Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT Darby's City Garage, Est. 2025

[Darby9]

Last week, my partner and I closed on a new home in San Francisco, which means I have a new garage to sort out. I've soured on most social media, but as I've been researching ideas through old GJ threads, I thought maybe this is a better way to document and have a conversation about what I'm doing. We'll see how well I stick to it.

Background: My current/old house is an odd building--built 1900-ish as a storage building/carriage house/stable (?), then subdivided from the adjacent mixed use building in the 1940's and the second floor converted into a ~525 sq ft apartment, yielding the House-to-Garage Golden Ratio of 1. But, the ground floor gives up square footage to the stairwell and the laundry area. Once you subtract the footprint of a 1966 Fury, I'm left with about 200 sq ft of workshop. I've owned it for 13 years, and have crammed it full.

So, it's been a great shop and a great house, but it's small. My girlfriend moved in during Covid, and we've managed to live in this loft/studio for five years without murdering each other or getting married. But, we can't do that forever, so we made the insane decision to buy a duplex in San Francisco, and have started moving. As I'm tearing down all my weird shelves and cubby holes, I'm feeling a little nostalgic. But: progress!

Here's the new space:




It's irregularly shaped, but I think it works out to around 600 sq ft. The ceilings are only 7' 6", there's minimal natural light, and the whole house runs on a 100 amp service, which is a problem. But, it's 2X the usable space I have now. The door in the back leads to an office space with a full bath, which is a huge bonus--my workbench doesn't need to be my desk anymore.

 

[Darby9]

My early to-do list/decisions:

• I'm not coating the floors (not now, and so, not ever). Until my current house sells, I'm on a budget, and I need a 200 amp service and more outlets before I need sparkly floors. And, I need to get my $%& onto these floors so I can get the old place listed. Carrying two SF mortgages is not sustainable.
• The 3D printers and my current desk/workbench are going in the back room, to stay clean (er).
• The Ikea cabinets and toy workbenches will go away (maybe back to the old house).
• I do most of my fabrication work on a Tormach CNC mill, and that footprint will dominate my layout.
• We'll have tenants on the floor above this, so I need to do better on my noise and stink control. Sound deadening on the air compressor and a welding fume extractor are must-do's.
• I'll have a plumber in next week to add safety monitors on the water and gas lines--the joys of California insurance requirements.

Here's the view looking the other way. The closets in the center are under the front stairs but are good for dead storage. The alcove on the right has the gas service, and I'll probably put a 30 gal air compressor down there--it has the first three walls of a sound-deadening box already made.

Here

 

[Lou's Garage]

Best of luck with your new home and garage project. Over the years I've had two lower level garages with irregular shapes that I shared with the household utilities and I'm anxious to see what you do with it. As far as floor coatings; they are a "nice to have" not a "need to have". I have been fortunate enough to have had some sort of garage almost all my adult life and the only garages to have a coated floor are the two that I currently own. Oh yes, let's not forget the Esso station in my avatar but that was decades before anyone ever thought of sealed or coated floors. My father must have been a visionary.

Lou Manglass

 

[jcarapet]

I see the benefit of irregular shape being that it more naturally settles your workspace into designated zones. Also will allow for partitioning for dust and whatnot. Congrats on the new space!

 

[Darby9]

Thanks @jcarapet & @Lou's Garage.

I put the tape measure to it tonight, but really should have had my laptop with me to draw as I went. I spent my afternoon machining something to +/- 0.001", but am off by several inches here...



The part that's throwing me is the long bay that the car has to occupy (gray rectangle). When I pull it all the way up, I create a semi-isolated area right at the garage door. But parking it just inside the door obstructs the entrance. I may make that area the sawdust/painting area with a curtain wall to roll down and block off the rest of the garage. I don't want to set up a welding table there, but all my woodworking stuff is on wheels and can roll to/from there. If I make too much dust, I'll need to bag the EV charger the previous owners put there...



The true garage area is nice, but having the separate space in the back is what makes this sweet. It'll see double duty as a guest suite, so I can't fill it with car parts, but having a heated home office, bathroom, and kitchenette right off the shop is going to be a luxury.

 

[Bad Mojo]

If you haven't come across this build already the first of half of this thread has some similar design elements.

The Pie Factory

 

[Darby9]

So much for my initial ambitions of documenting regularly. Like so many other people on here say, life got in the way.

Getting everything out of the old shop took weeks. I tried to be responsible and pay movers or riggers to move the heavy stuff, but I got quoted $1000-$1800 to move just my mechanic's box and the mill--and only three blocks away. (One company swore they needed six guys, three hour minimum, gas, extra insurance...) So, I emptied the box, took off the hutch, and while everybody was distracting the police with fireworks and DUI's of July 4th, I pushed the thing down the middle of the street to my new house. Not fun (on a sprained ankle), but free.

The mill was the bigger hassle, but the 'hood provides. I grabbed a pallet from a dumpster, a toe ******** Amazon, and got the mill up on a modified version of the pallet, then lag bolted it down through the caster holes. I lived next to a grocery market, and I know the manager enough to say hi on the street. I caught him stocking shelves one day, and he jumped at the chance to use the store's forklift to help me out. Five minutes after I asked, he was at my garage door. We zipped down the street backwards, slid the mill through my new garage door with about two inches of height clearance and my problems were over. Dude wouldn't take money or beer, even after I told him how much he'd saved me.

Then, I had to finish un-personalizing the garage. Out with the Unistrut shelving, in with the Ikea. It's pretty weird and bittersweet seeing it blank, with no posters, no tools, no car. But, not many buyers will use the space the way I did. The realtor has it staged now with a mirror and a yoga mat and a big abstract print. But I can't bring myself to post those pics...

 

[Darby9]

If you haven't come across this build already the first of half of this thread has some similar design elements.

The Pie Factory

Yes, I read through that one years ago. Amazing shop, and I think near me, but he had triple the floor space (and budget) I did. My new house will be more conventional, for better or worse.

 

[Darby9]

I've done a terrible job documenting my build out. House and garden projects took priority most of last year, and I just lived with piles of boxes and crates and not being able to find anything. But, it's coming together.

Electrical--
The garage only had three outlet locations, all at chest level. The garage subpanel for the EV charger was a 60A and I was going to run garage circuits off that, but it turns out the charger wasn't installed right.



The electrician convinced me to replace it all with a proper subpanel. I ended up with one NEMA 5-60 at the panel, and three new 115V 20A circuits. There are eight new duplex outlets--two at the panel, two on the ceiling for lights, and four for tools, with the top/bottom outlets on different circuits/breakers, so I can run two larger tools in the same place.



The guy didn't do me any favors in the drywall planning department, but his conduit routing was on point. I have another couple rounds of mud & sanding. Definitely amateur hour when I'm taping seams...

 

[Darby9]

Storage
I had a few goals for the new shop: minimize cardboard boxes and milk crates, reduce the variety of totes, and keep Tools and Materials separate (just for my memory & sanity). I've typically scavenged my storage--milk crates, scrap wood shelves etc--but I'm giving myself license to spend a little money. Nothing will be new, but it will be less crappy than usual.

I found four card catalog-type filing cabinets at a yard sale--all steel, roller drawers, $25 each. Two of them got a coat of flat black and became hardware/fasteners/small parts storage. The blue corrosives cabinet was a Craig's List score--unused, mildly assaulted by a forklift on the backside. I harvested locking casters off a moving dolly, put drawer liner on top, and filled it with all my oils, greases, and aerosol paints. I'll get a Flammable sticker for it some day. I think these three cabinets eliminated eight milk crates and four totes. Will I hate kneeling down and hunting for paint? Probably. Did I hate digging through milk crates? Definitely.



3D printed plates for the drawers. This is the kind of precious $^*@# I make fun of other people for doing.



On to the side wall. I was going to sell or pitch the greenish Ikea cabinets that came with the garage, but they're actually not bad. I wouldn't pay $180/ea for them, and I wish they had mounting holes on 16" centers, but they fit nicely above the beige cabinet, which was another CL buy ($100). Everything is lag bolted into the studs, and I have good intentions of adding a strap or latch to the upper cabinet doors. I'd like to not take a router off the skull during an earthquake.



I'm not entirely cured of my milk crate problem, but they are perfect for rags and tangled extension cords.

 

[Darby9]

Unistruttin'
The Bay area is good for failed tech company equipment auctions. Bidders overpay for the HF/Craftsman/Ryobi tools, but sometimes random stuff falls through the cracks. This 12' long Unistrut frame had one other bidder, and I paid less than what the leveling casters cost new.



First repurpose was a rolling cart for my 3D printer. I only had to add the particle board. The auction lot included three rolls of EPDM foam, and I used some to create a vibration-damping layered top, which doesn't seem to be that effective.



Next was a set of cantilevered shelves for totes--9' x 2'. Decking was reused from some heavy duty boltless shelves. I hate perching stuff over my car, but it's the space I have. I'll keep a cargo net over them (eyes and carabiners screwed into studs at the top to latch the net), and add some kind of earthquake-deterring rail across the front.



Final project was the tool rack in post #10. That one's weirdly constructed, as I was running out of strut. I had to buy some Unistrut nuts, but I sold most of the leftover brackets on eBay and have 30+ Grade 8 bolts and some heavy wall aluminum tubing leftover. I lined the walls of my compressor closet with the EPDM foam.

I think I made money on this, if I consider my time worthless....

 

[Darby9]

Air compressor
I needed something bigger than my previous overworked 1 hp/eight gallon, but other than the mill's toolchanger and coolant systems, I don't run that many air tools. I picked up this Quincy 2hp 24 gallon on (where else?) Craig's List. Barely used, and suspiciously low on oil, but I'm cheap and like to gamble.



The compressor aftercooler thread on here has been super-helpful. I used a Hayden trans cooler, a separator with an automatic drain, 3/8" copper line and a stupid number of adapters. I caved and had a Parker store make a hose for the tank inlet to avoid one weird BSPP adapter situation. I haven't run the setup hard yet, but even on one tank fill, the temperature difference on the cooler inlet and outlet lines is very noticeable. I have another two-stage separator on my mill, but hoping this setup will tax it less.


The compressor will live in the closet at the front of the garage. Hate to lose the storage, but it's the only area that's not directly under my tenants. I flipped the door around to open more conveniently, furred out the brick walls and covered most of the area and the back of the door in EPDM foam. It's not quiet-quiet, but with the door closed, it's not bad.



The outlet is wired to the garage light circuit, so when I quit for the day, the compressor quits too. I've learned that not even a note taped to the exit door will reliably remind me to turn off a compressor. I usually remember to turn the lights off.

Here's the connection manifold outside the closet (hose through the wall, into the valve), with a big enough gauge that I can read it while standing at the mill, wondering why the toolchanger isn't working. The hose routing off this is a trip hazard, but I shouldn't be walking through there often, and there's already a new outlet box there. I probably should have put a regulator on the manifold--right now, I have to dial it up/down with the compressor-mounted one. I don't plan to run any hard lines--I can reach almost anywhere in the shop with a 25' hose, and out to the sidewalk.



Overall, pretty happy with how this turned out.

 

[Hooterville]

Air compressor
I needed something bigger than my previous overworked 1 hp/eight gallon, but I other than the mill's toolchanger and coolant systems, I don't run that many air tools. I picked up this Quincy 2hp 24 gallon on (where else?) Craig's List. Barely used, and suspiciously low on oil, but I'm cheap and like to gamble.



The compressor aftercooler thread on here has been super-helpful. I used a Hayden trans cooler, a separator with an automatic drain, 3/8" copper line and a stupid number of adapters. I caved and had a Parker store make me a custom hose for the tank inlet to avoid one weird BSPP adapter situation. I haven't run the setup hard yet, but even on one tank fill, the temperature difference between inlet and outlet lines on the cooler is very noticeable. I have another two-stage separator on my mill, but hoping this setup will tax it less.


The compressor will live in the closet at the front of the garage. Hate to lose the storage, but it's the only area that's not directly under my tenants. I flipped the door around to open more conveniently and furred out the brick walls and covered most of the area and the back of the door in EPDM foam. It's not quiet-quiet, but with the door closed, it's not bad.



The outlet is wired to the garage light circuit, so when I quit for the day, the compressor quits too. I've learned that not even a note taped to the exit door will reliably remind me to turn off a compressor. I usually remember to turn the lights off.

Here's the connection manifold outside the closet (hose through the wall, into the valve), with a big enough gauge that I can read it while standing at the mill, wondering why the toolchanger isn't working. The hose routing off this is a non-ideal trip hazard, but I shouldn't be walking through there often, and there's already a new outlet box there. I probably should have put a regulator on the manifold--right now, I have to dial it up/down with the compressor-mounted one. I don't plan to run any hard lines--I can reach almost anywhere in the shop with a 25' hose, and out to the sidewalk.



Overall, pretty happy with how this turned out.

Shop is looking good. I am in the East Bay and I can appreciate the layout and design decisions required for earthquake prone areas. I make every effort to keep the center-of-mass low and/or bolt things down.

 

[Darby9]

Shop is looking good. I am in the East Bay and I can appreciate the layout and design decisions required for earthquake prone areas. I make every effort to keep the center-of-mass low and/or bolt things down.

After 35 years living in the northeast and midwest, it's taken a while for me to naturally consider earthquakes in my planning. And I still think about glue, paint, etc freezing in the winter, even though it never freezes here.