Craig Balzer
Well-known member
Your Garagenous Zone; Innovative Ideas for the Garage, Bill West, CRS, Paragon Garage Company, Ltd, Fort Collins, Colorado, 2004 (ISBN: 0-9675875-0-6)
This is a soft bound 8 ½ x 11 book with 176 pages. The book has 125 color photos; and ~20 sketches. The sub-title should have clued me in. I HAVE to get better at reading the details. Cover price is $21.95.
The book has no chapters but rather 18 sections. I won’t bother listing the 18 – quite frankly it would be too embarrassing. But to give you a flavor of the content that West includes, here is a sampling
o Feng Shui for the Garage (10 pages).
o Architectural Design Concepts for the Garage (12 pages).
o Famous Garages (6 pages: Ping, Apple, HP and Buddy Holly all started in a garage and we are shown photos of them all)
o Garage Trivia (6 pages: more of the same with a sketch of the 1913 remote door opener – 20 pairs of pulley wheels and lots of rope all under-ground – pretty cool, really).
o A Century of Historical Trends in the American Garage (the growth of the garage from 1 to 2 to 3 to more-car designs since 1930 to present)
Lord have mercy – where do I begin. I have to find at least a few redeeming qualities to justify the 22 bucks I dropped on this . . . this . . . . aw ****, after all is said and done, it IS a book. My only self-effacing rationale is that I bought it through Amazon and I was bored out of my skull after 23 months in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Yes, am I ashamed to say I still have this book and it covers the art of Feng Shui. Hell, one of the photos even depicts an example of “ming tang” -- WTF.
The first clue that the book wouldn’t delve into much detail is the monstrous size of the print and the spacing between the lines. I was reminded of a book I read in 4th grade.
IF you find a product of interest, West does present decent coverage of a product or line. He does provide contact information and his opinion of the product. But that “if” is a big IF.
West opens with his 9 steps to garage organization – it sounds a lot like the 12 steps to recovery for AA. Each has a corny rhyming title: “If it’s on the floor, time to store”, “Keep it neat, treat the concrete” and ”Don’t be hasty, practice safety”. His discussion of benches is about as good as Jacobs: height is addressed. But the balance of his information is on “professionally” made storage systems. Not for tools, but gardening, kids toys, sports gear, bicycles and such.
He covers epoxy floor covering in one paragraph of 6 sentences.
His coverage of wall storage systems is comprehensive and Gladiator is prominently displayed.
After explaining his systems and some basic coverage of “stuff”, West uses a family of five to demonstrate how to get organized. The garage is huge (3-car?) but a disaster. The make over included a workbench with sink; but the father is not a garage junkie – but a hunter -- -- the sink is for cleaning the game in the garage. The redeeming quality is that after 10 pages of what and how, the last page summarizes the make over complete with costing data.
The Dalton iDrive is covered – but in 3 paragraphs and remember my comment about text font and line spacing: 14 sentences. On garage doors, some of you guys struggling to get SWMBO on your side for the garage re-build need to check out Cybiag Garage Door system – very cool. It makes a garage with 3 one-car doors look like the front of a house complete with a normal door and windows with shutters.
For those with limited space – and deep pockets – West talks about an elevator in the one-car garage; essentially a four-post on steroids. But the elevator has to be able to go "down" as far as it goes "up" -- so a BFH is dug unde rhte garage to fit it. Also the Hovair turn table if you don’t like backing out of a garage.
I have pretty much exhausted the good ideas. Perhaps the best indication of the books intent is its last section of 12 pages: a listing, by state, of professional garage organizers – all of whom are registered with NAPO: National Organization of Professional Organizers.
OK -- only three more books. None of the rest are as this bad. Promise.
Craig
This is a soft bound 8 ½ x 11 book with 176 pages. The book has 125 color photos; and ~20 sketches. The sub-title should have clued me in. I HAVE to get better at reading the details. Cover price is $21.95.
The book has no chapters but rather 18 sections. I won’t bother listing the 18 – quite frankly it would be too embarrassing. But to give you a flavor of the content that West includes, here is a sampling
o Feng Shui for the Garage (10 pages).
o Architectural Design Concepts for the Garage (12 pages).
o Famous Garages (6 pages: Ping, Apple, HP and Buddy Holly all started in a garage and we are shown photos of them all)
o Garage Trivia (6 pages: more of the same with a sketch of the 1913 remote door opener – 20 pairs of pulley wheels and lots of rope all under-ground – pretty cool, really).
o A Century of Historical Trends in the American Garage (the growth of the garage from 1 to 2 to 3 to more-car designs since 1930 to present)
Lord have mercy – where do I begin. I have to find at least a few redeeming qualities to justify the 22 bucks I dropped on this . . . this . . . . aw ****, after all is said and done, it IS a book. My only self-effacing rationale is that I bought it through Amazon and I was bored out of my skull after 23 months in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Yes, am I ashamed to say I still have this book and it covers the art of Feng Shui. Hell, one of the photos even depicts an example of “ming tang” -- WTF.
The first clue that the book wouldn’t delve into much detail is the monstrous size of the print and the spacing between the lines. I was reminded of a book I read in 4th grade.
IF you find a product of interest, West does present decent coverage of a product or line. He does provide contact information and his opinion of the product. But that “if” is a big IF.
West opens with his 9 steps to garage organization – it sounds a lot like the 12 steps to recovery for AA. Each has a corny rhyming title: “If it’s on the floor, time to store”, “Keep it neat, treat the concrete” and ”Don’t be hasty, practice safety”. His discussion of benches is about as good as Jacobs: height is addressed. But the balance of his information is on “professionally” made storage systems. Not for tools, but gardening, kids toys, sports gear, bicycles and such.
He covers epoxy floor covering in one paragraph of 6 sentences.
His coverage of wall storage systems is comprehensive and Gladiator is prominently displayed.
After explaining his systems and some basic coverage of “stuff”, West uses a family of five to demonstrate how to get organized. The garage is huge (3-car?) but a disaster. The make over included a workbench with sink; but the father is not a garage junkie – but a hunter -- -- the sink is for cleaning the game in the garage. The redeeming quality is that after 10 pages of what and how, the last page summarizes the make over complete with costing data.
The Dalton iDrive is covered – but in 3 paragraphs and remember my comment about text font and line spacing: 14 sentences. On garage doors, some of you guys struggling to get SWMBO on your side for the garage re-build need to check out Cybiag Garage Door system – very cool. It makes a garage with 3 one-car doors look like the front of a house complete with a normal door and windows with shutters.
For those with limited space – and deep pockets – West talks about an elevator in the one-car garage; essentially a four-post on steroids. But the elevator has to be able to go "down" as far as it goes "up" -- so a BFH is dug unde rhte garage to fit it. Also the Hovair turn table if you don’t like backing out of a garage.
I have pretty much exhausted the good ideas. Perhaps the best indication of the books intent is its last section of 12 pages: a listing, by state, of professional garage organizers – all of whom are registered with NAPO: National Organization of Professional Organizers.
OK -- only three more books. None of the rest are as this bad. Promise.
Craig