dubcanuck1
Active member
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2013
- Messages
- 42
Hi all,
I've been reading a lot of your threads and I figured I'd share the work I've done in my garage.
The skinny:
8 years ago, I moved from my old place, which had a 22x24 detached garage to a new house. This house had a double-attached garage that's 20x21. So needless to say, I was underwhelmed by the reduction in square footage, but hey, the house is a lot nicer, sooo lemons->lemonade sorta thing.
I'm struggling to find older pictures of the garage, but here's sort of where it started. It was uninsulated, and the most basic 2-car garage you could get. Staircase to the man door right in the middle.
Here's a pic of where it ended up after a couple years. I insulated it and put up some OSB on the walls, then, as the garage is 13' high, I built up 3 rows of overhead storage.
The opposite side was essentially the same.
At some point, I picked up a 4 post lift. This is actually a good pic of where things were as of last spring. As you can see, I used the sides of the staircase to build a workbench, and an overhead shelf/gangplank to the wall-mounted shelves.
A small digression, but here's what I did with my overhead door so that I could open the door with a car on the lift:
So that's where things started to bother me. I had a 20' wide garage, but due to the construction of the shelves, essentially only 16' was useable. If you look in the previous pictures, you'll notice that there's a lot of vertical 2x4 supports holding the shelving up as well as dedicated bench space (24" benches and shelves). This meant that when I was working on cars, I would have to do a lot of maneuvering to get around. That frustrated me, so I decided "hey self. You can weld. And you have an idea".
Here's how it started: I pulled down the shelves on one side and built steel shelf supports to hold up the shelves overhead, thereby freeing up the dedicated floor space that was occupied by the benches, etc...
I'll let the images do the talking next (with a small preamble): The brackets are built out of 1x2 mild steel, 1-1/2" angle iron, and some 1x1" square tubing with some plate steel acting as the "foot".
The brackets have tabs on them that essentially held them briefly to the wall. I screwed the shelving in from the bottom of the angle iron bits and then the shelves get screwed to the wall, securing the brackets to the wall as well.
I was pleased with the outcome of that side and it's served me well. However, the other side was the real pain in my ****. I wanted to keep the dedicated bench concept that I setup in the pic below but make it, and the stairs out of steel, so that I could have a large under-bench space to store a few welding tables that are in the works.
So, of course, I had to tear the other side apart and deal with that. As I had to remove my staircase, I hummed and hawed until I came up with an idea, using some metal that I scored off of Kijiji (Canada's Craigslist). Long story short, they were metal walls made of 1x3 c-channel. I cut them apart and that's what I used as the material for my construction idea.
Quick pic of the metal walls (which took a lot of effort to get converted from the 1st picture's state to the second).
Plans:
Teardown and prep:
The raw materials. Much cutting, grinding, welding and cussing was done getting these reduced to just the c-channel.
Progress:
My 15-year old who is likely a better weldor than I am.
How I connected the top railing to the vertical support of the stairs (left side)
This pic is great to highlight the "span" that I have under the platform. My welding table will be ~7' long and I'll have a welding cart at ~2-1/2' that both slide under there.
Edit: The other side shelves. More of the same sorta stuff:
Where it stood last I worked on it, before I fired a few cars into it.
That brings us up to current.
I've been reading a lot of your threads and I figured I'd share the work I've done in my garage.
The skinny:
8 years ago, I moved from my old place, which had a 22x24 detached garage to a new house. This house had a double-attached garage that's 20x21. So needless to say, I was underwhelmed by the reduction in square footage, but hey, the house is a lot nicer, sooo lemons->lemonade sorta thing.
I'm struggling to find older pictures of the garage, but here's sort of where it started. It was uninsulated, and the most basic 2-car garage you could get. Staircase to the man door right in the middle.
Here's a pic of where it ended up after a couple years. I insulated it and put up some OSB on the walls, then, as the garage is 13' high, I built up 3 rows of overhead storage.
The opposite side was essentially the same.
At some point, I picked up a 4 post lift. This is actually a good pic of where things were as of last spring. As you can see, I used the sides of the staircase to build a workbench, and an overhead shelf/gangplank to the wall-mounted shelves.
A small digression, but here's what I did with my overhead door so that I could open the door with a car on the lift:
So that's where things started to bother me. I had a 20' wide garage, but due to the construction of the shelves, essentially only 16' was useable. If you look in the previous pictures, you'll notice that there's a lot of vertical 2x4 supports holding the shelving up as well as dedicated bench space (24" benches and shelves). This meant that when I was working on cars, I would have to do a lot of maneuvering to get around. That frustrated me, so I decided "hey self. You can weld. And you have an idea".
Here's how it started: I pulled down the shelves on one side and built steel shelf supports to hold up the shelves overhead, thereby freeing up the dedicated floor space that was occupied by the benches, etc...
I'll let the images do the talking next (with a small preamble): The brackets are built out of 1x2 mild steel, 1-1/2" angle iron, and some 1x1" square tubing with some plate steel acting as the "foot".
The brackets have tabs on them that essentially held them briefly to the wall. I screwed the shelving in from the bottom of the angle iron bits and then the shelves get screwed to the wall, securing the brackets to the wall as well.
I was pleased with the outcome of that side and it's served me well. However, the other side was the real pain in my ****. I wanted to keep the dedicated bench concept that I setup in the pic below but make it, and the stairs out of steel, so that I could have a large under-bench space to store a few welding tables that are in the works.
So, of course, I had to tear the other side apart and deal with that. As I had to remove my staircase, I hummed and hawed until I came up with an idea, using some metal that I scored off of Kijiji (Canada's Craigslist). Long story short, they were metal walls made of 1x3 c-channel. I cut them apart and that's what I used as the material for my construction idea.
Quick pic of the metal walls (which took a lot of effort to get converted from the 1st picture's state to the second).
Plans:
Teardown and prep:
The raw materials. Much cutting, grinding, welding and cussing was done getting these reduced to just the c-channel.
Progress:
My 15-year old who is likely a better weldor than I am.
How I connected the top railing to the vertical support of the stairs (left side)
This pic is great to highlight the "span" that I have under the platform. My welding table will be ~7' long and I'll have a welding cart at ~2-1/2' that both slide under there.
Edit: The other side shelves. More of the same sorta stuff:
Where it stood last I worked on it, before I fired a few cars into it.
That brings us up to current.
Last edited:
![20170121_015707[1].jpg](http://www.canadubs.com/images/Garage/20170121_015707[1].jpg)
