granitelake
New member
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2026
- Messages
- 1
Good day all, I live on the southwest coast of British Columbia, Canada!
I stumbled upon this magnificent forum brainstorming ideas for my detached garage.
My wife and I just bought our first house last month and it came with a small detached garage. I have little to no info about when it (the shop) was built and by whom since the sellers husband passed roughly 4 years ago and we're the second owners of this property.
As we settle in and get more organized I'll return with more meaningful info about the structure but the basics are as follows:
The footprint is claimed to be 12' wide by 28' long, wall to wall width inside measures roughly 11'6". I have yet to get figured for interior length (bear with me here) but it's adequate space to park my beloved '97 Wrangler TJ and a lawn tractor behind it with room to walk around.
It's got what i would describe as a man powered spring assist sheet metal garage door sounds like the typical 1980's garage door would on the narrow end facing the street, the opposite wall has a very old wooden framed single pane window with about 87% of it's glass remaining
.
The interior walls and ceilings are roughly 5/16" OSB plywood and the roof is sheet metal. The roof trusses are definitely home built and shouldn't be trusted for anything too heavy. Wired for 110V 30amp.
Goals:
(I'm very much a function over form type person so looks and aesthetic aren't too high on my priority list)
The aim is to construct a versatile yet compact set of benches and shelving in the aft area of the shop for most of the tools. I've already dabbled with the Milwaukee Packout system having used one of their products as my tool kit for when I'm out in the jeep. I could see making some benches with shelving underneath to conveniently house my Packout boxes a possible build route.
Most of what I own for tools currently are more geared towards automotive repair so making room for the construction/woodworking tools a guy needs for house renovations must be considered in all this as well. I was gifted a Makita jobsite tablesaw (kinda like this) and a small air compressor which I'll either mount up on the wall in a corner or find a floor spot that works with my vision and have it plumbed to a hose reel.
Parking for the lawn tractor and Jeep isn't fully settled just yet, the order of which unit gets parked inside first needs to be determined. I may even consider building a small shed to house the mower just to make things simple and allow for a bit more room to work.
Adding a concrete slab in front of the shop is also on the list of potential upgrades, this would allow for a more centralized maintenance location for both our daily drivers instead of lugging tools 50yds to the carport.
The final piece to the puzzle will be housing my plethora of chainsaws... Deep-ish floor to ceiling shelves is the general plan as of right now to accommodate them.
Throughout all this I'm being mindful to avoid building too much on the walls on at least one side of where my Jeep lives so that it doesn't feel too cramped.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk
I stumbled upon this magnificent forum brainstorming ideas for my detached garage.
My wife and I just bought our first house last month and it came with a small detached garage. I have little to no info about when it (the shop) was built and by whom since the sellers husband passed roughly 4 years ago and we're the second owners of this property.
As we settle in and get more organized I'll return with more meaningful info about the structure but the basics are as follows:
The footprint is claimed to be 12' wide by 28' long, wall to wall width inside measures roughly 11'6". I have yet to get figured for interior length (bear with me here) but it's adequate space to park my beloved '97 Wrangler TJ and a lawn tractor behind it with room to walk around.
It's got what i would describe as a man powered spring assist sheet metal garage door sounds like the typical 1980's garage door would on the narrow end facing the street, the opposite wall has a very old wooden framed single pane window with about 87% of it's glass remaining
.The interior walls and ceilings are roughly 5/16" OSB plywood and the roof is sheet metal. The roof trusses are definitely home built and shouldn't be trusted for anything too heavy. Wired for 110V 30amp.
Goals:
(I'm very much a function over form type person so looks and aesthetic aren't too high on my priority list
)The aim is to construct a versatile yet compact set of benches and shelving in the aft area of the shop for most of the tools. I've already dabbled with the Milwaukee Packout system having used one of their products as my tool kit for when I'm out in the jeep. I could see making some benches with shelving underneath to conveniently house my Packout boxes a possible build route.
Most of what I own for tools currently are more geared towards automotive repair so making room for the construction/woodworking tools a guy needs for house renovations must be considered in all this as well. I was gifted a Makita jobsite tablesaw (kinda like this) and a small air compressor which I'll either mount up on the wall in a corner or find a floor spot that works with my vision and have it plumbed to a hose reel.
Parking for the lawn tractor and Jeep isn't fully settled just yet, the order of which unit gets parked inside first needs to be determined. I may even consider building a small shed to house the mower just to make things simple and allow for a bit more room to work.
Adding a concrete slab in front of the shop is also on the list of potential upgrades, this would allow for a more centralized maintenance location for both our daily drivers instead of lugging tools 50yds to the carport.
The final piece to the puzzle will be housing my plethora of chainsaws... Deep-ish floor to ceiling shelves is the general plan as of right now to accommodate them.
Throughout all this I'm being mindful to avoid building too much on the walls on at least one side of where my Jeep lives so that it doesn't feel too cramped.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk