A strange looking kitchen.

[kitchenTablesaw]

A few weeks ago I closed on my first house. First in the family, actually. I've never lived in anything other than a condo, and being obsessed with endlessly tinkering on my vehicles (currently have a '16 Tacoma, previously owned about 6 cars, 7 motorcycles, and trailer), this usually meant working on the street or underground garages (much to the displeasure of the accompanying stratas).

Part of tinkering with the truck often involves building some kind of storage units, which lead to a few dozen woodworking projects being done in the kitchen/dining of my 1br condo (thus the username). Nothing like a coat of tablesaw dust covering every single item in your condo.

The house not only has a (roughly) 23'x23' garage, but also a similarly sized, dedicated workshop room in the basement (with exterior access). I'm fairly sure I'm more excited about the new workspaces than the house itself.

In my truck's build thread on ExPo some evil soul told me about this forum. From a few minutes' glance through a few build threads, I can already tell this is going to be bad for both my free time and bank account.

Plans for the garage and workshop both involve a lot of workbenches and tool storage. The garage will probably also get some ceiling storage with a lift mechanism.

The garage has two 8' tall doors, a single, uncovered window, and three existing light fixtures. Unheated, as far as I can tell.

After throwing a lot of my random automotive/camping stuff into the existing storage, this is what I ended up with:

First thing first, I added a pair of Costco LED lights. These are plug in, and since I had open outlets on each garage door, it was an easy thing to do:

With some decent lighting in place, I decided to start tackling the walls. The previous owners really did not maintain the house all that well, and the garage was covered in spills, stains, cobwebs, and other ****. The shelves on the walls are poorly made, and attached even worse. They are pulling out of the drywall (not attached to studs) in many spots.

I decided to start with the empty wall next to one of the garage doors. I filled and sanded all of the holes:

And then removed the baseboards and prepped for paint:

After two coats of an off-white paint, (very, very light hint of grey) I ended up with this result last night:

Night & day difference to what I started with, and I'm really looking forward to tearing out the existing shelving and fixing the rest of the walls.

Before I tackle the rest, I plan to put up three or four rows of full-length french cleats (from 3/4" ply) along this wall. That will give me a good starting point for storing bicycles and a few other items which I want to get out of the way.

I intend on covering all walls in french cleats and using those as the primary attachment point for all storage. In fact, I'm considering deviating from the traditional french cleat design by making the 45-degree bevel on both sides of the plywood strip. This will allow me to build two-piece, bolt-together "clamps" that can grasp the strip from both sides and not rely on gravity & item weight to remain secure. (I'll be needing at least one such clamp down the line.)

I'm hoping I can salvage most of the existing shelving and re-purpose it on the french cleat system, but I'll also be building lots of custom storage options.

Ideas/comments are always welcome!

 

[Voi]

A few weeks ago I closed on my first house. First in the family, actually. I've never lived in anything other than a condo, and being obsessed with endlessly tinkering on my vehicles (currently have a '16 Tacoma, previously owned about 6 cars, 7 motorcycles, and trailer), this usually meant working on the street or underground garages (much to the displeasure of the accompanying stratas).

Part of tinkering with the truck often involves building some kind of storage units, which lead to a few dozen woodworking projects being done in the kitchen/dining of my 1br condo (thus the username). Nothing like a coat of tablesaw dust covering every single item in your condo.

The house not only has a (roughly) 23'x23' garage, but also a similarly sized, dedicated workshop room in the basement (with exterior access). I'm fairly sure I'm more excited about the new workspaces than the house itself.

In my truck's build thread on ExPo some evil soul told me about this forum. From a few minutes' glance through a few build threads, I can already tell this is going to be bad for both my free time and bank account.

Plans for the garage and workshop both involve a lot of workbenches and tool storage. The garage will probably also get some ceiling storage with a lift mechanism.

The garage has two 8' tall doors, a single, uncovered window, and three existing light fixtures. Unheated, as far as I can tell.

After throwing a lot of my random automotive/camping stuff into the existing storage, this is what I ended up with:

First thing first, I added a pair of Costco LED lights. These are plug in, and since I had open outlets on each garage door, it was an easy thing to do:

With some decent lighting in place, I decided to start tackling the walls. The previous owners really did not maintain the house all that well, and the garage was covered in spills, stains, cobwebs, and other ****. The shelves on the walls are poorly made, and attached even worse. They are pulling out of the drywall (not attached to studs) in many spots.

I decided to start with the empty wall next to one of the garage doors. I filled and sanded all of the holes:

And then removed the baseboards and prepped for paint:

After two coats of an off-white paint, (very, very light hint of grey) I ended up with this result last night:

Night & day difference to what I started with, and I'm really looking forward to tearing out the existing shelving and fixing the rest of the walls.

Before I tackle the rest, I plan to put up three or four rows of full-length french cleats (from 3/4" ply) along this wall. That will give me a good starting point for storing bicycles and a few other items which I want to get out of the way.

I intend on covering all walls in french cleats and using those as the primary attachment point for all storage. In fact, I'm considering deviating from the traditional french cleat design by making the 45-degree bevel on both sides of the plywood strip. This will allow me to build two-piece, bolt-together "clamps" that can grasp the strip from both sides and not rely on gravity & item weight to remain secure. (I'll be needing at least one such clamp down the line.)

I'm hoping I can salvage most of the existing shelving and re-purpose it on the french cleat system, but I'll also be building lots of custom storage options.

Ideas/comments are always welcome!

I went through and removed the 's' from each https in your imgur links. That should allow those of us who don't have the images cached in our browsers to see them.

If not, I'll try again.

 

[kitchenTablesaw]

I went through and removed the 's' from each https in your imgur links. That should allow those of us who don't have the images cached in our browsers to see them.

If not, I'll try again.

Thanks, but I'm a bit confused. Are you not normally able to see images served over HTTPS from ImgUr? Does this happen on just GJ, or everywhere? A problem for just you, or other folks, too?

I use ImgUr extensively and have never heard of this being an issue, so just trying to understand.

// edit - loaded this page (over HTTPS) in Incognito mode and see that none of the images in the first post are showing up. Bizarre! Will change over to HTTP and will keep this in mind for the future. Thanks for letting me know!

// edit2 - fixed

 

[Voi]

Thanks, but I'm a bit confused. Are you not normally able to see images served over HTTPS from ImgUr? Does this happen on just GJ, or everywhere? A problem for just you, or other folks, too?

I use ImgUr extensively and have never heard of this being an issue, so just trying to understand.

// edit - loaded this page (over HTTPS) in Incognito mode and see that none of the images in the first post are showing up. Bizarre! Will change over to HTTP and will keep this in mind for the future. Thanks for letting me know!

// edit2 - fixed

Sounds like you got it figured out. I'm not sure if this is an issue on forums other than Garage Journal.

It has caused a lot of confusion and a small handful of arguments. Those who post with https can see them fine and don't understand why others cannot. I believe somebody more tech savvy than me said it was because the person posting the pictures already had them cached in their browser.

 

[Voi]

Nothing like a coat of tablesaw dust covering every single item in your condo.

I remember those days. I have more free time now and a 1000 square foot garage plus access to a full cabinet shop and somehow I'm less creative than I was with a circular saw inside an apartment. Here's hoping the same doesn't happen for you.

The house not only has a (roughly) 23'x23' garage, but also a similarly sized, dedicated workshop room in the basement (with exterior access). I'm fairly sure I'm more excited about the new workspaces than the house itself.

Unheated, as far as I can tell.

The workshop is unheated or the garage is unheated? Are both insulated?

First thing first, I added a pair of Costco LED lights. These are plug in, and since I had open outlets on each garage door, it was an easy thing to do.

Are these the type of lights than can be ganged together so each light doesn't require its own outlet? That's how I added a lot of light to my garage without re-wiring.

If not I recommend you get some of those if you end up needing more light.

I intend on covering all walls in french cleats and using those as the primary attachment point for all storage. In fact, I'm considering deviating from the traditional french cleat design by making the 45-degree bevel on both sides of the plywood strip. This will allow me to build two-piece, bolt-together "clamps" that can grasp the strip from both sides and not rely on gravity & item weight to remain secure. (I'll be needing at least one such clamp down the line.)

I have use beveled cleats extensively and have done bevels on both long edges like you're considering. I've also done two rows of beveled cleats when I felt I needed more support.

The only time I did the double bevel was when I had a hook or a bracket on the cleat and I didn't want it coming off when I removed the ladder or whatever was hanging on the hook.

I'm not sure I understand the not relying on gravity part but maybe it will make more sense when you get to that point.

 

[kitchenTablesaw]

Sounds like you got it figured out. I'm not sure if this is an issue on forums other than Garage Journal.

It has caused a lot of confusion and a small handful of arguments. Those who post with https can see them fine and don't understand why others cannot. I believe somebody more tech savvy than me said it was because the person posting the pictures already had them cached in their browser.

So, I looked into this a bit.

Image requests made to imgur.com use the 'no-referrer-when-downgrade' Referrer Policy. This means that when a request is made over the HTTP protocol, the referrer (ie. the site/page on which the image is located) is not sent by the browser to imgur; when that same request is made over HTTPs, since it is the same protocol as the requesting site (GJ is served over HTTPS) , the referral URL is included with the request. I've also confirmed this behaviour by looking at the headers sent for images over HTTP and HTTPS.

Now as for why ImgUr chooses to not display an image when the referral is set to the GJ domain... the simplest answer is that they have intentionally blocked GJ from "hot linking" images hosted on ImgUr. Google results suggest they've done this exact same thing with many other sites. This saves them bandwidth and forces users to look at the images directly on ImgUr (which will display advertisements to pay for bandwidth), or to use the mis-matching protocol trick (requesting images using http from sites served over https). The "trick" comes with its own problems, but it seems to work for the time being.

Long and short of it is, ImgUr is to blame.

 

[kitchenTablesaw]

I remember those days. I have more free time now and a 1000 square foot garage plus access to a full cabinet shop and somehow I'm less creative than I was with a circular saw inside an apartment. Here's hoping the same doesn't happen for you.

The workshop is unheated or the garage is unheated? Are both insulated?

Are these the type of lights than can be ganged together so each light doesn't require its own outlet? That's how I added a lot of light to my garage without re-wiring.

If not I recommend you get some of those if you end up needing more light.

I have use beveled cleats extensively and have done bevels on both long edges like you're considering. I've also done two rows of beveled cleats when I felt I needed more support.

The only time I did the double bevel was when I had a hook or a bracket on the cleat and I didn't want it coming off when I removed the ladder or whatever was hanging on the hook.

I'm not sure I understand the not relying on gravity part but maybe it will make more sense when you get to that point.

The garage is attached to the house, and is fully insulated. Nicely, too.

The workshop is actually in the basement, so it is also insulated. And the workshop is heated.

I'm not sure about daisy-chaining the lights, but I do think that's possible. Each light has an electrical outlet rated at 15A draw, and they are full LED, meaning very low current draw. I suppose it's possible to chain a whole bunch of these together, so long as the total draw does not exceed the 15A rating of the very first light. Interesting idea - I'll give that some serious thought when it comes to setting up similar lighting in the workshop.

What I meant by not relying on gravity is that in a normal french-cleat application, the weight of the item hanging on the cleat is what provides the secure attachment. If you were to pull on that item UP and overcome gravity, the item would come off the cleat.

My immediate application for a dual-bevel cleat is this: I have a trailer (visible in the first few photos) that folds over on itself (in half). The remaining structure can then be lifted up vertically and slid around on built-in coasters. Handy feature to minimize the space needed for trailer storage. The downside is that between the ~300lb trailer and the weight of the 3/4" plywood deck, it becomes too heavy for me to lift up. Tried and nearly tore my back out. So...

I want a very secure, but easily re/movable eye-hook on a wall. This will allow me to run a ratchet strap (or even a drill-powered winch) from that eye hook to the trailer and use it to incrementally raise ("tip," really) the trailer safely, securely, and much more easily than with brute force.

I do not want this eye-hook to come loose regardless of the direction it's pulled on.

 

[kitchenTablesaw]

It's slow going, but progress is being made.

Installed new base boards in the re-painted section of the garage, and painted them along with both door frames:

I put up five french cleats. Each is 4" tall from 3/4" plywood. In the photo the lower four are merely held in place with a few brad nails, but I later attached them properly. The top cleat easily holds my entire 200lb weight.

After the cleats went up my OCD got triggered by the mis-aligned garage door switches:

So I moved them:

... at which point I noticed that the light switch is not mounted horizontally. Ugh. Will have to eventually do something about that.

Next came the bicycle mounts. I first tried a single-cleat design and that was an instant failure. The leverage of the bicycle would instantly pull off the cleat and everything would come crashing down.

I then did a double-cleat design which works pretty good:

On closer inspection, this still ends up slightly pulling away at the top cleat. This might have worked better if I set up the bicycle lower, but I need it at that height.

So for the heavier, department-store-special bicycle I went with a triple-cleat mount:

The triple cleat works great, but I did need to reinforce the attachment of the middle cleat. I originally mounted it with two 1" screws, but the bottom two got pulled out after the bike went on, so I added another six screws to that cleat, and it's now rock solid.

I may try flipping the bottom bike around and mounting it a bit higher so that it's tucked into the top bike a bit more.

I'm also considering adding another cleat row above the current top one, so that I can re-make the mount for the top bicycle into a triple-cleat design. Will sleep on both ideas for a while.

In other news, this is what the workshop room looks like:

With time I'll build it up, but for now it's just an amazing feeling to have a dedicated shop room, even if it's bare.

 

[Mikkeli]

Good progress with the paint job! Unfortunately your pics in the latest post don't work (at least for me).

 

[kitchenTablesaw]

Good progress with the paint job! Unfortunately your pics in the latest post don't work (at least for me).

Ah, shoot. Forgot about the HTTP/S issue. Just fixed them!

 

[driftpin]

Look at the Costco directions, I think you can attach 4 LED lights in-series. You could add more duplex outlets on the ceiling, and add more lighting. I suggest 4 of the 4 ft LED Costco lights per bay, for good illumination. Look at 'Platonic Solid' posts for lighting info. He will also design a system for you at reasonable cost, I believe.

Looks like you're off to a good start in the garage.

 

[kitchenTablesaw]

Look at the Costco directions, I think you can attach 4 LED lights in-series. You could add more duplex outlets on the ceiling, and add more lighting. I suggest 4 of the 4 ft LED Costco lights per bay, for good illumination. Look at 'Platonic Solid' posts for lighting info. He will also design a system for you at reasonable cost, I believe.

Looks like you're off to a good start in the garage.

Thanks for the tip! Will revisit this when I decide that more lighting is in order. Which I will. Eventually!

---

Re-arranged the bikes a bit. This feels like a better configuration, as it leaves space at the bottom, which I intend to use shortly. Will make a shelf there to keep my recycling containers off the ground.

 

[wasfast]

The bikes are slightly less obtrusive with the handlebar end at the top. Just FYI.

 

[kitchenTablesaw]

The bikes are slightly less obtrusive with the handlebar end at the top. Just FYI.

Thanks for the tip! I had a look at the bikes and flipping them around won't work - there's not enough space between the frame and the rear tire to get the bikes on the mounts.

---

I made this shelf tonight. All materials were leftovers that were given to me for free, so the only costs were nails and time:

I sized it so that it can be mounted on the bottom row and still sit about 4" off the floor, but it fits well on the second row, too. Quite happy with how it turned out.

First time using my Milwaukee brad nailer and I'm super happy with it. It's the perfect tool for such little projects that can forego cosmetic perfection in favour of speed and efficiency. Assembling this shelf with screws would have easily doubled the entire project time.

 

[Unruh]

Great looking space. When I found Garage Journal and saw how badly I needed to rethink my garage, I did the same as you and did one wall at a time. I’m almost done, but every time I read a new thread, I get new ideas!

 

[captain14]

Take your time as you plan out both spaces. Every time you see something neat something else neater will pop up.

Is this a single family house? Getting to be winter so anything that’s prone to freezing needs to be moved inside

I’ll certainly be back to see what you’ve done next.

 

[kitchenTablesaw]

New and neater ideas will always be around, for sure. My initial plan was to instantly cover all walls of both the garage and workshop in french cleats, but I think I'll slow down a bit and only do that as necessary. After I clear out the next corner of the garage, a decent workbench will be needed. Thinking I'll build one in an L-shape, and place it in the corner. Debating building it around some of the tool chests that I have.

In the immediate short term, I need to figure out a way to hang-up my skis, fire extinguisher and paper towel holder. Small items that I want to get off the ground and (probably) on to french cleats.

@captain14 - yes, single family, detached. I already had the irrigation lines blown out, and all four of my garden thread pipes are "frost free," so they shouldn't have any issues (no water shut off inside for these - just a single main shut off). I did, however, already order insulation covers for these guys, just as a piece of mind. The hot tub is on and heated 24/7, so that shouldn't be having issues. Beyond that, I don't think I have anything else that I need to worry about. Hopefully. (This is my first house, so I don't know what I don't know.)

 

[kitchenTablesaw]

A few more minor additions on the cleat wall: paper towel holder, dog stuff, and fire extinguisher. All the essentials!

I've found a few instances of local folks giving away sets of old kitchen cabinets. Think I'll pick up a few such sets and use them to build out the garage and workshop. From the looks of photos, they're all in decent shape with no damage that a coat of paint can't fix!

 

[kitchenTablesaw]

Stripped the remainder of the same wall and patched all holes/scratches:

... yeah.

Painted the walls, and installed new baseboards. In a spur of the moment I caulked the baseboards in this corner, and am not thrilled about the end result. Ended up purchasing a caulk which is not water-based and is very tough to remove even immediately after going on - it's very rubbery and super sticky. Made a bit of a mess in a few spots. Luckily the caulk is paintable so I may just cover it up with matching paint down the line.

I also picked up this 8'-long workbench. A woodworker made it for his use and was getting rid of it while moving to a new location. Not bad for $300 CAD; there must be at least $200 worth of materials in it.

I have a folding, galvanized-steel, 5x8 trailer. It is meant to be stood up vertically on its casters for storage. The downside is that between its steel construction, 3/4" plywood base, and the addition of the spare tire and front jack, it's roughly 450lbs and I can't physically lift it into the vertical position. Tried and nearly tore my back out, so that's not happening again.

To make life easier I purchased a small come-along winch and made this mounting bracket for it:

In this photo you can see the rectangular piece of plywood that I slide in between the mount and the top cleat. This "jams" the mount in place and prevents it from being removed, regardless of how hard you try:

I then tie the trailer's axle to my truck (so that the trailer doesn't roll towards the wall while being lifted), use an extension strap to attach the come-along to the nose of the trailer, and go at it:

It would be nicer if the come-along was a bit longer; right now, while fully rolled/up I still have to give the trailer a bit of a push to really get it into its final position. A longer steel cable in the come-along would have solved that.

The end result is that I can get the trailer vertical with minimal physical effort:

And being on casters, it's easy to roll away into the corner where I'm currently storing it.