Northern England small unit

[Jimmy-p]

Hi all, I've been lurking on this forum for a while now, getting all excited about jazzing up our garage! Finally got our own man cave!

For about 7 years me and a mate have struggled modifying and maintaining our cars on our driveways at home, just before last winter we were lucky enough to be able to borrow his grandparents double garage while they were out of the country for 6 months. That 6 months came and flew by leaving us with no place for his car, and no place to work on it. Not wanting to go back to working on the driveway we took the plunge and aquired ourselves a small unit.
After looking round for over a month we eventually found a place, about twice the size of most places we had seen, 2/3rds the price, and 5 mins walk from my house. WINNER!




Looking a bit dingy and unloved we set about clearing and painting it, dragging its sorry **** up to standard.




Once all the walls had been scrubbed and painted (twice) it was time to move onto flooring, I wanted either full ceramic tile job or epoxy coat, but budget dictates and we went for a decent quality but reasonably priced floor sealer / paint. After we'd swept ready for paint, I'm glad we did something with the flooring due to the amount of concrete dust!



That's as far as we have got, just waiting 24 hours then we can second coat the floor, then move onto the other side and repeat process. By Monday, (6 days from now) we plan to start moving our shelving, tools, spare parts, seating and sort out the lighting with a few extra strips.

I'll update when the flooring is completed and progress on our move-in.

Thanks for reading!

Jimmy

 

[PECVD2]

Jimmy,

Congrats on the new place. Looks to be around 6m x 12m???
It always amazes me how much better a place looks with some cleaning and fresh paint.
Keep posting pics (we love them) and provide some details on the projects you have going on there.

 

[John in OH]

Looks like a good spot with a lot of potential! Floor's looking sharp. So, I assume this garage is a rental or in the UK can you purchase a garage separately? Also, what is the ********* trapizoidal framed thing hanging from the ceiling on left side?

 

[Rich5ltr]

Hi Jimmy, nice to see a few more people in here from this side of the Atlantic. Looks like you've got a big job in your hands!

 

[Rich5ltr]

...Also, what is the ********* trapezoidal framed thing hanging from the ceiling on left side?

Looks like a drive shaft with a wheel on the end supported from the ceiling by the black brackets you can see. These would have been driven by belts from an engine of some sort and transmitted power for driving equipment throughout the workshop. Probably originally the shaft ran through to another workshop next door.

 

[Jimmy-p]

Thanks for your replies guys!
It's a rented unit yes,hence why I didn't go all out on flooring etc. Your not far off those measurements, 9m( at widest point) 7 at narrowest x 11m I belive, roughly paced out.

The 'trapezoidal' thing is a drive shaft, I'm at the end of a run of four units, the wall it disappears into is a later addition, I belive the building was originally some form of loom mill, and that was the drive shaft from the engine at the other end of the block. Approx 30-40 years old, and converted into smaller units you see now about 20 years ago.

A little more progress was done this evening, the second coat was done on the floor as was all the edges and I did a little up the wall too, a skirting strip effectively. Really finishes the edge off nicely.

Also installed my alarm system, full mobile connected so if anything happens I get a call or text, as it's not next to my house I thought this was a good idea, not always checking on it daily. Will soon have smoke, gas and glass detectors fitted once the window grills are fitted.

Cheers

Jimmy

 

[morfmedia]

Leeds isn't that rough is it? Just kidding, been there a few times for the Otley run. Looks tons better for a freshen up. What flooring did you use, looks really good and I need to do mine soon.

 

[Rich5ltr]

Looking good Jimmy. More interestingly, what are yo ugoing to use it for when you've finished the tidy-up?

 

[garfunkle24]

Looks like a great place and vastly superior to working in the driveway! Is that a 106 Rallye or gti?

 

[John in OH]

The 'trapezoidal' thing is a drive shaft, I'm at the end of a run of four units, the wall it disappears into is a later addition, I belive the building was originally some form of loom mill, and that was the drive shaft from the engine at the other end of the block. Approx 30-40 years old, and converted into smaller units you see now about 20 years ago.

Ahh ... the end of a line shaft! I see it now. That was is some serious shaft ... diameter must be at lease 4"-5".

A little more progress was done this evening, the second coat was done on the floor as was all the edges and I did a little up the wall too, a skirting strip effectively. Really finishes the edge off nicely.

Floor looks really nice. Looks as if your buddy has painted himself into a corner! Sometimes you just can't get good help. Do you have a photo of the entrance door/s?

 

[Bib Overalls]

If you make it too nice your landlord will want more rent.

 

[Jimmy-p]

Morf - its not a particularly rough area, there were some grills on the window before we moved in but landlord wanted them swapping and putting on the inside, so I said I'd make them so I can fix them out the way and open them for window access. The paint is pretty inexpensive tbh, £40 for 20l, called supercoat, industrial floor paint, really nice to work with, nice and smooth, finish is really nice too, well happy so far!

Rich - once were done with a tidy up its just for us to have somewhere dry and hopefully warm to finish working on the cars and a place to store them, maybe even a place to just escape the mrs! I'm thinking, tv, sound system, beer fridge!

Garfunkle - yes it's waaay better than our driveways, even before it was painted, but now I'm just itching to get in and working in comfort.
And you're close, it's a Citroen Saxo, and the other is a c2, both with a little bit of work gone into them, I'll show you when we pull them back into the middle of the unit.

John - that's my bro trapping himself but no that's the sliding entrance door just behind him, we left a small pathway at one side so we can still get in when it's wet. Had to shut ourselves in for the last bit due to wind blowing **** onto the wet floor!

We may also be acquiring a 2 post lift for reasonably cheap but nothings set in stone yet...

Thanks guys!

 

[Jimmy-p]

End of the week update!

So we got the first half of the flooring done and second coated, then moved both cars to the other side.
Then the second half of the unit was double coated, just waiting for that to harden off properly.



We decided to give ourselves a small area to chill and to eat when we inevitably spend late nights down here, so a carpeted area in the corner with couple of easy chairs is just the ticket, it will be boarded off from the rest of the unit to stop dust etc ruining our pizza!



Made a small trip to Costco mainly for a look round but found some very sturdy shelving, holds 600kg per shelf apparently, which is about 500 more than I have been looking at for the same price. So I got a set of those to see how they look and ive decide to go back and get a couple more next week, as I'm very impressed with the quality.
Whilst there I saw the updated version to my 3ton floor jack I got from Costco couple years ago, mines feeling a bit tired so treated myself to 2 new jacks, the Arcan XL 30R.



And just to show you guys what we will be 'wrenching' away on...



That's pretty much it till we move In on Monday!




Cheers

Jimmy

 

[MQ Unlimited Media]

Very cool! Been to England quite a bit of times, love that country and the pubs....and especially Heathrow Speariment Rhino.

 

[regguy1]

Nice Job, I bet it feels good to have a place to work in.....