Build Thread: Budget Mid Century Garage #1 Build

Goal: To build a modern, clean, minimal garage area for wrenching/automotive/mechanical work.

House: 1958 MCM ranch, tucked into a wooded lot with an acre of rolling kettle moraine forest. Feels like you're very far up north, but not too far from civilization. This is my first house, so I'm still learning a lot.




Background: Industrial Designer / Budget DIY background, multiple build threads under my belt.

Here's my previous garage build, and a few projects


3800 Sq Ft Warehouse w Loft Apartments
78 Sleekcraft Muscleboat Restoration
95 Audi S6 Restoration
91 Arctic Cat Wildcat 700 Restoration

The lower garage will be my primary workshop until I have time to finish Garage #2. It already has heat and it's close to the house, so it makes sense to do most of the work in here. Planning on a quick, low budget build here to make it usable ASAP. I want to do things cheap, but also pay attention to the aesthetics and try to keep it a bit modern looking. Garage #2 will be more focused on wood working and larger power tools.

Lighting: Luckily for me, the ceiling was prewired with 4 outlets for shop lights. I took a trip to costco and picked up some LED shoplights, $39ish each.



Slab Prep: Slab is original and in poor shape. Had water issues and time and salt have taken their toll. I looked into renting a diamond grinder but have a quote from a guy who will shot blast it, patch it, fill all cracks, then come back with a grinder. I plan to install the epoxy myself. Here's the current condition of the floor:





Solidworks Planning: Thinking about running a wooden french cleat system on the wall. Wider board in center for some neutral gray hooks to hang bikes. RGB LED strips running on the back of the boards to provide some nice accent lighting. Originally I was going to put the bench in the back of the shop, but I plan on shoving two cars in here so I think it makes more sense to build along the side of the wall. Pictured here is a simple 8' bench. Will figure out details later.



Quick Lighting Study Rendering: What I am shooting for, aesthetically.



Update: It's been a while, but I've been making some progress.

There was this dried out looking caulk up in the corner/perimeter of the garage. I have since found out it is some sort of fire barrier caulk, but it was dried out and cracked and just looked like ****, so I spent hours with a wrecking bar and a hammer smashing it all out.



So I am trying to prep the floor, and I noticed these odd bumpouts in my garage, I never really looked into them but I figured they were hiding pipes of some kind. Note the random 2x4 on the side, we'll get to that in a bit



Nope!!! Apparently some conduit was too much work. I mean; since it's enclosed I guess it's to code, but it's pretty hood.



Furthermore, there was a box in the wall right there, so I'm not sure why they didn't just run the wiring through the wall. ?!



And the quality work continues, as someone just said "**** it, just use the framer" on the base board, with no moisture foam.



The other one always had this weird extra 2x4 on the side, and I never understood what it was for.



So conduit was too expensive, and so was a 2x4 of the proper length, so not only did they brace some scrap 2x4s, but they put the brace... on the outside. Some people shouldn't breed.



So I had a guy scheduled to come prep the floor, so I needed to take care of this quickly. A sawzall and a prybar made short work of it, leaving the full access to the floor.


I didn't have fish tape handy, but I did have some conduit, so I put this up for now, at 10:30 at night the day before the floor guy was going to be here at 9am.



Emptied out the garage, swept up all the dried red chaulk and ****, so this is the 'before' photo of the floor.



I didn't get too many photos of this, but the floor had already been blasted/diamond grinded a first time, and a skim coat applied.



Curing a bit more



Flooring guys were busting ***, from Midwest Industrial Flooring. They did another surface grind, smoothing out most of the spalling, but then went around and checked for imperfections with some patching compound if they missed any.



And here she is, prepped, curing, and ready for action tomorrow. I've never been so excited by a floor before!

Update 3/30/17

New Addition

My S6 is currently undergoing a turbo upgrade and not driveable and I needed a vehicle to haul bigger loads of materials for garage. After months of looking unsuccessfully for an old Toyota T100 in the rust belt that wasn't a pile of ****, I gave up and snagged this: A one owner 94 Dakota with barely over 100k. Everything works, even the A/C. I don't know if I'll keep it but the price/condition made it a deal I had to jump on. Also, this is my first truck.



Stoked!

Garage Floor

So when I last left off, I was working on the floor. At the recommendation of a Rustoleum/Rock Solid rep, I purchased 3 jugs of Moisture Stop.

Looks like this:


http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rust-Oleum-1-gal-Moisture-Stop-301239/206495774

I have mixed feelings about this product so here's what happened. Floor was prepped, ready for epoxy, but last spring I had a gutter issue and the rain was running off my roof, right next to the foundation, and it soaked the slab since it's below grade. I've since fixed the drainage issue, but I really don't feel like having my epoxy floor become compromised due to moisture. The purpose of this product is to let it soak into the slab, then wash it off and the polymers seal all the capillaries in the concrete, adding some protection from water underneath. It is a SUB surface sealer, so it will not affect the bond of the epoxy. Supposedly.

This garage is 15x30, so it's only 450 square feet. I wound up putting one gallon in a low pressure sprayer, and the other two gallons I dumped onto the floor and moved around with a squeegee. The instructions were a bit confusing, they emphasize not letting it dry out, so you're supposed to mist more of it on for 30 minutes, and after thirty minutes or so, you're supposed to begin misting with water for another 45 minutes.

Here's what it looked like:


Then it got a bit confusing. There's not much info on the web about this product, but the instructions were slightly conflicting. It stressed to not let it dry out, but it said to stop adding water. I wasn't sure what to do so I dumped about 20 gallons of water in it after 1.5 hours, and squeegee'd it down the driveway.

The floor looked pretty good, so I went to sleep and checked on it in the morning. Efflorescence, efflorescence everywhere. Maybe it's just that this was an unsealed pad getting extremely wet after having 60 years of road salt and **** dumped on it, but now the entire floor is chaulky and white. My plan is to whip up some vinegar and water and scrub the hell out of it, rinse it out, and lay down the epoxy. If anyone has suggestions let me know.

It was a pretty rainy weekend, and because I need to epoxy slightly under the door seal, I couldn't apply the epoxy anyway, so for now the floor is on hold. BUT! The floor stayed really dry.

ELECTRICAL

So the original plan was to just fix the wiring by installing some conduit, and leave it alone to finish the floor. Best laid plans, all that.

So what wound up happening was when I started buying materials, I figured I'd change the single outlet to a double outlet, and while I'm doing that, I might as well add a double outlet under the lightswitch since there is power there, and might as well change that single box into a shallower one, and screw it, might as well wire both of the other two walls, since the outside wall currently has no power. Snowball effect in action.

Patched the hole, since everything else is conduit.



Laying out the boxes for the outside and rear wall. It's going to be nice having tons of outlets, all over the place.





Everything is wired, works great, but I discovered today I'm supposed to have a GFCI outlet down here? I went to go pick one up, but I can't find a GFCI outlet that looks good with any of the conduit box covers; can anyone point me in the right direction?

Update 5/1/17

The Floor

Progress is going slower than normal, due to my fiasco with the floor. I went with Rocksolid Floor Coating system, for better or worse. I'll summarize here but if you want more detail I have a thread on my experiences here:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=357759

First coat turned out a bit splotchy with uneven coverage, as it soaked into the concrete at different rates.

Second coat covered well, but for some reason the colors didn't match:



It also left some weird marks on the floor where I initially poured it out:



After this, I was on hold for a while dealing with Rustoleum. They refunded me for the kits to buy more product; I wound up doing a third coat and basically gave up. It went down fine, smooth, looked great, but when I came back the next morning, the top coat had 'shrunk' and beaded up over the previous coats:



After spending so much time on the floor, I am pretty disappointed it didn't turn out how I wanted to, but at this point I would have to sand the entire floor and wipe it down with solvents to add an additional coat, so it'll have to do for now. The good thing is it is VERY durable, and when you don't look at it really close, it looks great.

I wound up pulling all the electrical off the walls to repaint the lower bricks a cool gray color, darker than the floor to provide contrast.



Here's a photo as of last night; lighting, walls, and flooring are on point. Next step: Bench time!



Update 5/20/17

Benchwork

Been busy with some other things, but starting to refine the bench a bit. This is probably the 6th version. Originally was just going to do pockets, but I think I'm going to do drawers in between the braces. Basics are wall mountable, clean, and able to sweep under it so it won't touch the floor. Here are some test renders:



Also considering routing small channel in bottom for RGB LED strip:



Update 9/27/17

Slow going, too many irons in the fire, but the bench is really coming along since I did those renderings. After finalizing the bench design in Solidworks, I acquired all the lumber I need for the project, including the drawers and stacked it against the side of the garage, seen here:



A new project is always a great excuse to acquire more tools, so I purchased something I've lusted after for a long time: A vintage 1950s Craftsman Tablesaw! You can see it in the photo below, with my lovely assistant helping me with some of the longer pieces and trickier edge cut angles.



Once I was in the zone building things, I forgot to document anything, but the main supports are assembled using a pocket hole jig from Kreg. Never used it before, but it is pretty amazing and builds very strong joints. Super impressed. Here is the bench when first bolted to the wall. The bench top is 3/4" plywood with a baltic birch veneer.



I hung up some dealership banners at the end of the garage for a bit of color, not sure if they'll stay there permanently but for now they look pretty cool



Painted the bench structure with some oil based gloss white enamel, and finished the bench surface with 5 coats of polycrylic, sanding down to 600 in between coats. I love polycrylic because it doesn't yellow, it's very easy to work with, and there's almost no fumes. I'm still debating on what to do for a top coat; maybe clear acrylic or possibly even sheet aluminum? Here's a shot from a few nights ago; the bench top is not bolted down hence some of the uneven fitment. There will be a narrow strip of wood near the wall that pulls up so I can run cords to chargers, dremel tools, etc.




I ordered soft close ball bearing drawer slides; they should be here tomorrow so I'm planning on knocking out the drawers this weekend. Cheers!

-Brent- said:

I'm looking forward to the drawers. That's not something I've ever seen on a similarly designed bench.

Click to expand...

Alright, long time no update. Why? Those ####ing drawers.

About here is where I left off:



So, since then, I have purchased a router, and a router table, and I discovered that really cheap bits from amazon can snap off and get sucked inside your brand new router which brakes off all the internal fan blades molded to the shaft of the motor, turning your new/old router into junk. I luckily found a replacement motor on eBay, disassembled the router, and continued work on the drawers.



These took way more effort than I imagined, mainly because I am an idiot. The problem? I didn't temporarily brace/space the vertical supports of the bench when assembling it, so every vertical support was off a couple of degrees to the left or the right. This meant that each drawer width was SLIGHTLY different. Infuriating but I had gone too far. I installed all the drawers on 100lb ball bearing self closing drawer slides, then affixed the top bench surface to the supports. Unfortunately adding the bench top threw off the angles AGAIN, so I had to AGAIN readjust every single drawer and shim stuff. So time consuming. It's not perfect now but all the drawers work and I don't want to look at them anymore.

In terms of more positive updates, I love my table saw a lot, and it's been working fantastically for something that is over twice my age.



I had a small playhouse near the driveway that I wasn't really using at all, so one weekend on a Sunday morning a friend and I made it a lot more useful, and now the ATV is protected from the weather. In the future I'm thinking about blowing out the back of it to make it a bit deeper so I could install a pair of doors in front.





I had a decade old iMac sitting in a box that I thought would be perfect for a garage jukebox/internet research terminal, so I unpacked that and set it up on a pretty interesting audio setup; a tuner and integrated amp from Standard Radio Corporation. SRC later became Marantz. It's not a powerful system, only 7-12 watts per channel, but it's interesting because of it's marantz heritage and late 60s/early70s germanium capacitors. Surrounding that are a pair of homebuilt speakers I threw together one afternoon in college.




The tuner is also pretty wild. It has one main circular tuner, but it also has 5 smaller circular tuners that have buttons on them, allowing you to switch between your favorite presets.



Lastly, I started building a franken turbo for the S6. RS2 turbos are now upwards of $1600, but I'm building a hybrid that uses the hotside of a K26 off a 944 turbo, combined with the center and compressor of a Volvo V70R. When done, it should provide RS2 levels of boost with even faster spool, and bolt in to the existing water/oil lines.



Happy holidays, and hoping for snow.

Okay, update for my 2nd, detached garage:

Here's a photo:


I've been having moisture issues on the below grade block wall, so this photo was taken after I started trenching next to the foundation.

Here is the plan:



I've almost finished trenching, at which point I'm going to pressure wash the blocks, seal any cracks w hydraulic cement, paint the entire thing with Drylock Extreme, and install a french drain along the edge.

Here's a look on the inside:

You can see in that photo that the block wall has some cracks, and that it's bowing inwards by ~ 1/4". My concern was that refilling the trench with the french drain would still continue to put pressure on this wall, so I wanted to solidify it to prevent it from moving any further.


So I used a spade bit and drilled holes through the header board to allow access to the cores of the blocks


I dropped rebar down into each hole, it fell all the way in with a satisfying clunk as it hit the pad.


I picked up a few bags of core fill grout by qwikcrete, mixed them up in a 5 gallon bucket with my cordless drill, and got to work.


This was a PITA. The packaging says this product can be pumped; is there a DIY version of a grout pump? Anyone ever done something like this before? I spent ~ 40 minute pouring the grout intot eh core, I think I got up maybe 2' or so.

I'd like to really solidify this wall but doing it this way seems really, really slow. Anybody have any ideas on how to get this done faster?

and this one will be for when it's finished.

Welcome to GJ! Looks like you have some good ideas as well as some intertesting vehicles to work on. Other than the floor, it appears to be a nice place to work in, especially with that heater! Keep those pics coming. My BIL in Georgia has a '77 Targa,( I think it's a '77, have to ask him for sure).

"Has heat and is close to the house"

Is it attached or nah?

Is the render with Photoview 360 or Visualize? Just Curious.........

I love where this is going Subscribed.

wasfast said:

Is the render with Photoview 360 or Visualize? Just Curious.........

Click to expand...

Keyshot.

Looks interesting, subscribing.

Photos of the house?

Alright guys, I have a guy coming to prep the floor for me this week. I've cleaned out the garage, and he is going to shot blast the concrete, grind it, fill the pits, and come back and refrains to level.

I have not had moisture issues since last spring, but I am concerned about it. What kind of coating could I put down on the prepped concrete to help seal out moisture? I have a rock solid epoxy coat read to go on top of whatever coating/barrier you suggest.

very cool. Looking forward to seeing what you get done in this space.

Wow this is going to be a good one.

Cool project, I think we may have similar architectural tastes. Check out Atomic Ranch magazine, it will be right in your wheelhouse.

updated

I sense the onset of a Garage Journal classic.

Updated

looking good and How due you like the Dodge Dakota truck?

It's very... truckish. Slow. Handles poorly. Sort of fun to drive in the rain since it's a RWD model and you can get the *** end out. It's weird having a wood dash from the 80s with a 90s looking airbag wheel. Nice profile pic, my first car was a 68 Charger 383/4spd. What's with the 1970 paint on a 68 though?

None of your pictures work for me. Am sad.

TahitianGreen said:

None of your pictures work for me. Am sad.

Click to expand...

? They are hosted on photobucket. Isn't that what everyone is using, since IMGUR doesn't work here?

cash68 said:

? They are hosted on photobucket. Isn't that what everyone is using, since IMGUR doesn't work here?

Click to expand...

That must be it, I think my work filter got a lot stricter overnight & is now blocking images from PB & Flickr. RIP my browsing habits.

Update 5/1/17

The Floor

Progress is going slower than normal, due to my fiasco with the floor. I went with Rocksolid Floor Coating system, for better or worse. I'll summarize here but if you want more detail I have a thread on my experiences here:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=357759

First coat turned out a bit splotchy with uneven coverage, as it soaked into the concrete at different rates.

Second coat covered well, but for some reason the colors didn't match:



It also left some weird marks on the floor where I initially poured it out:



After this, I was on hold for a while dealing with Rustoleum. They refunded me for the kits to buy more product; I wound up doing a third coat and basically gave up. It went down fine, smooth, looked great, but when I came back the next morning, the top coat had 'shrunk' and beaded up over the previous coats:



After spending so much time on the floor, I am pretty disappointed it didn't turn out how I wanted to, but at this point I would have to sand the entire floor and wipe it down with solvents to add an additional coat, so it'll have to do for now. The good thing is it is VERY durable, and when you don't look at it really close, it looks great.

I wound up pulling all the electrical off the walls to repaint the lower bricks a cool gray color, darker than the floor to provide contrast.



Here's a photo as of last night; lighting, walls, and flooring are on point. Next step: Bench time!

Floor doesn't look bad in those last couple pics! That Porsche though.

TahitianGreen said:

Floor doesn't look bad in those last couple pics! That Porsche though.

Click to expand...

Unless you point it out, most people will probably think that is the finish you were going for.
Is the 911 running an Andial motor?!!!

Is that Dakota posing in front of the Safe House? I haven't been there in 10 years, but it looks like the right neighborhood. House and garages look nice. I will be watching for updates.

TahitianGreen - Yeah, its' growing on me a bit. The little pock marks due trap dirt a bit, but it cleans up nice. Porsche looks better than it is, and you guys would probably murder me if I told you what I paid for it. I bought it right before the aircooled 911 price boom. It has bad paint, a slightly ratty interior, worn suspension, bent/rusted exhaust that leaks a bit, transmission grinds into 3rd unless you are gentle, and the seals are bad on the engine so the oil drips onto the exhaust and smokes and stinks. Oh well. Got in at the right time!

Kwyjbo: Supposedly has an Andial 2.9 conversion (jugs, pistons). When I pull apart the engine, I will find out for sure. It has updated exhaust, carrera tensioners, few other goodies, but it's still slow. When I bougth the car I wanted to do a 3.2 swap, but since the bubble happened I don't know if I can justify 10-12k on a powerplant that doesn't even make 300hp.

920Kip: Random building in south Milwaukee, near where I purchased the truck. It looks a bit familiar because of the cream city brick. Thanks for the compliments!

Update 5/20/17

Benchwork

Been busy with some other things, but starting to refine the bench a bit. This is probably the 6th version. Originally was just going to do pockets, but I think I'm going to do drawers in between the braces. Basics are wall mountable, clean, and able to sweep under it so it won't touch the floor. Here are some test renders:



Also considering routing small channel in bottom for RGB LED strip:

Update 9/27/17

Slow going, too many irons in the fire, but the bench is really coming along since I did those renderings. After finalizing the bench design in Solidworks, I acquired all the lumber I need for the project, including the drawers and stacked it against the side of the garage, seen here:



A new project is always a great excuse to acquire more tools, so I purchased something I've lusted after for a long time: A vintage 1950s Craftsman Tablesaw! You can see it in the photo below, with my lovely assistant helping me with some of the longer pieces and trickier edge cut angles.



Once I was in the zone building things, I forgot to document anything, but the main supports are assembled using a pocket hole jig from Kreg. Never used it before, but it is pretty amazing and builds very strong joints. Super impressed. Here is the bench when first bolted to the wall. The bench top is 3/4" plywood with a baltic birch veneer.



I hung up some dealership banners at the end of the garage for a bit of color, not sure if they'll stay there permanently but for now they look pretty cool



Painted the bench structure with some oil based gloss white enamel, and finished the bench surface with 5 coats of polycrylic, sanding down to 600 in between coats. I love polycrylic because it doesn't yellow, it's very easy to work with, and there's almost no fumes. I'm still debating on what to do for a top coat; maybe clear acrylic or possibly even sheet aluminum? Here's a shot from a few nights ago; the bench top is not bolted down hence some of the uneven fitment. There will be a narrow strip of wood near the wall that pulls up so I can run cords to chargers, dremel tools, etc.




I ordered soft close ball bearing drawer slides; they should be here tomorrow so I'm planning on knocking out the drawers this weekend. Cheers!

I'm looking forward to the drawers. That's not something I've ever seen on a similarly designed bench.

-Brent- said:

I'm looking forward to the drawers. That's not something I've ever seen on a similarly designed bench.

Click to expand...

Alright, long time no update. Why? Those ####ing drawers.

About here is where I left off:



So, since then, I have purchased a router, and a router table, and I discovered that really cheap bits from amazon can snap off and get sucked inside your brand new router which brakes off all the internal fan blades molded to the shaft of the motor, turning your new/old router into junk. I luckily found a replacement motor on eBay, disassembled the router, and continued work on the drawers.



These took way more effort than I imagined, mainly because I am an idiot. The problem? I didn't temporarily brace/space the vertical supports of the bench when assembling it, so every vertical support was off a couple of degrees to the left or the right. This meant that each drawer width was SLIGHTLY different. Infuriating but I had gone too far. I installed all the drawers on 100lb ball bearing self closing drawer slides, then affixed the top bench surface to the supports. Unfortunately adding the bench top threw off the angles AGAIN, so I had to AGAIN readjust every single drawer and shim stuff. So time consuming. It's not perfect now but all the drawers work and I don't want to look at them anymore.

In terms of more positive updates, I love my table saw a lot, and it's been working fantastically for something that is over twice my age.



I had a small playhouse near the driveway that I wasn't really using at all, so one weekend on a Sunday morning a friend and I made it a lot more useful, and now the ATV is protected from the weather. In the future I'm thinking about blowing out the back of it to make it a bit deeper so I could install a pair of doors in front.





I had a decade old iMac sitting in a box that I thought would be perfect for a garage jukebox/internet research terminal, so I unpacked that and set it up on a pretty interesting audio setup; a tuner and integrated amp from Standard Radio Corporation. SRC later became Marantz. It's not a powerful system, only 7-12 watts per channel, but it's interesting because of it's marantz heritage and late 60s/early70s germanium capacitors. Surrounding that are a pair of homebuilt speakers I threw together one afternoon in college.




The tuner is also pretty wild. It has one main circular tuner, but it also has 5 smaller circular tuners that have buttons on them, allowing you to switch between your favorite presets.



Lastly, I started building a franken turbo for the S6. RS2 turbos are now upwards of $1600, but I'm building a hybrid that uses the hotside of a K26 off a 944 turbo, combined with the center and compressor of a Volvo V70R. When done, it should provide RS2 levels of boost with even faster spool, and bolt in to the existing water/oil lines.



Happy holidays, and hoping for snow.

We can barely see the drawers in those pics.

That is a very cool receiver!

Love the FrakenTurbo.

That's kind of the idea. Also, I'm so sick of looking at them they aren't totally finished yet. I have some really, really trick wood for the faces waiting to be cut up. Just want to get the S6 back on the road before I keep beautifying the bench.

cash68 said:

That's kind of the idea. Also, I'm so sick of looking at them they aren't totally finished yet. I have some really, really trick wood for the faces waiting to be cut up. Just want to get the S6 back on the road before I keep beautifying the bench.

Click to expand...

You and I have different priorities. Do you really want to be driving an upgraded S6 in the snow?

Oh, are the speakers mini Fonkens? I recognize the Fostex FR driver, but I forget the name of the speaker design.

BoilermakerFan said:

You and I have different priorities. Do you really want to be driving an upgraded S6 in the snow?

Click to expand...

Yes! It's a beast in the snow and I usually go out west once a year with it. Turbo 2.2 at high altitudes is awesome, and quattro with a lockable rear diff = nothing is stopping me.

Not sure about the drivers, I picked them up off partsexpress years ago for cheap. I threw the boxes together in a couple hours one afternoon so I could have a decent system at my desk.

Love the aesthetics of the bench

Tight looking place there. Nice Franken-turbo ... let's see that beast installed!

Also: I'm trying to figure out the andial air-cooled. Looks neat ... More details on it please(?) I have a 79SC...

Following this for a fellow Milwaukee VW guy!