ATate028
Well-known member
I don't post much, I mostly just lurk and re-appropriate ideas and get roped into tool collecting (like the vintage SK rabbit-hole I went down). It's been a busy few years, but this year more than the past few. New place, new job and finally able to afford a garage with an attached house. We just closed on our first ever house last month and have been in the process of moving, which is a pain with a full-time job.
We were looking for a place with some land and a detached shop to work on projects, but with prices being as inflated as they are and finances being as tight as they are we compromised. Bigger house, smaller town, middle-ish garage (spoilers: it's already too small, lol). On the plus side, the garage is pretty much a blank slate. It's only a 19x19 "2 car", but at least it's big enough I no longer have to work on my truck outside in a parking lot.
It has one light bulb and three outlets: 1 above the garage door opener and 2 on the back wall. One on the wall is GFCI which is wired to all of the exterior house outlets and the other is a single 20 amp outlet which is now the dedicated fridge/freezer outlet. So, needless to say, there will be infrastructure projects... some of which are currently under way (pun intended - I'm no coward, lol).
The first thing was to add some more lighting. There's nothing worse than trying to work, or even just move around, in a dark garage. I did some looking around and decided I like the idea of the hex lights, but not the price tag so I finger-danced my way over to Amazon and got some of the Barrina T5 4 foot LED lights that have a lot of good reviews.
It turned out very well. I put 6 of them over one bay and will put the other 6 over the second bay when all the Christmas stuff gets an off-season home in the attic. I was vetoed on storing the Christmas decor until after Christmas so we "...wouldn't have to move it twice." So the lights will go up when I have more floor space. I wasn't able to get the lighting up before we started moving so it's a project-in-progress. The only downside with having the one lightbulb is having only one socket and switch. To use the LEDs with the switch I had to use an adapter to plug them into the socket so I could then just flip the switch. I'm not a fan of adapters like that for a permanent situation so that was project number 2 in the garage: add an outlet to the ceiling.
Tangent: I think the light in the garage was either: 1) a complete after-thought; or 2) just the quick way to do it 20 years ago. The garage light is tied into the entire living room circuit. I don't know why, there are plenty of open spaces in the breaker box.
I'm glad I changed it out. The socket fixture was cracked plastic and filled with debris and a few unlucky bugs. 2 hours, 1 sliced thumb, and a GFCI protected lighting outlet, priceless. I went with a 2 gang setup because I figured ¿por qué no los dos? It's only a 15 amp circuit, but it's always nice to have extra outlets... and it's less work than if I decided I want them later on.
Adding more outlets will probably wait until next spring, or until I have enough boredom combined with free time. The next garage project on the list will be organizing the toolbox whenever it decides to show up. I ordered a 42 inch US General box with the side cabinet during the last parking lot sale. Digging through a couple of boxes for tools to do house projects is getting kind of old. I already lost one screwdriver for 3 days.
Less than a month in and home ownership is definitely an adventure.
-Allen
We were looking for a place with some land and a detached shop to work on projects, but with prices being as inflated as they are and finances being as tight as they are we compromised. Bigger house, smaller town, middle-ish garage (spoilers: it's already too small, lol). On the plus side, the garage is pretty much a blank slate. It's only a 19x19 "2 car", but at least it's big enough I no longer have to work on my truck outside in a parking lot.
It has one light bulb and three outlets: 1 above the garage door opener and 2 on the back wall. One on the wall is GFCI which is wired to all of the exterior house outlets and the other is a single 20 amp outlet which is now the dedicated fridge/freezer outlet. So, needless to say, there will be infrastructure projects... some of which are currently under way (pun intended - I'm no coward, lol).
The first thing was to add some more lighting. There's nothing worse than trying to work, or even just move around, in a dark garage. I did some looking around and decided I like the idea of the hex lights, but not the price tag so I finger-danced my way over to Amazon and got some of the Barrina T5 4 foot LED lights that have a lot of good reviews.
It turned out very well. I put 6 of them over one bay and will put the other 6 over the second bay when all the Christmas stuff gets an off-season home in the attic. I was vetoed on storing the Christmas decor until after Christmas so we "...wouldn't have to move it twice." So the lights will go up when I have more floor space. I wasn't able to get the lighting up before we started moving so it's a project-in-progress. The only downside with having the one lightbulb is having only one socket and switch. To use the LEDs with the switch I had to use an adapter to plug them into the socket so I could then just flip the switch. I'm not a fan of adapters like that for a permanent situation so that was project number 2 in the garage: add an outlet to the ceiling.
Tangent: I think the light in the garage was either: 1) a complete after-thought; or 2) just the quick way to do it 20 years ago. The garage light is tied into the entire living room circuit. I don't know why, there are plenty of open spaces in the breaker box.
I'm glad I changed it out. The socket fixture was cracked plastic and filled with debris and a few unlucky bugs. 2 hours, 1 sliced thumb, and a GFCI protected lighting outlet, priceless. I went with a 2 gang setup because I figured ¿por qué no los dos? It's only a 15 amp circuit, but it's always nice to have extra outlets... and it's less work than if I decided I want them later on.
Adding more outlets will probably wait until next spring, or until I have enough boredom combined with free time. The next garage project on the list will be organizing the toolbox whenever it decides to show up. I ordered a 42 inch US General box with the side cabinet during the last parking lot sale. Digging through a couple of boxes for tools to do house projects is getting kind of old. I already lost one screwdriver for 3 days.
Less than a month in and home ownership is definitely an adventure.
-Allen
