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Active member
Hi all,
One rule of the internet is there's a forum about just about anything you can think of, so I shouldn't have been surprised when this one repeatedly came up when googling a number of lifts. After spending a couple of hours reading, I finally gave in and registered
I'm a petrolhead (oops, that might be British english - but I'm sure you understand) from the Netherlands, as such I have basically bought a large garage that happens to have a house attached to it. I've lived there for 5 years now, and of course it's too small already. So I bought a business/storage unit in addition, which is completely empty now - a clean slate to start from.
About myself... I'm 32, working in IT and own 8 cars, a cat and a sailboat. I also live with the most wonderful girl who doesn't mind all that, and even helped fund my second garage. Yeah, she's a keeper. The cars are mostly old and pretty much worthless - though I like 'em. Two out of eight are donor cars that will be scrapped when stripped of useful parts, then there's a "way over 200k mile" beater on barbecue gas that has paid for itself about three times already, and is lasting way longer than I ever thought it would, so I could be down to five soon.
I've basically done most maintenance myself for the past 14 years, only 'outsourcing' when I couldn't be bothered to tackle a boring job - and could find someone I trusted to do it right. I am a bit of a perfectionist, and it seems everytime I pay someone else to do something for me, I end up spending way too much money on a lousy job. Besides the boring stuff I am also into modification, of the performance variety. I've sorted performance car suspensions, headed a rally service team, built my own engines and wired up engine conversions, loving it all. So many projects, so little time.
Garages tend to be small here, as this is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and most people don't really care for a garage anyway. However, I've still managed to get my hands on two that are huge for our standards, so I'm not complaining. One is mainly for storage (about 20 minutes from home), the other is under my house, and I use it to work on cars. At least that wass the idea, until it became cluttered with engines, transmissions, rear ends and such... so now I bought this storage unit to keep the 'main' garage clear.
To give you an idea ... the most common 'standard' single car garage size around here is 9'3"x18'5" inside - about 170 sq ft. (metric: 2.80 x 5.60m = 16m2 inside, 3.00 x 6.00m = 18m2 including door and walls). It is very difficult to find any larger than that, so although it may not seem much to you, I consider myself lucky to have a 345 sqft "working" garage under my house, plus 455sqft storage elsewhere. You will see me go to great lengths to make the most of this available space
One rule of the internet is there's a forum about just about anything you can think of, so I shouldn't have been surprised when this one repeatedly came up when googling a number of lifts. After spending a couple of hours reading, I finally gave in and registered
I'm a petrolhead (oops, that might be British english - but I'm sure you understand) from the Netherlands, as such I have basically bought a large garage that happens to have a house attached to it. I've lived there for 5 years now, and of course it's too small already. So I bought a business/storage unit in addition, which is completely empty now - a clean slate to start from.
About myself... I'm 32, working in IT and own 8 cars, a cat and a sailboat. I also live with the most wonderful girl who doesn't mind all that, and even helped fund my second garage. Yeah, she's a keeper. The cars are mostly old and pretty much worthless - though I like 'em. Two out of eight are donor cars that will be scrapped when stripped of useful parts, then there's a "way over 200k mile" beater on barbecue gas that has paid for itself about three times already, and is lasting way longer than I ever thought it would, so I could be down to five soon.
I've basically done most maintenance myself for the past 14 years, only 'outsourcing' when I couldn't be bothered to tackle a boring job - and could find someone I trusted to do it right. I am a bit of a perfectionist, and it seems everytime I pay someone else to do something for me, I end up spending way too much money on a lousy job. Besides the boring stuff I am also into modification, of the performance variety. I've sorted performance car suspensions, headed a rally service team, built my own engines and wired up engine conversions, loving it all. So many projects, so little time.
Garages tend to be small here, as this is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and most people don't really care for a garage anyway. However, I've still managed to get my hands on two that are huge for our standards, so I'm not complaining. One is mainly for storage (about 20 minutes from home), the other is under my house, and I use it to work on cars. At least that wass the idea, until it became cluttered with engines, transmissions, rear ends and such... so now I bought this storage unit to keep the 'main' garage clear.
To give you an idea ... the most common 'standard' single car garage size around here is 9'3"x18'5" inside - about 170 sq ft. (metric: 2.80 x 5.60m = 16m2 inside, 3.00 x 6.00m = 18m2 including door and walls). It is very difficult to find any larger than that, so although it may not seem much to you, I consider myself lucky to have a 345 sqft "working" garage under my house, plus 455sqft storage elsewhere. You will see me go to great lengths to make the most of this available space
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