Foxtrots 20x21 Florida Garage Build

[foxtrotlima556]

Howdy! I am a longtime lurker on GJ but recently purchased my first home! Im a little behind on starting a thread since the home is already built and I have started on the garage already but better late then never!

I am coming from a townhome with a small 1 car garage that was pretty much a dedicated gym. The squat rack took up enough space that getting a car in wasn't possible. After a long search of used homes I decided to have a home built. It fit all the criteria and the budget, although the garage size was definitely a compromise.

Here is a few pictures of the progress from signing the contract to closing.

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So its built! We have been moved in for about a month now and I have been planning the garage out. The main use for the garage is going to be a small generic workshop and routine car maintenance.

Task one: Storage. Being that the garage is smaller than I originally wanted I think the best way to maximize the garage space is to minimize the clutter. That means getting everything off the floor and out of the way. I plan on making some sort of overhead storage system (aka 2x4s and plywood) at the front of the garage above the main door. This is the catch-all the most frequently used items like holiday decorations, car parts, etc. All the rarely used things will go in the attic. I’ve already begun laying some flooring in the attic so I can use it for storage.

Task 2: Flooring. I’ve was researching a ton about flooring. I originally had decided I wanted to apply an epoxy coating before moving in. After reading and running out of time I feel like some sort of tile flooring will be my best bet. Here is my current design for flooring:

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So that’s about it for now. I do not have any current pictures of the garage handy at the moment but I will update this frequently.

 

[JCQuick]

Howdy fellow floridian welcome to the GJ thers a whole group of Fla folks here just watch out for tampa and his ladies

House and most important the garage looks good can't wait to see more

 

[1991Syclone]

Update your location in your profile. Where in Florida are you?

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Update your location in your profile. Where in Florida are you?

Erh. Ill say about 30 minutes north of Orlando. Rather now give out the town.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Howdy fellow floridian welcome to the GJ thers a whole group of Fla folks here just watch out for tampa and his ladies

House and most important the garage looks good can't wait to see more

Thanks! Ill keep my eyes peeled for the Floridians.

 

[JCQuick]

30 mins north your up by me

 

[1991Syclone]

Erh. Ill say about 30 minutes north of Orlando. Rather now give out the town.

I used to live up that way. Lived in Sanford, Orlando, and Winter Springs over the years. Good luck with the garage, I'll be following this thread. I visit relatives in Winter Garden every few months.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

30 mins north your up by me

Not to far at all

I used to live up that way. Lived in Sanford, Orlando, and Winter Springs over the years. Good luck with the garage, I'll be following this thread. I visit relatives in Winter Garden every few months.

Just moved from Sanford. Thanks for stopping by!

 

[taumac]

Welcome fellow Floridian. I'm over on west coast of Florida about 5 mins away from Weeki Wachee Springs. The group that JCQuick is speaking of is called Florida Garage Life or the Garage Journal Florida Chapter.

Here's the link to group page.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=117

Here's link to the thread dedicated to the group.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=282974





That's a nice new home you got and has the typical Florida garage. I'll really interested to see how you gonna do it up.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Welcome fellow Floridian. I'm over on west coast of Florida about 5 mins away from Weeki Wachee Springs. The group that JCQuick is speaking of is called Florida Garage Life or the Garage Journal Florida Chapter.

Here's the link to group page.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=117

Here's link to the thread dedicated to the group.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=282974





That's a nice new home you got and has the typical Florida garage. I'll really interested to see how you gonna do it up.

Thanks. I will check out the group and thread. It definitely is a typical florida garage. I really wanted a 2 1/2 car garage but I will make it work. I added 8 ft door ways as an option which really pushed up the ceilings. It made some extra room for storage up top or maybe even a small lift

 

[foxtrotlima556]

I have been hunting around for a proper storage setup in the garage to make more use of the space available. The 5 piece set is perfect for the space I have available. I have a ~6' section of flat wall then a breaker box that sticks out about 6 inches. Then another 4' before running into the water heater.

So I was keeping an eye out for deals and saw Sears was running a deal on the Newage Performance 5 piece cabinet set for $699. Much lower than anywhere else I saw. I left it in my cart for about a day and I went back in to order it and it had went up to $759. So being the tight-wad I am, I refused to order it. Luckily for me a week or so later I saw it listed back at $699 on Overstock. I dug around and found a 20% off coupon AND free shipping.

So they will be here tomorrow. I will break out the camera and get some pictures. Hopefully they arrive with no damage. Im excited to see how it will fit in the spot I have designated for it. The addition 4' on the other side of the breaker box gives me some room to add another tall cabinet or two.

 

[JCQuick]

I like that set sounds like they will work perfect. Lets just hope they don't get delivered to a neighbor( inside joke of the GJ)

 

[foxtrotlima556]

I like that set sounds like they will work perfect. Lets just hope they don't get delivered to a neighbor( inside joke of the GJ)

No neighbors!

I think they will fit nicely. I went back and forth looking at the Performance Plus line or other manufacturers like Husky, Gladiator and Kobalt. I heard mixed reviews about the Performance line and them only being 24g metal versus the Performance Plus or Pro line. I decided these weren't going to be the cabinets I use for the rest of my life and the cost left me room in the budget to pick up some tile flooring.

 

[OneBayShort]

Happen to recall that coupon code? I've been looking at the 9 piece set and 20%/ free shipping would have been pulling the trigger ASAP.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Happen to recall that coupon code? I've been looking at the 9 piece set and 20%/ free shipping would have been pulling the trigger ASAP.

Just dropped you a PM with the link. Hopefully it works for you. It still works for me

 

[shortykorte]

Welcome from Tallahassee. Look forward to your garage transformation.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Welcome from Tallahassee. Look forward to your garage transformation.

Howdy. Can't wait for it to all come together but I have to admit, I am enjoying the process of planning, hunting for deals and unpacking boxes.

 

[txav8or]

Great looking house! Have fun planning out your new garage.

If you are going to have lots of items to store you should look into saferacks. They are overhead storage and I have really enjoyed stuffing boxes up there and getting them out of the way! Like you I'm stuck with a two car garage and space is at a premium.

Keep posting pic of your progress.

Bill D.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Great looking house! Have fun planning out your new garage.

If you are going to have lots of items to store you should look into saferacks. They are overhead storage and I have really enjoyed stuffing boxes up there and getting them out of the way! Like you I'm stuck with a two car garage and space is at a premium.

Keep posting pic of your progress.

Bill D.

Thanks Bill! I will definitely check out SafeRacks. I definitely think its crucial to get all the clutter off the floor and up high out of the way. Will allow me to really maximize the space I have available. Ill do my best to keep a photo log along the way.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Newage Performance 5 Piece Review/Assembly



If you read the post above this you would see I recently scored a good deal on the Newage Performance 5 piece cabinet set. I purchased these through Overstock.com. They were listed at $699 with free shipping. I managed to find a 20% off coupon in my email which brought the final priced shipped to my door to $559.99.

Delivery
The cabinets have to be shipped via freight delivery. I live in Central Florida and they were delivered by a company called FastMile. I received a call from them last Friday and they said they would be delivering the cabinets the following Wednesday. They said they would call Tuesday and give me a 4 hour window notice. Well the end of Tuesday rolled around and I had not heard anything. I figured I would call on my way to work and get the time frame since I only live 20 minutes from home. Get on the highway and my girlfriend calls me and says "there here with the cabinets." WHAT! She tells me they are already unloading them and they put them in the garage on a pallet.

Im somewhat frustrated at this point because she tells me they ask her to sign the "no damage" form. I would have like to be there to check out the boxes and make sure there was no damage. So I sat at work all day waiting to see that glorious 5:00 pop up on the clock so I could get home.

Unboxing
Here is what I saw when I got home.

My girlfriend had sent me a few other pictures but she was running out the door as well. I was somewhat confused because in my mind I thought there would have been more. They actually package all the small cabinets inside the tall cabinet. Cool! Ill let the pictures do the talking while I unbox them all. Ignore the disastrous garage...

Scratch, dent and damage free! I had read a few post where people had items damage from shipping. I guess I was lucky. Everything came well packaged and apparently the delivery guys from FASTMILE were courteous.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Assembly
Being that these are welded cabinets there wasn't much assembly that was required. The two floor cabinets required the foot supports and foot to be installed. The holes on the bottom of the cabinets were threaded. Only thing I scratched my head on for a few seconds was the manual. First, it is terribly written. You have to dig around to find the English section. For a minute I thought it was complete in Spanish of French. Next it referred to the screw for the feet as 7/16th. Errhhh.. Either my 7/16 is not a 7/16 or they wrote the wrong thing. A 10mm fit perfect and got the legs mounted in no time.

The handles used two short phillips screws. They are screwed into the handle in the packaging. Well 3 out of 4 were. The other was missing. I found it in with the other screws. The handles also had some long phillips screws wrapped in the bag with it. I have no idea what they were for. We will call it weight reduction.

The table top mounts to the tall cabinet with a L bracket and there are holes in the two door cabinet that allow you to screw down the table top. Simple stuff.

Sorry about the picture quality at this point. My DSLR camera charger is MIA. I think my mom or girlfriend packed it in a box and I have yet to find it... I ran out of time to get the uppers mounted. For the time being I did not fasten the tall or short cabinet to the wall yet and I am not sure if I will be able to. If you look close you can see in the picture that there is baseboard trim along the bottom of the wall. Its preventing me from getting the cabinets flush with the wall. Im also debating on hanging the wall cabinets since I want to paint the garage soon. Not sure if it is worth the hassle to mount them to just take them back down in a weekend or so so I can paint behind them.

Preliminary Review
I bought the full 5 piece cabinet set for $559.99 which included shipping (free). I had heard mix reviews about the Performance line from Newage being to flimsy since there are 24g sheet metal versus the thicker 18g found on the Pro-Line. In my opinion the 24g works great for me. They definitely fit in my budget and left plenty of room for me to purchase some flooring. I would say I work on vehicles more than the average person. My normal automotive work includes normal maintenance like brakes, oil changes. I've also done air suspension, exhausts, mounted wheels, etc. I do not own a welder so I do not do any metal fab in here. If I did I probably would have opted for the thicker gauge cabinets, but for now these appear to fit my needs perfectly.

I hate finger prints. I can tell I will be keeping a bottle of stainless cleaner in the cabinet at all times to keep the stainless top clean. It looks quite pretty clean but it collects smudges fast! The upper cabinets have hydraulic lifters that work quite nicely. They definitely seem quality.

My only complaint so far is that the shelves drop in the cabinets very weirdly. The shelves have a notch that is suppose to drop into a slot on the cabinet wall. Well since the metal is 24g it has some give. I had to have my girlfriend push the outer wall of the cabinet to make a tight fit on the inside so the slot would catch the shelf. Not a game changer but I was not able to get it done myself. The damn cabinet door was in the way. My 6'+ wingspan was not cutting it.

Overall they are perfect for what I need. The finish looks great and I was surprised to hear my girlfriend say she "really liked them."

I will try and find my DSLR and get some pictures of the shelf mounting issue. I will post some more pictures when I get the upper cabinets mounted. Hopefully the garage will be painted next time you see it. Let me know if there are any other pictures you would like to see.

 

[west_perf]

Welcome and congratulations on the new garage. You're right up the road from JC Quick and myself. I also have the same cabinets (see my thread for pictures) and I've been very pleased with them as well. I have found the doors feel flimsy but the shelves have been rock solid.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Welcome and congratulations on the new garage. You're right up the road from JC Quick and myself. I also have the same cabinets (see my thread for pictures) and I've been very pleased with them as well. I have found the doors feel flimsy but the shelves have been rock solid.

I will check out your thread! I get the same impression. The doors do feel a tad thin but the shelves look like they will work great. Thanks for stopping in!

 

[dittle fart around]

Dude your pictures disappeared.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Dude your pictures disappeared.

****! Guess they are private after all. Let me fix them.

 

[foxtrotlima556]

Ok, I moved the pictures to Flickr. Should be good to go now!