward to the build out!

 

[lastgoodusername]

Welcome to NC.

 

[turbowoodworker]

Welcome from "no man's land" outside of Apex.

 

[qwerty18]

following....

 

[rmckee]

One of my favorite smaller airports, good call. Look forward to the build out!

Ditto! I'm a Delta million-miler so I'd be lying if I said KRDU didn't play a role in us ending up in Raleigh instead of Charlotte. 150,000 miles a year, having quick and regular access to ATL/DTW/MSP is great. Plus it's nice to have a quiet place as my home airport. Boston was getting a bit too busy with their expansion plans for it to become a hub.

Welcome to NC.

Thanks! We absolutely love it so far.

Welcome from "no man's land" outside of Apex.

Thank you - from what little I know, it seems like you might be in the last place in the region that hasn't been attacked by expansion and massive movement yet... hold on to that! I'm somewhat proud to say we did not buy a new build just hearing everyones dissatisfaction with all that's popping up around here.

 

[rmckee]

Back in June, just a few days after tying the knot in a 2020/Covid-friendly "micro-wedding", we packed up the Boston house and loaded a 26 foot Penske truck, hooking up a trailer and towing my Wrangler behind me. The drive should NOT have taken the 17 hours that it did, but I struggled the entire way with a faulty transmission. Short story is that it would not downshift on hills (7 speed ******) and would end up dropping from 70mph into the 40s on steep inclines throughout MA and CT without ever shifting down... it would just sit at 1500 RPM and groan as I put hazard lights on and swore like a sailor at it. Thankfully Dani was behind me in our Grand Cherokee and was able to throw on the rear strobe lights to alert traffic from behind that we were practically crawling up these hills.

Alas, we finally arrived and after a quick night of sleep got to work unloading the entire truck into the garage for sorting before carrying things inside. I was selfishly disappointed to see the completely empty garage become full of boxes, but over the next few weeks we slowly managed to empty it out and settle into the house. To date there are still some leftover things in there that need sorting, but it at least gave me a leg up on actually getting some changes done.

I've owned the original US General 42" tool cabinet for years now and it has served me well, but my tool collection has outgrown the drawers. Wife agreed that having the appropriate storage space to unpack my many many "garage" labeled boxes was a good plan, so after some reading I decided I was interested in Home Depot's new Husky HD storage cabinets. There were a bunch of package options available on the website so I did a quick CAD rendering of the garage space in SketchUp to figure out what would fit best.

I ended up picking a 5-piece set with 2 lower cabinets, 2 upper cabinets, and a locker. The rendering I did had 2 extra potential upper cabinets, but for now that won't be what gets installed. Measurements worked perfectly to not cover the recessed nook at the back left corner of the garage, so everything seemed good to go for their arrival. $650 delivered with a 15% off coupon made it an incredibly reasonable deal IMHO, and it'll be easy to expand the set-up later if there's a need to do so!



Storage Rendering - Rear Facing by 2180miles


Storage Rendering - Left Facing by 2180miles


Storage Rendering - Left Closeup by 2180miles

 

[rmckee]

Home Depot took a little longer than expected, but eventually the cabinets showed up with freight delivery. I could've fit them in the back of my truck and saved some delivery cost, but unloading them from the bed without any lift-gate didn't seem fun or smart so delivery it was.

I was initially concerned that the single pallet the last-mile guys dropped off was missing some pieces, but as I took apart the exceptionally thorough packaging, I learned quickly that they don't mess around with how this stuff is shipped. I can only relate it to those old nesting dolls that my grandmother had out at Christmas... the tall locker cabinet had the two base cabinets stacked inside it, each of which had a single wall cabinet inside of it. Everything was wrapped in foam protectant, and each of the cabinets was bolted to the cabinet it rested inside of ensuring no movement during transportation. The locker and floor cabinets required mounting the feet, and I mounted the French cleat for the wall cabinets without issue. Total time from delivery to fully installed might have been 90 minutes while drinking a few beers.

As one would hope, the real life view closely matched my rendering.


Husky HD Welded Cabinets by 2180miles


It took a little patience to not just throw everything inside these, and instead to slowly unpack each of my many "Garage" labeled moving boxes so that everything had a place. This will hold me over for the time being, but I will absolutely need to thoroughly go through everything in the coming weeks to organize a bit more. Half of the tools were in storage before we moved and the other half were in my old garage, so merging the two inventories will take a little extra time.

My first impressions of these Husky HD cabinets are that they are exceptionally well made and worth every single penny. I'd ready many reviews of the NewAge stuff being thinner sheet metal, bent doors being set, and recurring customer service issues. These came fully welded, required zero set-up, and can be continually expanded if I so need or want to. I think to get started in this garage they'll be the perfect storage cabinet system.




Husky HD Welded Cabinets by 2180miles


Husky HD Welded Cabinets by 2180miles

 

[KeaneKong]

Beautiful new place! congrats, my wife and I also had to deal with the CovidWedding stuff... NO FUN! But congrat's I'll be following along from Oklahoma.

 

[quadrcr87]

The garage space looks like a nice clean start. Any plans to build a work bench over the 2 base cabinets?

 

[rmckee]

Beautiful new place! congrats, my wife and I also had to deal with the CovidWedding stuff... NO FUN! But congrat's I'll be following along from Oklahoma.

CovidWeddings were a nightmare to get figured out, but all in all I'm happy it worked out the way it did. We were able to be a part of the entire event and didn't miss a thing! Memorable in a totally different kind of way, as you know!

Thanks for following!

The garage space looks like a nice clean start. Any plans to build a work bench over the 2 base cabinets?

Couldn't agree more - no huge modifications, original contractor white paint everywhere, definitely a good base to start from. I have thought about putting a surface over the lower benches. They sell an aluminum top at Depot specifically for it for $150 or so, but I also debated just making a butcher's block top out of 2x2 stock.

On my list in the... dunno how distant... future, is building a rolling workbench for my miter saw/router table/table saw with the ability to go completely flush on top for projects.

 

[dittle fart around]

I don't mean to hijack your thread. Husky makes a fine cabinet.

My first impressions of these Husky HD cabinets are that they are exceptionally well made and worth every single penny. I'd ready many reviews of the NewAge stuff being thinner sheet metal, bent doors being set, and recurring customer service issues. These came fully welded, required zero set-up, and can be continually expanded if I so need or want to. I think to get started in this garage they'll be the perfect storage cabinet system.



This is from Home Depot description of Huskey model #HTC622020 Heavy Duty 6 piece set; "Rugged 20 gauge steel cabinets come with a Lifetime Warranty" and sells for $2499.99 plus 99.99 for curb side delivery. NewAge ships free of charge to the curb in front of your house.

NewAge makes two styles of cabinets 24 gauge Bold cabinets and 18 gauge Pro cabinets. So Huskey HD is in the middle as far as thickness. I used to get complaints about shipping damage, NewAge has since upgraded it's warehouse and shipping procedures.

A similar set up in Pro sells for $2250. To get the same 2 tool cabinet set would be $2430. Plus free shipping to your home.

 

[rmckee]

I don't mean to hijack your thread. Husky makes a fine cabinet.

Good info! I didn't know that the quality or customer service had changed so that's great news, I'm glad to hear it. Might be something to keep in mind when we build our detached garage and I need to outfit it! The HD prices right now are up a fair amount from when I purchased my set, I paid $549 with a coupon (list was $699 at the time) and the same set is currently $999 so numbers are a bit inflated currently. Free shipping is great but in my experience the cost is always built in somewhere!

Regardless, love the look of the blacked out cabinets and am very happy with the purchase!

 

[rmckee]

Few months late posting this (can't believe it's already nearing the end of January), but I was able to get a ton of work done while my wife was down in Florida with family late last fall. I knocked out about 10 things on her to-do list for me, then settled into the garage to get rid of the dirty white back wall. The previous owner had hung a whole bunch of stuff I'm assuming, as there were 1/2" drilled holes all over the place. I filled them in and let them dry for a few days prior to paint, and after sanding was in good shape to add some visual depth to the garage.


Rack Storage, White Walls by 2180miles


I pushed the Wrangler a few feet forward to give myself more working room in the back, and went to town with some 2" painter's tape just so I didn't have to think too hard when the wall color started going on. We had the interior of the house painted before we moved in, and I was happy to make use of an unopened gallon of Benjamin Moore that was leftover from the project. Technically I guess I paid for it at one point, but this didn't require a run to Home Depot so I felt like it was free.

The 12' ceilings definitely made use of my extension roller attachment. The keen eye will also notice that I removed the overhead storage installation that was in the back left corner of the garage, in part because I fear that place to store things means things will be stored, and also because I hated the look of it up there... regardless of how clean any industrial Tupperware was, it would still just look like junk was hanging out.



Taped Off by 2180miles


Taped Off by 2180miles


First Coat Painted by 2180miles


I think the contrast is nice, and it's a light enough grey that the room didn't seem to shrink in size. Next up is going to be getting some of my vintage petrol signs spaced out and hung up on the back wall. I've made about 4 dozen signs, Dremel carved and hand painted, over the years but have never had space to put them up so it will be nice to finally get them out of bubble-wrap and a storage box.

Back with more updates soon!