My new garage (name coming soon, but for now, Shop 187!)

Greetings all!

Thanks for sharing all of your inspiration - it is very helpful and has given me a lot of design thoughts for my garage as I get started. As I said in my intro post, I took inspiration from the Never Ending Retirement Garage/Shop Projects, 50x100 house/shop, **** Shack, and especially the infamous 12-gauge garage.

So, with a bit of nervousness but hoping for some good input, I'm going to share my project! Please feel free to comment, like, critique, or feedback on my progress (or lack thereof) and I look forward to sharing with you.

With that said, here's a bit about my "setup". I'm in a ginormous house, which is about ~3,700 square feet (on a .25 acre, but the location is perfect, and backs up to a hundred + acres of public parkland/forest, etc. so... I get to have open land behind me that I don't have to maintain, so... I'll take it!) My wife and I just settled in here and the plan is to stay here for ~25 years until we retire... I think with that size house, we can accommodate our family, since we have one kid and hope to have a second one soon.

Since the house is so generously sized, I have a 12x12 office (that I'll probably post sometime, once I start work on it), and can do all my "job work" from there. That's my man cave, but it's no place to do projects. Thus, the garage! Our garage is 20' wide and 26' deep, with a ~2x6 cutout at the front left corner, which houses the refrigerator and some cabinets from our kitchen.

Here's what we had when we looked at the place before purchasing it:









My first project, once we had a chance to get the inside situated was to get the Rubbermaid GarageTrack that I'm fond of and install it so we could hang all of our yard stuff. That was easy enough:





However, the rest of the garage stayed a wreck, and looked like this through Thanksgiving:













Looking around the house, we wanted a lot of custom furniture, but no where to make it, and certainly not the fund to go buy custom oak type stuff. My closet needs upgrades, a nice wood desk for my office, a custom bookshelf/entertainment center for the misses, ... etc.. but...

As you can recognize, I don't have a ton of space... we've all been there. So, after Thanksgiving (and much inspiration by my neighbor, who is a true-woodshop guy and helped me do a couple of small projects to show me, but more about him later), my wife gave me a surprise early christmas and got me some tools: a miter saw, stand, and a Ryobi fun-bag, with a circular saw, power drill, reciprocating saw and flashlight, plus batteries and chargers) (all on Black Friday special), with the condition that I give up playing Boom Beach until she can park in the garage again. (Deal!)

I realized (thanks, neighbor, haha!) that I really should insulate and drywall before I put up my shelving (which would give me room to work in the garage, and make a little shop). So, grudgingly (even though I agree he is/was right), I get insulation and drywall and start:





That took two weeks, half a lung, and I swear that I will not be cutting open 1 more square inch of drywall if there's ways not to. Also, note to self, I need to upgrade my facemask before my next project. Ugh. But it's done... oye:



Next up, I had found a cantilever shelf design on pinterest I liked, and set out to build it. First, I installed studs on top of the hidden studs using 2x4 and 6" lag bolts:



I then spent the next weekend building shelf brackets:



Once the brackets were done and cured (or screwed and glued, your choice), I then set to mount them to the wall:







Here's a close up of the bracket attachment to the wall:


Once that was done, it was time to install the actual shelving, which was 5/8" plywood that was screwed to a front 2x2 and 2x supports on the back, and cut to fit the studs so as to be flush against the wall:



Shelving complete!!!!







For "safety reasons", I decided to climb on it and make sure it would hold the weight of our camping gear... it did. (Fortunately, no pictures were taken!)

Next up was getting holders for the 3 tool boxes of screws and miscellaneous "things" that I had... picture holders, screws, nails, bolts, nuts, washers, and all that stuff that the moment you throw away (or can't locate, such as plumber's teflon tape), you need, I got a couple of organizers from HD and got to work:



That same weekend, my awesome neighbor with the full woodshop in his 2 car garage got an early christmas present, and permanently loaned me his old drill press:



Here's the shop as it is now:






Up next: installing electrical, so I can have more than 1 thing plugged in at a time (the house is brand new - barely lived in before we moved in, and they only installed 2 outlets in the garage... one of which is the for the garage door opener ) Here's my plan: I plan to install a 100A sub-panel next to the existing panel using 4GA wire and connecting to a 100A breaker on the main panel, using a junction box to bring the sub-panel feeder wires out of the wall, into 1.5" PVC and flush mounting the sub-panel (and all new circuits for the garage). From the sub-panel, I plan to run a pair of alternating (A/B/A/B) circuits along the bench on the newly shelved/drywalled wall, 3 circuits to the end of same to feed my table saw/router table, vacuum, and air compressor, a circuit with 2-3 outlets to my existing workbench table where the sole current outlet is, and then a pair of circuits for the fridge/freezer in the corner.

Would LOVE feedback/questions about the electrical setup. I'll try to upload a circuit map, if folks need it, but if that setup (especially the circuit breaker/sub-panel) sounds good, I hope to get that done ASAP. I grew up on a farm and have a lot of electrical experience, but I haven't gone behind a breaker before so I want to make sure that the research and solution I have come up with make sense.

Thanks all and look forward to getting feedback!

Love seeing that kind of progress and transformation. Keep the pictures coming.

What do you plan on doing with the space when you are done.

Richard Cranium said:

What do you plan on doing with the space when you are done.

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I intend to be mostly woodworking (furniture for the house, learning to turn pens, and then who knows), with the rest being general work area. I'm a bit TOO inspired by the 12-gauge garage and want to learn to weld. I also plan to do a bit of reloading in there and would like for the bench along the back wall (with the fridge/freezer) to be a more "detail" oriented bench which would allow me to sit and work, and then the "floating" workbench with my table saw/router to be my largest flat space. I imagine that my front right bench will be where I put the stuff for my pen-turning (stabilization setup, a small toaster to help in curing the blanks, etc.)

Projects other than furniture, pens and reloading would include things such as making repairs/upgrades on a new-to-me chevy truck that I hope to be in possession of soon, and general tinkering.

So, a little progress was made yesterday and today. After further study, the electrical design was finalized, and I went off to Home Depot to gather materials. 2 hours later, and very frustrated, I went home with a sub-panel, a few breakers, cable, and a few miscellaneous parts. To say that they were of no help is an understatement, but anyways...

Today, I got up early, went over to the slightly more local electrical supply store (City Electrical Supply) and while I was there a solid two hours, they went over all of my electrical design for the garage and explained a lot of "pro tips" to help guide me on installation and a few modifications that would simplify things (and save money). We literally laid out every piece of the system (except conduit) on the counter and made sure all the knick-knacks the piece the system together were there.

So, finally around 12 noon I got started. Aside from a short lunch break, and a trip back to home depot to grab more cable and couple of parts (I already knew the local place didn't have it unless I needed 500', so home depot it was) I finished the main electrical work around 5:30, and got power turned back on to the house so the misses could cook dinner. Got everything cleaned up and after dinner, I went back out to install the faceplace on the subpanel. It overhangs just a little, so I had to cut a small notch on my shelving support to let the lip slide in (doesn't affect clearance of the panel itself or opening the door). Here's the finished result:









Tomorrow I hope to get the circuit conduit and junction boxes installed, and if that goes quick, then I'll pull cable and/or start installing outlets, circuit breakers, etc. As always, feedback, etc. welcome!

Well you're on your way. Sounds like you gave a pretty clear vision which really helps.

Welcome from Durham! City Electric is awesome, some of the best folks I've ever had the pleasure of working with

I like it! I hope to have a 100A sub installed in the garage soon too. Unlike you, I have 0 confidence in my electrical skills, so I'll be hiring it out.

Looking forward to seeing more!

T

Mavawreck said:

Welcome from Durham! City Electric is awesome, some of the best folks I've ever had the pleasure of working with

Click to expand...

Thanks! I agree. They really spent too much time helping me. Fortunately it was a slow day, but I still really appreciated it.

Turbo, thanks for the kind words as well! I'll try to keep it updated
Shorty, thanks as well! I have spent a borderline obsessive amount of time planning it, but I figure this is my one shot to start with a blank slate for the next 25 years, so I better get it right

Had to go back to City Electric & Home Depot today - needed another 1" BX cable connector for the Sub-Panel side - when we had it laid out on the counter, I forgot to include that. Home Depot didn't carry it (but did have the spade bits I needed to bore the cable holes in my shelving supports), so back to City Electric I went. After I left, went right back in... kid wasn't gonna make it home, so they let him use the bathroom, then back to the house.

In trying to get the sub-panel connected with the new part, instead of busting out the 1", I busted out the 1.25" ring... how the heck you do that "right" is a mystery to me. Fortunately, I hope the next time I install a subpanel is in 25 years in my 30x50 shop on my 100 acre farm when I retire (hey, a guy can dream, right?) So maybe they'll make that easier before then.

Didn't get much done, but here's what I got done: since I didn't have the washer's for the oversized hole I busted, I started mounting boxes and running the 1/2" BX, did all the knockouts for my "misc" workshop circuits, and laid everything out. Then, the mrs and I took the kid to the bank to open his "official" savings account (instead of using mom's), swung by City Electric to get the knockout washers I needed to fix what I screwed up, and then we dropped the young'un off at a drop-in daycare for a quiet date at starbucks to look ahead to 2016 and enjoy a cup of coffee. Couldn't do anything else in the garage... I've been sick the last week and my body indicated that it was physically done for the day. Here's the pics:

BX cable on sub when I realized I couldn't connect it, so holes were drilled/boxes prepped.


After getting the parts I needed from City Electric - BX connected to sub panel. Now to cut to length and then start running the rest:


Tomorrow, I hope to get the rest of the BX run, cables/junction boxes finished, and lord willing, cable pulled so I can finish the outlets and stuff. Moving slow, but hopefully I'll have electricity in the shop before the New Years.

Thanks again to all for the inspiration and feedback!

Terranova said:

I like it! I hope to have a 100A sub installed in the garage soon too. Unlike you, I have 0 confidence in my electrical skills, so I'll be hiring it out.

Looking forward to seeing more!

T

Click to expand...

Terra, what a difference it will make! I oversized the sub-panel (24 circuits, 24 slots), but wanted room to hook stuff up. The house main is full anyways, so if I need to add anything else, good to have the extra room now.

I've done a lot of outlet/switch/fan/light fixture installations, so my general comfort level was "good"; I read up on this forum a bit in the electrical/lighting section and saw the advice to buy the black & decker electrical book... it is "Black & Decker Complete Guide to Wiring, 6th ed.", which I bought via Amazon and put it on my iPad pro kindle app. Man, what a difference. I figured if I bought the book and studied up, and wasn't comfortable, then I'd sub it out. I even went so far as to get a couple contractors I'm friends with to get their electrical guys to give me quotes, but at $1,500 for the subpanel + circuits, I felt comfortable enough to give it a try. (I also figured if I went to HD and buying the parts didn't make sense... if I got uncomfortable at all, then I could always walk out and hire a sub). My biggest/slowest part hasn't really been the electricity... it's been laying out the fixture arrangement and getting all the knick-knacks to connect each run of conduit to each box, etc. But so far I'm at about $600 (if you count the tools I bought for this purpose, which includes my spade bits, electrical testers, hole boring bits, etc.). All I have left to purchase is one more run of 1/2" BX cable, 3 boxes, covers and outlets and I'll have the rest of the garage wired.. this first run is my big one though, so I'll be at about 650 when it is all said and done and even though it is taking me a heck of a lot longer than it probably would the contractor, I feel good about the quality of the work and being able to control details like where I run/hide the BX lines, outlet placement, etc., which is stuff I would have felt like I was micromanaging with the contractor.

I've attached my birds-eye schematic for my layout... the book and others wisely advise to take the time to draw it out, and it really helped me visualize how/what I wanted to do. The top center and heading down is the garage door opener and cable line; the "air" notation for the other ceiling outlet next to the garage door motor is for the future air cleaner/filter unit from Harbor Freight when I get to that level of woodworking. The light circuit is the red/centered one - the electricity is already there, just need to "re-route" it for some t8 fixtures - my neighbor has extra t8 bulbs he needs to toss because they don't match his current "color" bulbs in his shop, so I'll start with these and then upgrade as needed/budget constraints allow). Let me know if there's more questions about my layout:




Anyways, thanks for reading and let me know if I can ever be of help!

Progress! Finally I finished the electrical - a few kinks to troubleshoot on one of the circuits, which I may post about later over in the electrical sub-forum, but it's otherwise finished! Got some of the tools, etc. put back in their temporary homes on the new bench area.

Yesterday, while cleaning up Christmas, we decided to get rid of our second freezer - we're not really using it since we added the garage fridge/freezer and we have a friend in need, so I pulled it out, cleaned it up and then slid the fridge over to the corner. Now, at the wife's suggestion, I have even more workbench! Found a home for the table saw, miter saw and stand, and snapped a few pics to show y'all where it's at.

First, the pics showing the finished electrical:






Next, a few pics before I moved the miter saw and stand to their home:










Finally, a few pics of the finished (for this morning) space:






Next up is some real-job work-prep; I own the company so I got to decree we are still closed today, but the mrs. had to go to work and the kiddo to school, so I'm going to spend a couple hours prepping for the new year and the exciting things ahead, goal setting, etc., as well as the stuff that is going to hit immediately tomorrow morning. Then I'm going to fix the table in my home office for my wife's sewing corner - I've got an old table that we're reusing as her sewing table and I'm trying to take a leaf off of it (old dining table) and well, they didn't anticipate it coming apart. Let's just say that 60 or more years later, it really doesn't want to come unscrewed. Here's hoping a little tapping will do the trick.

Then I'm off to lunch with the mrs. at school since I can, run some errands, hit the gym before a Scouts leadership meeting tonight. Good times with the kiddo!

Have a great week and happy New Year, Garage Journalers!

Greetings GJ! Sorry it’s been so long! Back with a few updates – some of which are garage related, some of which explain my long absence

After my last post, the holiday break ended and both my wife and I started back to work, and in my particular business, January tends to be hectic so I didn’t spend too much time out in the garage aside from cleaning things up. In end of January/first of February, we found out that we have a new garage journal member on the way (and if the doctors are right, he’ll be here in the next 2-3 weeks!) So hooray! We had a bit of drama early on and thought we lost him, but it turns out that was an unrelated medical issue and that the baby was healthy, fine and stubborn as all get out … I don’t know where he gets that from … but that took us for a loop and between that, hiring a new attorney in my office, and general life I didn’t get to play much.

Also in January, I got a new toy, a 2004 Chevy Silverado 2500HD with extended cab! I’ve been wanting to get back to owning a truck for a long time, and a family member made me a great deal on it. The gas mileage is somewhat terrible (~12mpg) but considering the truck I WANT is ~$80,000, and I paid less than $15k, I think I’ll just pay the gas mileage. So here’s a pic of my new truck for the garage:



One of my new years goals was to make my office more functional, so with the garage electric up and running, and the wife out shopping with a friend, I decided to run to Lowes and get wood for a heavy duty bookshelf. It was also a good excuse to try out my new-to-me router, acquired from my awesome neighbor who has a solid side gig doing custom woodwork. He got a new one for Christmas, and it worked out well for me too I didn’t envision this to be permanent addition, but heavy duty/functional until I decide on a long term design for the office.

Here’s the prepped wood:


Base:


Sides – all routed up:


Assembled in place:

But, it still had some wobble too it, and I didn’t want to do a full backboard, so I put some reinforcement in the corners and viola, it’s finished!


All loaded up:


With my garage established, and a new truck to play with, it was time to do some basic upgrades. The truck still had a tape deck (I put my first CD player in a truck in 1996, so I was a bit surprised by that for a 2004), so the first order of business with my January paycheck was to establish modern electronics. The truck did come with a Bose™ sound system, and featured a true double DIN slot, so off to work we went.

Here’s some pictures of the radio installation and then the final product:













Installed!


Backup camera


With the radio installed, I was going to leave the speakers for another time, but discovered that at least one of the old rear speakers had completely shattered in the door, so, I guess it’s time for a whole new set:





I took the doors apart, and put in Noico 80mil sound deadening, and my rear view camera, hooked it all up, and not only did the radio sound better, but the road noise was reduced by 5-10dB. MUCH easier to have a conversation in the car. I have more leftover, so I’ll eventually do the floor of the truck, but just haven’t gotten that far – I hope to replace the carpet, carpet padding, and add heated seats and new seat covers, so… planning to do all that at once to reduce the number of times I need to remove the seats.

While I was in the truck, I also added new interior lighting, replacing the existing bulbs with LEDs, and I restored the headlights and replaced the bulbs, as they had fogged over in 13 years. Man it felt great to be able to use a garage again!

After time off from the garage for work and life, we decided to build a wall in our front yard. A retaining wall, at no cost to the our neighbors (and they are welcome to come by it anytime). It was nice – we were able to use the entire pallet at Home Depot, so they just shrink wrapped it and used the forklift to drop it right in the back of the truck. No labor needed! Sweet

We got the first side of the wall (right side of our house) done that weekend:



Due to weather and schedules, it took us another month or so to get the left side done, but here it is! With the misses being pregnant, she wasn’t able to help much on that side, but our 7 year old carried about 50 of the bricks and brought me tools so I could focus on laying a nice level foundation for the wall, and it went up in about 3 hours:





Took a small vacation over the summer, and got to visit my dad in Idaho. Spent a couple days at Glacier National Park (before the fires all started)... here's a picture of the family as well as me and my dad - I don't get to see him more than 1x per year because of the distance so it was nice to catch up!

Me, wife and young'un


Me and my dad:


For my next office project, I needed to build a shotglass shelf for my collection, that had spent the last ~10 years in boxes because of various moves for jobs/graduate school/etc. So I ripped the boards on the table saw, then assembled it, hung it up on the wall using a French cleat, and here you go:









My latest upgrade in the garage involving the trucks was the acquisition of new sparkplugs and wires. I was hoping that it might increase my fuel mileage closer to 14-15mpg (which is what most people with my model truck seem to be getting), although so far I’m still holding steady at 11-12mpg. Turns out my model truck was built with two sets of spark plug wires, so took me a bit to figure out what to use – finally found the part numbers:





Got those installed as well as some AC Delco plugs. Checked the gaps… none of the 8 were gapped correctly, so fixed that and put them in. Couple of them gave me a fit – it's a bit harder when you have to climb a ladder to get into the engine bay of your truck. May need to invest in a few jack stands and a good jack eventually.

My latest project was to get rid of the massive wire shelving unit – it was free, so it was good, but it was time for a more size-appropriate storage unit for chemicals, sandpaper/etc. The existing wire shelving was 72” wide, 18” deep and for the new unit, the dimensions will be 48” wide and 24” deep to match the existing worktop space, as well as to be the same height. I also designed it on heavy duty casters, so I can move it around as needed, but they remain locked whenever I’m not needing to roll it around.

Old wire shelving in various stages of disassembly (was able to sell it to a neighbor for what it cost me to build my new cabinet, so awesome!)






Here’s the assembled cabinet all loaded up– I kept forgetting to take pictures as I went:


Next I finally added the pegboard to the right of the shelving so I could hang tools up – trying to finish up some of these smaller projects before the baby arrives:


Here’s where we are now! Next project is going to need to be lighting – its way too dark for my tastes, even with the nice undercabinet lighting I added on one area. Also coming soon will hopefully be more shelving on the back wall (deeper and wider than the existing, with continuing shelving over the fridge), and I’m hoping to figure out how to tap in to the household fridge’s water line so we can have ice in the garage fridge as well. Future truck projects include the floor, seat covers and some lighting/electrical upgrades, as well as a new truck bed liner, cleaning up the body and wheel rust and painting/maintenance as necessary. I’d like to also paint the garage, which ideally would have been done before shelving went up, but storage/workbench space was a top priority to be able to even use the garage and budgets are limited. Plan to epoxy the floor with the Home Depot kit as well. After sitting all day at work and sending what feels like a million emails/phone calls, it’s nice to be able to work with your hands. Of course, with a new baby, cub scouts with the older one and such, I doubt I’ll get much done before next summer, but always good to have a few projects on the horizon.





Thanks for reading, and if you have ideas about lighting, shelving or truck upgrades, (or anything else), by all means post. Cheers!

I like your truck, look into the Blackbear tune. I gained power and fuel mileage on my truck with the scan cable tune.

http://www.blackbearperformance.com/services.asp

sean Buick 76 said:

I like your truck, look into the Blackbear tune. I gained power and fuel mileage on my truck with the scan cable tune.

http://www.blackbearperformance.com/services.asp

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'll definitely look into that. I was already thinking about investing in an OBDII bluetooth adapter to get more data from the truck. My model doesn't have the DIC enabled, even though it reads like it should.



Thanks again!

Got to spend the day in the garage - baby hasn’t decided to come yet so mommy slept while I “worked”. First we ran some old appliances and an old battery to the dump and then some printer cartridges to recycle at Best Buy.

Got back and decided to detail my wife’s car as a practice run for doing my truck... the car (a 2014 Kia Soul) is a lot smaller than the 2500HD so it’s easier to maneuver in, etc. This was my first time detailing one of my vehicles properly so I was excited. Turned out well and I got a bit faster as I went. I used /Drive’s videos from YouTube on interior detailing (link: ) and Chris Fix’s video for cleaning windshield/glass (link for outer windows: and interior: )

Once I finished that I debated starting on the truck, but it started raining and I didn’t want to move the freshly finished Kia outside into the rain, so I decided to do some routine maintenance on the Kia. Tires, check fluids and filters and then I decided to try using some of Chris Fix’s engine cleaning technique s (video link: )

I think it turned out great for a first try, if I don’t say so myself!



In checking tires, discovered that the boys bike tires and my 2500HD tires were in dire need of air. (His were at 20%/<10psi and my truck tires were at 30PSI ... of 80... ugh. That may explain the terrible gas mileage lately...) The little portable air compressor did great on his bike but wasn’t strong enough for the truck, so need to acquire the fittings for the bigger compressor to fix that tomorrow.

After that, ran to local auto parts store to get a cabin air filter and some air compressor parts for the tires plus dinner with the family...



After dinner, got the cabin air filter installed and now off to shower and rest. Hope everyone is doing well and thanks for reading!


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Bandlaw,
Nice progress and some fun projects there. Congrats on the upcoming arrival too.
Where are you located? I live in Chatham county but work in Burlington. Looking to finally getting some rain this weekend, sure has been a dry spell.

Rick

Thanks! It’s great to use the garage for its intended purpose

I live in Burlington but my main office is in Kernersville... and you are right, we definitely needed the rain... rained a good chunk today, so I detailed the truck inside the garage all closed up... lights aren’t adequate yet for that but you make do with what you have. Better lighting is definitely high on the garage project list. But truck looks good now (on the inside, anyways...)

Where in Burlington do you work (if you want to share, being the internets and all that)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!


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Greetings, friends!

Been quite busy with the new kiddo, so haven’t had as much time in the shop. However, with the holidays near, I’ve decided to upgrade my older young’uns train table to a proper desk/table. My guess is for now, it will replace his lego table. Here’s what he currently has, along with a shot of some of his Lego models (he tends to put them together and play with them, moreso than build just to build). He normally keeps them all on the table, but he had a group of friends over for his birthday and we put them in the bookshelf so they wouldn’t get destroyed in the Nerf Wars party…




Over the last 2 weeks, I’ve been building a desk out of 2x4 and ½” plywood, following this plan and using the corner desk in the brag pics as my inspiration for the main desk:

http://www.morelikehome.net/2012/10/day-2-build-casual-desk-with-2x4s.html

He’s into (like all kids his age it seems) Minecraft, Nerf Guns, Legos and Pokemon. I decided we’d go with a minecraft paint theme, knowing that it wouldn’t be too much work to either strip and repaint the bottom framing or to just rebuild it if he grows out of it; also, I wanted it to be flexible in case his room layout needed to change, so I built it in 3 modular sections:





The first pic is the “short” desk that has a bottom shelf for storage and will go under his window – he’ll be able to place completed models or such on it. It only sits 20” high, so it’s too short for sitting. The second picture features the left and right sections of the “L-desk” that will go in the corner (if you look at the picture above, it would be that back window for the small desk and then the back right corner for the L-desk). The left side has a 12” shelf in the back for box storage and/or feet to rest, and the right side is open to the back, save for the support beam in the back. The L desk sits at standard desk height – 30”, and I expect as he gets older it may feature a computer or homework area, but for now, it’s probably all Legos :

The kicker is – (because he’s 8) he thinks it’s workdesks for the garage, so he’s been helping me with some of it as I sanded and cut wood, haha! We let him help pick the paint and everything. Can’t wait to surprise him for Christmas with this – once the Lego wall clings are here, we’ll be ready for a ninja install the day after Christmas I plan to ask him if he wants a wooden chair or barstool to match and let him help me make them (a 2x4 stool ala this: http://www.morelikehome.net/2012/10/day-23-build-chunky-bar-stool.html) Although I’m open to other ideas… I may get him a more standard office chair if he wants too. Undecided yet…

My next big project for him is going to be a Nerf Gun wall, looking at something along these lines: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/526428643935759250/ Floor model, instead of wall mounted, with the cubbies on bottom for ammo/accessories and then shelves for guns – I think he’s upto 10+ guns now, but they get a ton of use, so I don’t mind

While I was in the shop, I was cold and since the budget wasn’t quite as tight as it has been the last 6 months, I decided to go ahead and upgrade the garage door to insulate it. I had a heck of a time trying to find out how to do this without buying a kit, so I documented what I did with pictures in hope that this will help somebody else out there! Lord knows that GJ has been a huge help to me in projects and spending money (haha!) so here’s my feeble attempt at giving back. Whole thing set me back $40. Feedback, praise, criticisms all welcome!

First, materials: I used the Faced Polystyrene rigid foam board - .5” x 4’ x 8’. I would have preferred .75”, but my Lowes only had this in stock: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Insulfoam-Common-0-5-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-Actual-0-5-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-R1-9-Faced-Polystyrene-Garage-Door-Foam-Board-Insulation/3033278) so, it’s what I had to work with. My preferred store, Home Depot, didn’t have anything I could use similar to this (no foil backed foam in 4x8 sheets), boo. I purchased glue, but didn’t use it.

First thing I did was take measurements, etc. and then the cutting began. I cut the first 4 sections of 21”x 47”. The gaps in my garage door were 1.5”, so I put 1” “spacers” cut from the leftovers on the first sheet, and put them in the corners on the bottom of both sides of each panel section. The idea was to keep the bottom away from the door to help maintain the “air gap” required for the foil facing to be of any value.



Next, I cut the panels to length and did the right side of the door, as follows:




The left column section on the garage door had a recessed lip on both sides, so following some of the research I reviewed on the interwebs, I cut a 2-5/8” x 20.75” to fill the left edge of the panel section, as seen here:



Then, I proceeded to cut and insert the sections as I did on the right side. Finished product:



The downside to this method is that there’s nothing “pushing” the top half away from the garage door, but I didn’t want to do like others I had seen and glue the spacer blocks to the garage door, because I wanted to make sure this worked decently first. I will say that the room lost temperature more slowly this evening and my family noticed a difference too, so that’s encouraging! I suspect that it will still cool off to a low of 58* (the prior regular low temp in the garage during the winter), due to air leakage on the sides, top and bottom of the garage door, but if it holds temp better when heated, that’s good, because at the moment I run 3 heaters to get it warmed up in 30 minutes. If I only run the one heater instead of all 3, that’s a huge improvement. I’ll report back and let you know!

The other major plus is that it changes the wall color from a shadowy off-white/dusty appearance to a brighter, more reflective surface which will help when I finally get my lights up, and I finished my first ever table saw sled, so I’m proud of that as well. Next project will probably either be lighting for the garage or working on the table saw/miter saw cabinet since those are two tools I use a ton and it would be great to be able to use them with a lot less fuss than I currently have. We’ll see!

Again, as always, feedback/comments/criticisms welcome! Have a great evening, all, and in case I don’t get to comment on the threads I follow, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a very Happy New Year to you all!

Bandlaw

Nice progress. You will love having an insulated space. Are you considering HVAC?
Your boy is going to love that desk.

Rick

Thanks! It held temp better overnight by a few degrees but just opening the house door warmed it up even further... progress! I’d love to put a mini split in there, but I don’t know if that will ever get high enough on the priority list, in this house anyways.

I hope so on the desk! If I get some good pictures or video of his reaction I’ll post it here

Have a great Monday, all!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good afternoon and Merry Christmas eve! I finished the kid's lego desk and installed it this morning. Our neighbors (who our kid plays with all the time) were home, so we arranged with the parents to have our young'un go over there for a little bit and to keep him there long enough to give us time to move the pieces up the stairs, take the old train table out, assemble, and then stage it a little bit. He was surprised! It was great We were going to do it next week, but with our holiday schedule the next few days, we decided to go ahead and move it upstairs now since our day is rather open

Enjoy the pictures, and Merry Christmas to all the awesome folks on here! Thanks for another great year of inspiration!


First piece in place!


Installed/L-desk parts secured to each other


Vacuumed and cleaned up


He looks like such a big boy now!


Hurry up and take the picture so I can play with my legos, dad!!!


He couldn't start building fast enough. One of my best friends got him a couple of baseplates for Christmas (he knew what I was upto) so he could start to build. I considered gluing a few of them down, but for flexibility and future uses, decided not to.



BandLaw