So first off I apologize if my images are too big, I couldn't find a guide here with suggestions for image sizes so I figured 1280 horizontal should be good in this day and age! So I occasionally get wild hairs from watching YouTube videos and after watching enough knife making videos (Walter Sorrells, Gough Customs) I figured I could make some myself. I bought a KMG grinder in the middle of last year and found out I needed to renovate my area just a touch so I had a really good and clean workshop to work in. Fortunately I have two garages, one 2 1/2ish cars and a single car. The single car was storage so I started off moving everything out of it into the main 2.5. Unfortunately no pics of the before there.
Simple paint, leftover from painting the inside of the house. I didn't really care what colors were in there and mainly wanted to get rid of my existing stockpile. I don't mind them though, it seems to work.
In goes the green and put the blinds back up
Getting ready for the days upon days of Epoxy prep
And in goes the Epoxy. It takes a ton of prep, but went on in under an hour. I probably should have used better epoxy, but I was in a rush and didn't research well enough. All in all it went on well, if not a little uneven here and there, and has no peeling or scratches whatsoever yet at least. I'm happy with it so far, but feel free to ask me again in 5 or 10 years. It's Rustoleum Epoxyshield and I used very little media.
Decided to just build a bench along the whole step, then put metal racks on top so as to give plenty of storage
Here's an up close of one of the benches. The second is exactly the same, and seems to work just fine
Here is the small garage completed. I've started moving all the stuff from big garage into it. You can see the metal shelves I have on top of the benches now, cut off just about an inch shy of the ceiling so tons of storage space up there is really nice. Much of this went back into big garage after it was finished, so I can park a car in here now but usually don't because it's too small and sharp of an angle to turn into on a regular basis and I don't really need the spot at the moment.
Here's Big Garage. You can see the metal shelving was originally in here, I've already started pulling stuff down and out hence the added clutter but I'm not going to lie, I'm not the most organized all the time
Wire shelves and a bunch more gone
Everything cleared out and painted
Can't have too much help with floor prep! I have a 5.5HP pressure washer with a diesel heater attached which did a fantastic job cleaning the floor up
Well at this point in the story there's a baby born. I was just about to mix the Epoxy when my wife informs me she's in labor. Fortunately it was before they were mixed so my wife didn't have to wait for me to get the epoxy down!
Most of the tools back in. I keep the small garage for consumable and long term storage allowing me to keep Big garage pretty clean most of the time now. I also ran two 20A circuits alternating around the garage with switches and lock dogs for both so the kids don't cut their arms off on the Radial Arm saw when they can reach it.
And a detailed view of the bench in back and the tools on it. I really like french cleats so I'd put one up top and hung a pegboard from it to see how it works. Seems to go great so I'll probably be putting some more up shortly.
I'd also put all of my benches on wheels now. Still pretty sturdy, but not quite as much as they were before unfortunately. They glide like a dream when unlocked, though, seriously those wheel from HD are unbelievable! The idea between the french cleats and the wheels is I can reorganize anything in the garage at a moments notice. I could have everything out and on the driveway in about 10 minutes, and with only wheels on the ground I can also hose out the inside if I would like to.
So now that both Big and Small garage are finished I can look forward to the detached structure I'd like to build. I'm still in the researching phase at the moment which brings me to these boards, but it looks like a 30x30 structure with 12 foot ceiling, 2/3 of the trusses vaulted, and a polished concrete floor are next on the to do list. I'm not sure how I'll divvy up tools and storage between the (then) three separate garages, but I can think of a lot better things to complain about than that! Once that's done I'll have a 250, a 700, and a 900 square foot space to work with which might last me a while.
Simple paint, leftover from painting the inside of the house. I didn't really care what colors were in there and mainly wanted to get rid of my existing stockpile. I don't mind them though, it seems to work.
In goes the green and put the blinds back up
Getting ready for the days upon days of Epoxy prep
And in goes the Epoxy. It takes a ton of prep, but went on in under an hour. I probably should have used better epoxy, but I was in a rush and didn't research well enough. All in all it went on well, if not a little uneven here and there, and has no peeling or scratches whatsoever yet at least. I'm happy with it so far, but feel free to ask me again in 5 or 10 years. It's Rustoleum Epoxyshield and I used very little media.
Decided to just build a bench along the whole step, then put metal racks on top so as to give plenty of storage
Here's an up close of one of the benches. The second is exactly the same, and seems to work just fine
Here is the small garage completed. I've started moving all the stuff from big garage into it. You can see the metal shelves I have on top of the benches now, cut off just about an inch shy of the ceiling so tons of storage space up there is really nice. Much of this went back into big garage after it was finished, so I can park a car in here now but usually don't because it's too small and sharp of an angle to turn into on a regular basis and I don't really need the spot at the moment.
Here's Big Garage. You can see the metal shelving was originally in here, I've already started pulling stuff down and out hence the added clutter but I'm not going to lie, I'm not the most organized all the time
Wire shelves and a bunch more gone
Everything cleared out and painted
Can't have too much help with floor prep! I have a 5.5HP pressure washer with a diesel heater attached which did a fantastic job cleaning the floor up
Well at this point in the story there's a baby born. I was just about to mix the Epoxy when my wife informs me she's in labor. Fortunately it was before they were mixed so my wife didn't have to wait for me to get the epoxy down!
Most of the tools back in. I keep the small garage for consumable and long term storage allowing me to keep Big garage pretty clean most of the time now. I also ran two 20A circuits alternating around the garage with switches and lock dogs for both so the kids don't cut their arms off on the Radial Arm saw when they can reach it.
And a detailed view of the bench in back and the tools on it. I really like french cleats so I'd put one up top and hung a pegboard from it to see how it works. Seems to go great so I'll probably be putting some more up shortly.
I'd also put all of my benches on wheels now. Still pretty sturdy, but not quite as much as they were before unfortunately. They glide like a dream when unlocked, though, seriously those wheel from HD are unbelievable! The idea between the french cleats and the wheels is I can reorganize anything in the garage at a moments notice. I could have everything out and on the driveway in about 10 minutes, and with only wheels on the ground I can also hose out the inside if I would like to.
So now that both Big and Small garage are finished I can look forward to the detached structure I'd like to build. I'm still in the researching phase at the moment which brings me to these boards, but it looks like a 30x30 structure with 12 foot ceiling, 2/3 of the trusses vaulted, and a polished concrete floor are next on the to do list. I'm not sure how I'll divvy up tools and storage between the (then) three separate garages, but I can think of a lot better things to complain about than that! Once that's done I'll have a 250, a 700, and a 900 square foot space to work with which might last me a while.
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