My First Garage

[Square2.0]

Hello,

First off I have to thank all of you for your ideas and your project pages. They have been a real inspiration for me to get out in the garage and make it mine. So again, Thank you


A year ago I bought my first house. I have been lurking on here for a while now but haven’t posted on here much. I have been gathering ideas and slowing making progress along the way. I recently made a little progress on getting my garage more organized and wanted to start a thread to show you guys the progress.


Its 25' x 25' Btw

Here is a shot of the work bench. This is kind of an old pic so I will update it later but this will give you an idea of what I’m working with. Its 13' long by 2' wide. I overbuilt it strong enough to hold the weight of the 4 cylinder engines in my cars. I don't think I will ever have to start storing entire engines on my work bench but its nice to know I could.

Above you will see the soffit storage everyone on here seems to like. Thanks for the idea guys, these shelves are great. I built that about 8 months back and have loved it ever since. I have a section on each side of the garage. One runs the full length and the other about 20' to accommodate for a man door to the side yard. There is so much storage up there and the best part is it takes ZERO floor space.

That’s a 54" Snap-On roll away for size reference.

Here is my recent additions to the bench.

Over my weekend I took all of the stuff down from the shelf, cleaned, primed, and painted the walls and ceiling. I then organized the stuff I had up there and put it back. The selves will get doors at somepoint but for right now this works.

The stereo is going to eventually power a 5.1 setup. Right now its only hooked up to 2 small bookshelf speakers and the shop computer. All the wires are run behind the pegboard and thought the attic to keep a nice clean look.

The monitor is hooked up and ready to go. I have hid the computer tower under the bench (behind the bolt bins) so it won’t get beat up when I’m working. I still need to pick up a cheep keyboard and mouse after work today but other then that it’s ready to go. This will run AllData when I need it to and be the media center. 80,000 mp3s and internet radio should keep the garage rocking for a while. I also set up a mount for my Smartphone for when I don't feel like booting the computer just for music.

I was running out of space in the Snap on box so the pegboard is a welcome addition for tool storage. I still need to decide how I want to fill up the other 5 feet of pegboard tonight. It’s so nice having more space in the tool box.

Future plans:
Cover the bottom of the shelves and install can lighting

Build another work bench like the one shown on the other side of the garage.

Paint or epoxy the floor

Make some kind of cover for the water heater and furnace



I look forward to hearing what you guys think.

 

[Zeke]

Looks good. If you did paint, let's see some pics. The only thing that set up lacked was a little spice.

 

[UN4GTBL]

Finally a proper sized 2-car! None of these "oversized" 18'x19' 2 car garages i keep seeing in builder plans.

Looks like a nice sturdy bench for sure.

 

[vartz04]

I hate "2 car" garages on newer houses. you are lucky if you get one thats 20x20. My truck is 19'6" long so its making it a pain in the *** while im house shoping.

So far so good on your space.

 

[Square2.0]

Looks good. If you did paint, let's see some pics. The only thing that set up lacked was a little spice.

So far The only painting I have done is around the soffit storage. I had everthing down from there to organize it and decided to take care of paiting then so I don't have to pull everthing back down later when Im ready to paint.

Like a few garages on here im going with light gray up top, dark gray down below with a nice fat Red strip sepperating the two. I think it will look good and not put people off when I go to rent out the home in a few years.

 

[Square2.0]

Finally a proper sized 2-car! None of these "oversized" 18'x19' 2 car garages i keep seeing in builder plans.

I hate "2 car" garages on newer houses. you are lucky if you get one thats 20x20. My truck is 19'6" long so its making it a pain in the *** while im house shoping.

So far so good on your space.

Out of all the houses I looked at this one had the biggest garage. This house also happened to be the newest so that’s why I bought it. Most of the other houses in my neighborhood have "2 car garages". By the time you make room for the hot water heater and washer and dryer there all more like 1.5 car garages. As an auto mechanic I needed much more space then that. I hate to say I bought a house just so I could get a garage but it’s kind of what I did. I had to keep explaining to my real state agent that if it had less then a full sized 2 car garage I was not interested.

I do like the size of my garage but (like everyone) wish it was bigger. 25x30 would have been perfect. My two small sports cars fit in there without issue; anything full sized is kind of a tight fit. That extra 5' would really help with larger cars and trucks.
It’s my first house though so I guess I should be happy with what I got. I was only 22 and single when I bought it so it’s not like I had a huge budget to begin with. Sure beets renting though.

Looks like a nice sturdy bench for sure.

Thanks. I have a lot of work into it. It was and continues to be a very fun project.

 

[Square2.0]

I ended up taking everything down from the storage shelves and priming and painting both sides of the garage as well as the entire ceiling. I’m so glad the ceiling is done. It was not the most fun of projects.