Just A Nerd's Garage

[jbmatth]

That is a nice looking shed, you have done well for yourself on that one. When I built mine a few years ago I went with 8'x16' but should have gone for the 12'x16'. In the end it didn't matter as we sold the house a year later and the shed stayed. It was nice to have the free space for the time though. The vacation photo's look great and many of the places I've been years ago and need to take my daughters to at some point. How is the XJ?

JB

 

[Unruh]

Fun thread. I have a couple little ones and enjoy seeing them helping. I hear you on staying under 200 sq. ft. I built a treehouse and did the same thing you did. I’ll be building a she shed in the spring and will do the same again. I’ll use those blocks you talked about, thanks!

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

That is a nice looking shed, you have done well for yourself on that one. When I built mine a few years ago I went with 8'x16' but should have gone for the 12'x16'. In the end it didn't matter as we sold the house a year later and the shed stayed. It was nice to have the free space for the time though. The vacation photo's look great and many of the places I've been years ago and need to take my daughters to at some point. How is the XJ?

JB

Originally I had it set up to be a 10x12 but as I started drawing it in Sketchup I realized that with a 10x12 you end up having to do a lot of cutting and have scrap materials - whereas a 12x16 makes the 4x8 sheets of OSB and plywood fit up there without scraps. That's the logic I used for the wife, anyway Thanks for the complements! It's really nice to be able to have "a spot for everything and everything in its spot" and the shed allows me to do that. The funny thing is that after I got this built we're now kind of set on moving within 2 years so I'm sure I'll get the opportunity to correct any mistakes I made on this one at the new house ...

The XJ is ... a Jeep. I think it's got a grounding issue. About 50% of the time when I go out to start it it barely runs. It sounds like it's got a miss but the check engine light it gives isn't very helpful and the only thing I can think of that makes sense is a weird grounding issue since they are kind of known for those. Hoping to have a calm weekend here soon so I can actually bring it in the shop and get it diagnosed.

Fun thread. I have a couple little ones and enjoy seeing them helping. I hear you on staying under 200 sq. ft. I built a treehouse and did the same thing you did. I’ll be building a she shed in the spring and will do the same again. I’ll use those blocks you talked about, thanks!

I have a good pic of my daughter I forgot to upload of her using the tape measure. She just wants to help. This age is interesting because they are starting to understand things at a much higher level. They are getting too smart for their own good!

I'm all for inspection and stuff when it makes sense but I think they go a little overboard for sheds and treehouses. But that's just the world we live in so we just find loopholes like 200 square feet I definitely like the blocks. My dad used the flat ones years ago on a shed he built at a previous house and they worked pretty nice to keep it up off the ground but I like these a little more since they have the slots for the boards and keep everything locked in.

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Shop Time

I was actually able to use the shop last night for the first time in a while:

Got the first oil change done in the BMW. Thankfully it was incredibly simple. The ramps it's sitting on are 50-60 years old. An older guy my old man has known for probably almost 40 years now was cleaning up his garage as his back just isn't what it used to be. Anyway, either he or his dad built them back in the 50s or 60s out of Douglas Fir and man are they still rock solid. It's nice to see when you build something right the first time, it can last decades and still be just as useful today as it was when it was built.

 

[JustinS]

Cool updates Jeremy!

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Cool updates Jeremy!

Thanks! Will try and get a pic of the shop itself tonight. I've actually been cleaning it up pretty nice. Now that another house is in the back of our minds I've already been trying to plan out what I'd do differently so I can apply that to the new house.

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

I finally got out of the "it's too cold to do anything" mode and had a productive weekend in the shop. So here's a little update:

New Toys
I've been wanting to increase the amount of wood projects I get to do in the shop but I've been held back by not having a planer. They are always so expensive and I just haven't been able to justify the cost. Then, on a whim, I was searching the FB marketplace and found a nice Delta for only $100 and it was only maybe 2 miles from my parents' place. So I jumped on that and now I've got a planer with a really well bit cart for only $100 and now I no longer have an excuse:

In addition, a family friend of ours is an older couple and, unfortunately, the husband isn't doing so well and is in a home now. Because of the expense, they are starting to sell a bunch of his collection of odds and ends and I decided to help the cause. I bought a bunch of new signs for the shop and I thought they looked pretty nice. They are in random locations at the moment as I have "possibly buying a new house" on the brain, but I at least got them up.

Finally, after doing the majority of the cleaning up without music, I decided to pick up a sound bar. Originally I had two older JBL speakers sitting on this cabinet under the TV and a really old receiver but I kept losing the adapter for the 3.5mm audio and I couldn't connect the TV to it so I decided it was time for an upgrade. I searched online a bit and then was wandering through Walmart and found this vizio. Honestly, for under $100, it sounds pretty damn good. It's got 2 smaller subwoofers built into and it gets just enough bass to sound pretty good and be confused why it isn't a more expensive speaker (no complaints, though).

The Actual Cleaning Of The Shop

I started by cleaning off the benches I got months ago. Since I bought them, they have been buried in all the **** in my shop. They were basically just giant, shiny shelves. Shelves are great and all but don't make a great bench so I got all the cleared off and man does that feel good:

While cleaning up all the stuff on the benches I realized I needed somewhere to put this stuff so I finally got my bin storage thing put up on the wall and threw together a quick shelf for additional nails and screws. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the hardware store to buy more nails or screws all because I had no idea where they all went ... so now I know.

And I also wanted to somewhere to store my tape measure and my pencil so I took the scrap wall mount from my old microwave, bent the sides a little bit and mounted it to a heavy duty bench I built a while back. Actually works really well and keeps stuff in a location that's easy to find.

There was a lot more going on to cleaning this than it seems but it felt really good to have a usable shop again. My younger brother is wanting to build a fancy box for his DnD games and I've wanted to build something like this for a while so now that I have a clean shop I can get started on that.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Nice score on the planer!

 

[jeremy_cherokee]

Nice score on the planer!

I thought so, too. I can't tell you how many of them I've looked at and they are always closer to $300. $300 isn't that expensive, but it's just harder to justify a $300 tool you might use a couple times (although I want to use it more but kids and life tend to make that easier said than done). BUT ... $100 ... yeah, I'll do that.