Xzylon
Member
Hey Guys! I wanted to highlight my garage build up until today and show that you can tinker anywhere, and keep a full shop no matter the situation.
Background: my wife and I moved here when we got married in 2015. We are both young and tough, so we brought my camper that I had been living in temporarily up. It became our home for the last 4 years. Skip a year or two and I was getting really sick and tired of not being able to breathe. No room for the tools, snow coming down the jacket while I tried to work, and I was tired of the mud. So we (with the support of the location where we rent) put in gravel. But this wasn't enough and I was still sick of how little space I have for tooling. So I started looking around for organization ideas. Garage Journal was a Godsend and I became a lurker. I got lots of amazing ideas. Only problem? I couldn't put them anywhere. My camper is 36' (tongue not included) and my office already took up the bunk in the rear which had little access. The tools were jammed into every exterior storage we could find. So began my endeavor over Christmas Break to find a way to store my tools. I designed and built a platform to slide under, this was a flop and wouldn't roll on the grass, weighed alot empty. But it kept the tools up out of the mud so I placed many on it. I knew I needed more. So I started asking questions. The front of my camper had a little tongue cover, and it was rather dilapidated. Here is a photo.
Of course, they also wanted this updated. I asked if there was a limit on how big the cover could be. The response was, "no, not really." So I sat down and used one of my notebooks to draw up a 6'x8' tongue cover. After it was reviewed and signed for installation by the management, I went to work. I have very little carpentry skills and understand just enough about geometry to be able to match my design and keep everything mostly square. Here is the beginning of the process.
I am incredibly limited in parking and this was using a portion of that space, so I designed the doors to fold in half as they open and only extend a maximum of 2' out. This would allow a car to be very close to the doorway, but still have a 4' wide opening which also meant less cutting (I hoped). This was somewhat effectively achieved as shown here.
This was while Harbor Freight still had not fixed their 25% off coupon so I was able to get a Yukon 46"x18" cabinet with 9 drawers for way cheaper than they normally would allow. So the framework seen at the base is to hold that. In retrospect, I wish I had gone with a 22" depth. But it will probably be my go-to for a rolling cart someday.
The front was a bit of a design challenge. I didn't want it to be a wall because I can't access the interior, but a door like the others wouldn't work. So when I found a set of pneumatic lifts on a treadmill at my favorite dumpster I snagged it and had a fantastic idea. Let's make a door that turns into a roof! So the front was left open for a while. Finally, a roof over my tools!
At the time the awning had also fallen apart as they do on 15-20 year old campers, so I did some digging and found that the vinyl from a billboard sign is heavier and very UV resistant, and about 1/8 the price or better than an official awning material. So I ordered one up. It was a bit big for my awning so I would have some spare material. This was a very good thing because I ended up with a perfect amount and sold off the remaining half of the billboard.
The airplane is now my awning underside. I am quite proud of it.
Alas, we cannot be done! There is much to be organized! So my next step was to put in the drawers. I also love the organizers from Harbor Freight, and had previously begun to incorporate them into my organization as funds and time allowed. The result is this wonderful -but slightly rough- design. It was still winter so I didn't want to use my liquid nails. I didn't trust it to work when there was no cure time. So I left the vinyl slightly long for the time being.
Below we can see a close-up of the interior. My machinist box on the left helps me organize my sockets and wrenches and was my portable tool box before my shed was in order, so it caught basically everything up until this point. The light above was a first look at how I would be illuminating my bench space. Later I settled upon the headlamp for all my work needs due to most of my projects not fitting on the bench. To the right is my favorite tool holder ever, holding both of my drills where I can pull them at a moment's notice while holding onto my project with my other hand, and return them off my bench. Behind is the remains of the old tongue cover repurposed as a shelf.
At this point school came back into session and we decided to buy a frame damaged truck to rebuild, so that adventure went on for a bit and pulled me away from my micro garage build. More improvements have been made since but my phone isn't letting me upload more, so to be continued!
Background: my wife and I moved here when we got married in 2015. We are both young and tough, so we brought my camper that I had been living in temporarily up. It became our home for the last 4 years. Skip a year or two and I was getting really sick and tired of not being able to breathe. No room for the tools, snow coming down the jacket while I tried to work, and I was tired of the mud. So we (with the support of the location where we rent) put in gravel. But this wasn't enough and I was still sick of how little space I have for tooling. So I started looking around for organization ideas. Garage Journal was a Godsend and I became a lurker. I got lots of amazing ideas. Only problem? I couldn't put them anywhere. My camper is 36' (tongue not included) and my office already took up the bunk in the rear which had little access. The tools were jammed into every exterior storage we could find. So began my endeavor over Christmas Break to find a way to store my tools. I designed and built a platform to slide under, this was a flop and wouldn't roll on the grass, weighed alot empty. But it kept the tools up out of the mud so I placed many on it. I knew I needed more. So I started asking questions. The front of my camper had a little tongue cover, and it was rather dilapidated. Here is a photo.
Of course, they also wanted this updated. I asked if there was a limit on how big the cover could be. The response was, "no, not really." So I sat down and used one of my notebooks to draw up a 6'x8' tongue cover. After it was reviewed and signed for installation by the management, I went to work. I have very little carpentry skills and understand just enough about geometry to be able to match my design and keep everything mostly square. Here is the beginning of the process.
I am incredibly limited in parking and this was using a portion of that space, so I designed the doors to fold in half as they open and only extend a maximum of 2' out. This would allow a car to be very close to the doorway, but still have a 4' wide opening which also meant less cutting (I hoped). This was somewhat effectively achieved as shown here.
This was while Harbor Freight still had not fixed their 25% off coupon so I was able to get a Yukon 46"x18" cabinet with 9 drawers for way cheaper than they normally would allow. So the framework seen at the base is to hold that. In retrospect, I wish I had gone with a 22" depth. But it will probably be my go-to for a rolling cart someday.
The front was a bit of a design challenge. I didn't want it to be a wall because I can't access the interior, but a door like the others wouldn't work. So when I found a set of pneumatic lifts on a treadmill at my favorite dumpster I snagged it and had a fantastic idea. Let's make a door that turns into a roof! So the front was left open for a while. Finally, a roof over my tools!
At the time the awning had also fallen apart as they do on 15-20 year old campers, so I did some digging and found that the vinyl from a billboard sign is heavier and very UV resistant, and about 1/8 the price or better than an official awning material. So I ordered one up. It was a bit big for my awning so I would have some spare material. This was a very good thing because I ended up with a perfect amount and sold off the remaining half of the billboard.
The airplane is now my awning underside. I am quite proud of it.
Alas, we cannot be done! There is much to be organized! So my next step was to put in the drawers. I also love the organizers from Harbor Freight, and had previously begun to incorporate them into my organization as funds and time allowed. The result is this wonderful -but slightly rough- design. It was still winter so I didn't want to use my liquid nails. I didn't trust it to work when there was no cure time. So I left the vinyl slightly long for the time being.
Below we can see a close-up of the interior. My machinist box on the left helps me organize my sockets and wrenches and was my portable tool box before my shed was in order, so it caught basically everything up until this point. The light above was a first look at how I would be illuminating my bench space. Later I settled upon the headlamp for all my work needs due to most of my projects not fitting on the bench. To the right is my favorite tool holder ever, holding both of my drills where I can pull them at a moment's notice while holding onto my project with my other hand, and return them off my bench. Behind is the remains of the old tongue cover repurposed as a shelf.
At this point school came back into session and we decided to buy a frame damaged truck to rebuild, so that adventure went on for a bit and pulled me away from my micro garage build. More improvements have been made since but my phone isn't letting me upload more, so to be continued!
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