Bmwtie
Well-known member
So I’m into BMW’s (old and new) and Chevys and brand new to GarageJournal. Figured I would make a nice place to keep a timeline / journal for myself, and if others appreciate it along the way thats great too.
Backstory:
32 year old Structural Engineer, avid DIY-er. Married with two sons (3&4) a third coming in February. Have been a gearhead all my life.
Bought house in 2012 (foreclosure). House was built 2003 by previous owner. Its semi-custom and completely different than the rest of the neighborhood. Garage is attached 34x34 14.5’ ceilings. 8.5x18 double door with another 10x10 service door.
Floor Space was mostly empty with the exception of an upper deck storage area and the stairs leading into the house. Walls and ceiling were bare drywall, but it was insulated and had decent insulated garage doors.
With the ceiling height I knew would be perfect for some lifts to support my auto hobbies. I store a very good friends racecar along with my own in here and stacking them works great. The garage is deep enough to tandem park the race cars and wife’s X5.
2013: I started by repurposing some used kitchen cabinets from a cousin. Turned out to be the perfect quantity to achieve a nice layout under the space I already had. Painted them red. Hung them under the storage area to crate the workspace. A guy near me sells old semi trailer deck oak planks on the cheap so I snatched a few of those and refinished them for the worktop.
2014: I painted the walls, ceiling, cased the windows. Drywall seams were never properly finished so the ceiling doesn’t look good but thats fine with me (for now). Setup Dart Board, Put beer fridge under workbench. Put in stereo I bought from Craigslist on the cheap.
2015: Ordered and installed the lifts. Greg Smith Equipment is my kind of candy store for sure, and I definitely have a sweet tooth I need to keep under control. Received “blown up” stand up air compressor from uncle. Rebuilt pump, now works perfectly. Put in auto hose reel. Bought stand up oil drain for oil changes.
2016: HEAT - Installed a Hot Dawg to keep me comfortable during the winter. Previously was using 100lb propane tanks with burners and no proper ventilation... not good. Inherited Kard-Veyer from wife’s grandfather. My favorite piece in the whole shop. Her grandfather had been using this thing as a tool box and I had admired it from day 1. It was in rough shape but cleaned up really nicely. To this day I have never seen another one being used as tool storage.
2017: Built tire rack at work, anchored it to the wall. I swap snow tires on 3 vehicles for family and also have a lot of race tire sets so tire storage was becoming a serious problem. Rebuilt M10 2.0L Race Motor on the 1600. Promptly blew it up. Installed water line on back wall for hose / car washes.
2018: Year of cleanup / organization and preparation for future plans. Have been working on Duramax mods and a Friend’s WRX quite a bit. Added more workbench lighting.
My current list of Future Plans / Wishlist:
* Replace south wall shelving with a 15’ wide NewAge storage system. Red of course. New upper cabinets on North wall for wife / gardening stuff.
* Epoxy Floor
* New staircase. I will design it and fabricate it at work. I am thinking all steel design. Will post plans once I get around to it.
* 5S foam in main toolbox.
* Create wood shop in part of unfinished basement.
* Stain or epoxy foundation wall on North and West Sides.
_____________________________________
I plan on posting some work zone photos of each space and will reserve some posts for those.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Backstory:
32 year old Structural Engineer, avid DIY-er. Married with two sons (3&4) a third coming in February. Have been a gearhead all my life.
Bought house in 2012 (foreclosure). House was built 2003 by previous owner. Its semi-custom and completely different than the rest of the neighborhood. Garage is attached 34x34 14.5’ ceilings. 8.5x18 double door with another 10x10 service door.
Floor Space was mostly empty with the exception of an upper deck storage area and the stairs leading into the house. Walls and ceiling were bare drywall, but it was insulated and had decent insulated garage doors.
With the ceiling height I knew would be perfect for some lifts to support my auto hobbies. I store a very good friends racecar along with my own in here and stacking them works great. The garage is deep enough to tandem park the race cars and wife’s X5.
2013: I started by repurposing some used kitchen cabinets from a cousin. Turned out to be the perfect quantity to achieve a nice layout under the space I already had. Painted them red. Hung them under the storage area to crate the workspace. A guy near me sells old semi trailer deck oak planks on the cheap so I snatched a few of those and refinished them for the worktop.
2014: I painted the walls, ceiling, cased the windows. Drywall seams were never properly finished so the ceiling doesn’t look good but thats fine with me (for now). Setup Dart Board, Put beer fridge under workbench. Put in stereo I bought from Craigslist on the cheap.
2015: Ordered and installed the lifts. Greg Smith Equipment is my kind of candy store for sure, and I definitely have a sweet tooth I need to keep under control. Received “blown up” stand up air compressor from uncle. Rebuilt pump, now works perfectly. Put in auto hose reel. Bought stand up oil drain for oil changes.
2016: HEAT - Installed a Hot Dawg to keep me comfortable during the winter. Previously was using 100lb propane tanks with burners and no proper ventilation... not good. Inherited Kard-Veyer from wife’s grandfather. My favorite piece in the whole shop. Her grandfather had been using this thing as a tool box and I had admired it from day 1. It was in rough shape but cleaned up really nicely. To this day I have never seen another one being used as tool storage.
2017: Built tire rack at work, anchored it to the wall. I swap snow tires on 3 vehicles for family and also have a lot of race tire sets so tire storage was becoming a serious problem. Rebuilt M10 2.0L Race Motor on the 1600. Promptly blew it up. Installed water line on back wall for hose / car washes.
2018: Year of cleanup / organization and preparation for future plans. Have been working on Duramax mods and a Friend’s WRX quite a bit. Added more workbench lighting.
My current list of Future Plans / Wishlist:
* Replace south wall shelving with a 15’ wide NewAge storage system. Red of course. New upper cabinets on North wall for wife / gardening stuff.
* Epoxy Floor
* New staircase. I will design it and fabricate it at work. I am thinking all steel design. Will post plans once I get around to it.
* 5S foam in main toolbox.
* Create wood shop in part of unfinished basement.
* Stain or epoxy foundation wall on North and West Sides.
_____________________________________
I plan on posting some work zone photos of each space and will reserve some posts for those.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
I’m thinking about a tuner from Stealth
