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The R&D Department

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kensbey

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Hi Awesome People.

After years of lurking, drooling and dreaming, We have finally bought a house with a garage space worthy of a thread on this fantastic site. The house is a double story brick in Qld Australia. Upstairs is the living spaces and bedrooms, downstairs has a rumpus room, second bathroom and slightly over sized double garage.

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The space has to be multi functional: I need to fit an electronics bench, computer desk, milling machine, cnc router,storage for all my half finished projects and still have space to get the car in to work on.It's about 6m wide and 7m deep, but some of the extra depth is taken up by the bathroom and (currently) the laundry. Our current plan is to erect a carport for the cars to live under day to day, and to relocate the laundry to the rumpus room.

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The previous owners used the garage as an additional living space, covering the floor in carpet tiles. Underneath the carpet the concrete was once painted with an orange paint. this has peeled in various locations and also comes off when you try to remove the carpet. I'm not sure what to do with the floor yet, but it will probably get a coat of epoxy or another concrete paint once i get the carpet all up.

As for right now, the space is completely full of my junk from moving. More pics to come when its a bit cleaner.

Kensbey.
 
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Bib Overalls

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I see a lot of potential in that space. It looks to be in good shape although the floor, as you mentioned, need a bit of TLC. Looking forward to seeing updates.
 
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55cadillacking

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Cool. All that brick on the interior gives it a very established look. Not sure how much $$$ a floor such as Racedeck would run down there, but it may be worth looking into. Best of luck.
 
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larry_g

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oregon
Nice looking space. When I saw the title I thought of my place, and the immediate thought was R&D was rust and dirt. I like your place better. Have you thought to put the electronics bench in the rumpus room? Maybe even the machine shop?

lg
no neat sig ine
 
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jbmatth

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I like the idea 55cadillacing mentioned about the race deck, depending on your working style. If you go epoxy you will probably have to grind off all of that old paint or your epoxy will also have peeling issues. Best of luck to you on this build.
 
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kensbey

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Hi guys, thanks for all the input!

I have never seen racedeck in person, so I'm a little unconfident to buy a whole lot and have it shipped over from the states. I couldn't find a local reseller with a bit of searching but maybe another Aussie on here knows somewhere I don't?

Once I get all the rubbish sorted I am going to see how hard the paint is to remove. There are a couple of brands of concrete paint sold locally here (Berger jet dry comes to mind) that have a decent reputation. Not as tough as epoxy but you can recoat if you have to.

I did consider putting some of the workspace in the rumpus room, but I want to try and fit it all in the man cave first. I like the idea of having it all together. We live in a really safe area so I have no issues with parking the cars under a carport to free up some workspace.

More updates soon,

Kensbey.
 
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kensbey

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Ok Guys. Times up, let's do this.

We've been living in the house for over a year now, and its time to mix things up a little. I have been using the double garage as my workshop, but without making a lot of changes. I won't post any pics now, as its a huge mess. As we all do at some point, I have run out of space. Parking the cars outside all the time has also gotten old; the garage needs to become a garage again.

This means that I have gotten to the point that most Australian men get to at some point in their life: It's time to build a shed.

Council approval went through this week, so I decided it was time for an update on this thread. The shed is 6 x 8m, which is around 20 x 26ft for those of you unfortunate enough to be stuck without the metric system :p . 6x9m would be a little nicer, but I have a pesky sewer line in the back yard that I have to be clear of.

So the basic plan is that the garage will get cleaned up, a new floor and some new storage, and the man-cave is moving into the shed. Some basic views:

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An obligatory before shot following some basic clearing work today:

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Slab goes down on Friday. Yes yes yes woohoo
 
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kensbey

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Hi All,

Some more shed details.

Flooring: I have pretty much decided on doing epoxy flake. The wife want's it in the main garage, and I get a pretty good deal if I get the shed done at the same time. I really like the look of flake too.

Walls: This is where I need some input guys. I want to insulate and sheet the inside of the shed. Partially to help keep the electronics area clean, and also to limit the noise radiated from the cnc mill and other tools. I am not super fussed on doing a stud frame and plaster, as I fell like plaster is going to get damaged pretty quick.
I was toying with the idea of screwing plywood straight to the shed's C sections with wall insulation between the metal shed exterior and the plywood. Has anyone tried this?

Kensbey
 
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kensbey

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Slab was supposed to be down today, but the weather decided otherwise :(
Hopefully next week will be less rain and they can get started.

In the meantime, I have been playing with sketchup to try out some layouts and see how i will arrange things. Normally I prefer to work in solidworks and autoCAD, but I don't mind sketchup for quick things. The massive online library of models integrated into sketchup makes it super fast to see how things fit. There was even a perfect scale model of my e36!

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The slab is being made thick and strong enough to support a two post lift if i decide in the future, but that's not in the budget at the moment.
 
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kensbey

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Ground = Broken

Hi All,

So I finally have some progress to share. Yesterday they did the site prep. Weather just held it together enough today for them to get the slab in.
Photos of the progress:

Tree Removal:
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Filled and level:
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prepwork done:
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pumping in some delicious 32mpa concrete:
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Full and ready for finishing.
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Finished:
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now it just needs a shed on it!
 
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kensbey

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Kensbey, Now that is one nice shed, well done.
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Thanks mate! I am fantastically happy with the way it has come out. I am very glad I let the wife choose the colors... looks better and better every time I see it!

Looks bigger than the drawings. Interested in seeing how you finish it out and then follow some of your projects.
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I agree. Especially the height. Epoxy flooring goes down next week, and then I need to work out what to insulate and sheet it with!

:D :D :D
 
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Pwaley

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Brisbane looks beautiful, love the tropics. Oh yeah the garage looks nice too!
 
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kensbey

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kensbey

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TRS63 said:
I like a lot your new floor :rocker:

Antoine
Click to expand...

Thanks Antoine!

How is Stuttgart? Should be lovely and warm at the moment! My wife and I lived in Munich a few years ago... I still miss the food and the beer!

kensbey
 
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kensbey

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1/2 Cup said:
Kensbey, now you are really doing my head in over what to do with mine...

Looks great.:thumbup:

Regards
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So far I am over the moon with it. I will report back more when I have given it some abuse and seen how it holds up.
 
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kensbey

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After a week of waiting for the floor to all set properly, we can finally park the cars in the garage. With the floor so new and perfect you notice all the dirt on the cars a lot more. Looks like they will be getting baths tomorrow.

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With two full size cars it would be pretty tight. Lucky wifey's yaris is so small.

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I also installed some automatic openers on the roller doors so we can drive straight in. After parking outside for years, it feels like a luxury to be able to drive straight inside haha.

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It is illegal to do your own electrical work in Australia. Lucky my old man is a qualified electrician, and loves to help out. We installed the two points for the roller doors today, and did some work in the main house switchboard in preparation for running supply to the shed. We will be running 10mm^2 to the shed, which will give about 50A at 240v to play with. Should be more than enough for what I have in mind. Any more would required a major upgrade of the main board and feed from the street, which isn't in the budget at the moment.

-kensbey
 
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kensbey

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kensbey, looking great.

You are lucky that your dad is a sparky, great work on the electrics.
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Yes I am. I am blessed with great parents who are always keen to be involved and help out with projects.

On another note, I started reading through your Shed Downunder thread... but at over 200 pages its going to take a while!!

Your electrical outlet looks quite frightened!

jk Aussie outlets look rather unique to my American eyes.
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Haha yes. Although I always thought that the U.S. outlets looked shocked and appalled. :yikes:
 
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1/2 Cup

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kensbey said:
Yes I am. I am blessed with great parents who are always keen to be involved and help out with projects.

On another note, I started reading through your Shed Downunder thread... but at over 200 pages its going to take a while!!



Haha yes. Although I always thought that the U.S. outlets looked shocked and appalled. :yikes:
Click to expand...

kensby, I trust you enjoy the read.:thumbup:
 
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kensbey

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Hi All,

A few updates: I got all of my downpipes for the shed routed. This was the last thing required by the building inspector before he would do the final sign off on the construction. There was already a downpipe coming off the deck, so we just joined the shed drains into that. Also included a leaf catcher to prevent the system clogging up where all the pipes join.

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While I have been itching to get stuck into fitting out the workshop, I have decided to get the garage area finished first. This will keep my lovely wife happy, and I always prefer to finish individual jobs off as soon as possible rather than having a bunch of projects on the go at once.

So this is the plan from the back of the garage. This space has to include a laundry area, and as much storage as possible. We spent a long time comparing all the options for DIY built in cabinets and ended up going with the IKEA stuff. The price was the best and wifey liked the styling.

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First stage of flat pack assembly:

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kensbey

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octane_matty said:
Interested to hear your thoughts on the ikea construction kensbey as I have a very similar configuration of cabinets I'm yet to install
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No issues at all so far. Will post more feedback as it comes together. I like the online planner for IKEA, and they do a pretty good job of keeping it up to date with the latest prices etc. Only issue was that IKEA had zero options for good laundry tubs. None of them were big/deep enough. So we ended up sourcing the tub itself from Bunnings.
 
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Giddyup

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Kensbey, the floor treatment is cool. The shed and the car spaces look awesome. Keep up the good work. :thumbup::thumbup:
I am keen to see some output from the CNC machines... :drool:
 
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TRS63

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Stuttgart, Germany
Great update, looking forward to see with the furnitures installed!

kensbey said:
Thanks Antoine!

How is Stuttgart? Should be lovely and warm at the moment! My wife and I lived in Munich a few years ago... I still miss the food and the beer!

kensbey
Click to expand...

Well, sadly this summer isn't so warm but we can't complain that much and I really love this city! Now it's summer holidays here and it's a great period to enjoy the biergarten:beer:

Antoine
 
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snapsimo

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The R&D Department

Hi @kensbey, I to have just purchased a house with a workshop finally after needing one for many years.

Mines about 9x9m and double storey with a mezzanine floor. We moved in just before Christmas and the heat in the shed made it unusable. Something had to be done.

I ended up insulating with Foilboard 25mm. It comes in 2440x1200 sheets that can be lifted by one person with one hand. I just screwed it to the shed purlins and the clad it in 12mm ply, walls only. The roof it just Foilboard. The difference is amazing. It's cool/warm and quiet. An added benefit is it reflect the light so the shed is brighter.

Best thing I have done to my shed yet apart from my compressor dryer

Who did you get to do your floor? That's the next thing for me.

ACQ Eastside Massive!!! Proud former ACV member[emoji3]

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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