Wanted to use all the garage height

At the time I started this little project, I had several motorcycles, a couple of ATV's and a commercial mower.

The garage was a 3 car garage with three individual doors. The ceiling was 13 feet high so it seemed such a shame that all that high space was for nothing.

We had a small shed (8' x 6') on the property and I thought about tearing it down and putting up a larger one but when I looked at that cost, I figured I could buy a 4 post lift and get just as much storage space.

So I bought a Bendpak HD-9??, I had the center door modified to go straight up the front wall.

On the back wall I decided to build a storage platform 23' x 4', 7' off the ground. We had a small stair case going up to the back door, so I modified it and add a staircase to access this storage deck. I used the Bendpak lift as an elevator and positioned it so I could put a couple of motorcycles up on the storage deck.

Here I start to frame the storage deck out




I already have the lift in place.


The deck is complete. I put up posts with some rope for a bit of safety.

Here you can see the original steps, for access to the house, and the steep steps up to the storage.

I made the center post removable, so I could wheel a motorcycle off the car lift onto the storage area.


Looking down from the storage platform, I put platform of plywood 8' x 16' x 1.5" (doubled up the plywood) on the car lift, which effectively gave me an 8' wide smooth deck versus just having the ramps.





Here you can see that I have two full size motorcycles up on my storage platform, a Bimota Db2 and a Ducati 996.


And with all my bikes up top, I still had room to put my Suburban in when it snowed.





You can see the advantage of the ceiling height


I have a boat more pictures of this. This is a link to a slideshow of these pictures.
http://www.mad-ducati.com/SlideShow2.php?mode=Gallery&GalleryId=170

Awesome idea using the lift to get things up to the loft!

And holly cow you have a lot of bikes!

Krikey!! That's quite a "toy-box" you there!!

Very ingenious! Nice collection of bikes, too.

wow great use of space!! It looks well put together and strong.

Yo threw me off there a second cause in some pics you had the lift in furthest right garage door and then you now have it in the middle one. The platform is in the rear of the garage opposite the garage doors. Love the use of space!

With the digital camera, I had at the time, it's wide angle capability was limited, so it was hard to get back far enough, without bumping into a wall, to get a picture that gave you a full perspective of what I had done.

Plus the photo's were taken kin od adhoc as I went along, so there was lots of stiff lying around or just moeved out of the way so i could work on something.

When I moved to Orlando, I could only find a house with a 10' high ceiling. This new 3 car garage had a double door and a single door, so I decided to just use the lift for storage and put it sideways across the double bay.

To utilize the height for storage, along the back wall, I built a set of cabinets, here's my little project,

This is where I started




The cabinets start to go up, these will have a storage platform on top, 4' deep and 4' high.


I leave an area in the third bay that will be my motorcyle work area.
Before The doors are made.


The far end is my motorcycle bay ('76 Hona CB400F in the background).




I start making the cabinet doors


The doors are complete.

Nice job! Looks good. I like all the closed in storage, and the "loft" for stuff

Top job you've done there and some great ideas to use!!!

So much hidden storage room

I really like those cabinets. I think I need to make some myself.

Very nice!

Very nice job. Where/who sells/makes the gray cabinets/drawers you've shown in your pictures?

Awesome use of the space you have.

You've got some carpentry skills that's for sure! Great job of making the most out of your available space.

Looks very good and designed well.