From a blank slate...well, with walls and doors already

Bought a new house a year ago and want to fix up the garage with some good storage and a good working area. I've been lurking the forums getting ideas. One inspiration is from XcYZ's garage with the top storage areas. The other inspiration is from Jack Olsen's fold down work benches. I wanted to tile the floors like Jack, but I ended up painting with the EpoxyShield stuff from Lowe's. I will be building all the cabinets myself. This will probably take a bit to do as I've got lots of projects and a 13 day old daughter

Pic1:
Garage as they were building the house.
Pic 2,3:
Used IKEA Home planner software to set it up sort of how I want it.
Pic 4:
Drawings of each wall of the garage, starting on left side and working the way around. (Not really to scale)
Pic 5:
My garage needs proper storage as you can see...and I need to fix my car. The central vac will be used for dust collection (free off CL)
Pic 6:
The work bench area in the back I've already started. Used solid core doors for the work top ($8 rejects from a door company) and will cover with formica (cracked sheets from HD for 1/2 price)

Looking forward to seeing your plan in action. I like all the overhead storage you've got in your sketches. They will make a big dent in clearing up floor space, almost like your stuff is invisible but you still have it, somewhere The solid core doors make great tops - good job on getting the bench going.

And congratulations on the daughter.

GirlInAGarage: THe storage is key as our house is a 3 bedroom and has no extra rooms or storage. With a new baby, I just know we're going to have lots of stuff to store...plus all the stuff you see in the pics! I like the looks of your wiring and I think I might have to do some of that myself seeing that they only put 3 outlets in the garage!

Jack: Thanks! I sit here tonight enjoying my baby girl sleeping on my chest and look forward to working on my garage tomorrow. I also remembered that the reason I found Garage Journal in the first place was through one of your posts regarding putting the metal edges on the work bench - I was looking for some visuals and now that I've found GJ my garage will never be the same.

I'm anxious to start on this project tomorrow! I would have been OK with just a garage with a lot of shelves, but now I'm sucked in to GJ and it will now be so much more than I was originally planning when I first moved in.
I have made more sketches only to be changed last minute by seeing how Jams4J did his top cabinets and made his own sliders. It should save me a couple $100 and will hopefully work just as well. Since it's only storage, even if they don't work perfectly, couple $100 in savings is good for me
A guy from work gave me his old adjustable Dado blade by Rockwell and hopefully that will work for me tomorrow - I've never used on and I don't even know if it fits on my table saw. I'll put up pics of my final setup tomorrow and hopefully some progress pics!
Hopefully you'll all like it, but I know I will!

Well, I got a bunch of work done on Saturday, not as much as I had hoped though. The Dado didn't fit on my saw (no shaft sticking out the end of the Dado, so I couldn't put the nut on) so I had to rip slots using my standard blade. That was a lot of work and didn't turn out how I had hoped. However, it will work.
Pic 1: Top shelves removed ready to hang stuff.
Pic 2: Sawing two 1/4"+ slots in five 12' 2x4's takes a lot of time on a little saw like this with just a standard blade.
Pic 3: Here's the result. I took my cordless circ saw and cleaned out the extra fuzz in the slots afterward.
Pic 4: Shows how the assembly will work. The top 'lag bolt' they called a "sammy" at the hardware store. I was imagining one of these in my head and wishing there was such a thing and then when I got there they had them! 79cents each! Drill a hole in the 2x4 and put the all-thread through it.
Pic 5: Shows the 2x2's on the wall. I put the shelf 2x4's flat and then a 2x4 upright on the end, which will allow a lip for me to hide wires or anything else that I'm not sure what yet. This setup keeps the lowest profile for the shelf I could get so I don't loose storage room due the size of the shelf.
Pic 6: Here it is. Still don't have a top track installed or the doors, but I do have a piece of plywood on the top for the shelf. The underside will be drywalled. The visible 2x4's will be filled with plastic wood or something like that so I can paint them and they will look nice.

So, here's my current status.

I messed up a couple of things so some of my shelves will slope down about 1/2" as they go away from the wall - I tried to put the backs level instead of measuring a consistent height from the ceiling. The sliding doors will require a consistent height though, so the front will govern. (And yes I did realize afterwards that my overhead storage will block half my attic access I will have to move that I guess).

As I was looking at it after I built it, I have started wondering. I plan to build cabinets over the workbench, but with the overhead storage, I'm starting to wonder if it will look funny because they will be such short cabinets. So my second thought is to remove the overhead storage from above the workbench. Instead I will make cabinets all the way to the ceiling and I would make the overhead storage along the left wall just **** into the cabinets. Any thoughts or are pictures (sketches)better than my 1000 words.

OK, so I revised my shelving. Previously I was going to put the overhead cabinets all the way around the garage. However, after getting all the skeleton up, it didn't look quite right, so I took all of it down from above the workbench and will put upper cabinets in up to the ceiling. I also made the overheads deeper where they weren't behind the garage door rail. They now hold tubs sticking end in (as seen in pic) instead of the other way and hold way more stuff now. I put up some more temporary shelves on the other side to try to keep things off the floor.

Pic 1: The dado blade a coworker gave me, but didn't fit on my saw...I guess I need a new saw then, right?

Pict 2: New shelves up on the left. The top shelf will all have sliding doors when they are done, to keep the dust off and make it look neater. (4 boxes are miata car parts that need to be sold)

Pic 3: Right at the end of the garage rail, I made the shelf jog out so that it was wider to fit the tubs 'end-in'.

Pic 4: There will be more overheads above that bed headboard, but right now I realized it works great for holding my lumber I'm using for this project. Temporary fluorescent above the workbench (just had it sitting around and figured it worked there). The single bulbs will hopefully be replaced with 4 x 4' banks of lights I'm getting from my brother in law.
Pic 5: The right side of the garage. More shelves up for holding car parts for now (need to sell more parts...I parted out a car and have lots of stuff left - I thought the stuff would go faster, what a pain) I stack all my plywood and other large stuff (a mattress and bed frame for now) behind the freezer. Extra wheels and tires (also to be sold / gotten rid of). Eventually there will be overhead storage here and some cabinets coming about half way down the wall where the garage door is.

Pic 6: Pic from outside (I've got to change those tail lights).

Pic 7: Another pic (from a little while ago) of all the cars we had, just before we sold the Beetle. 1986 Jetta Coupe 1.6 NA Diesel (404,000 km), 1990 Miata Supercharged (185,000 miles), 2001 Jetta Wagon (180,000 miles), 1998 Beetle (190,000 miles)

I was going to try to link to photos on facebook like others have done, but can't figure out how, so hope these work.

Love to hear feedback!

Got some sweet new tools for the garage for my birthday a little while back. They will help building the cabinets as well as other woodworking projects I'm hoping to do. The plug strip will probably go by my fold-down workbench that will be along the left wall.

Thanks for your thoughts in my thread. Had to check out your project. Very nice!

I love those 'around the perimeter' top shelves, I've always thought they looked great.

You've got a good thing going on...keep it up!

So this past Saturday was garage sale day at a neighbourhood near hear and there are 100's of sales. My little family headed down there for the morning and I was hoping to find a table saw as mine isn't working out so well with it's 11 1/2" of fence adjustment.

At one particular house, a gentleman mentioned that he should have put all his tools out that he wants to sell, but never got around to it. So I asked him if he had a tablesaw for sale. "For sale? I have one you can have for free! Well..you'd better give me a buck to make my wife happy." So when I asked to see it, expecting some cheap little saw, we found in the back corner of the garage a machine under a bunch of junk. He had received it from his father and he never set it up.

Here is what I got, for $1.

Oh my that is sweet.

Let me be the first to say it, "you ****"!

Congratulations on a great new saw. That is an awesome score. AND it's another old tool put back in use which is always a good thing.

zuk

I have the same saw and it's a great worker!!!! You ****.

takeiteasy said:

Well, I got a bunch of work done on Saturday, not as much as I had hoped though. The Dado didn't fit on my saw (no shaft sticking out the end of the Dado, so I couldn't put the nut on) so I had to rip slots using my standard blade. That was a lot of work and didn't turn out how I had hoped. However, it will work.
Pic 1: Top shelves removed ready to hang stuff.
Pic 2: Sawing two 1/4"+ slots in five 12' 2x4's takes a lot of time on a little saw like this with just a standard blade.
Pic 3: Here's the result. I took my cordless circ saw and cleaned out the extra fuzz in the slots afterward.
Pic 4: Shows how the assembly will work. The top 'lag bolt' they called a "sammy" at the hardware store. I was imagining one of these in my head and wishing there was such a thing and then when I got there they had them! 79cents each! Drill a hole in the 2x4 and put the all-thread through it.
Pic 5: Shows the 2x2's on the wall. I put the shelf 2x4's flat and then a 2x4 upright on the end, which will allow a lip for me to hide wires or anything else that I'm not sure what yet. This setup keeps the lowest profile for the shelf I could get so I don't loose storage room due the size of the shelf.
Pic 6: Here it is. Still don't have a top track installed or the doors, but I do have a piece of plywood on the top for the shelf. The underside will be drywalled. The visible 2x4's will be filled with plastic wood or something like that so I can paint them and they will look nice.

Click to expand...

That's a nice saw at any price but for $1 - you DO ****!

I don't think I understand what is happening with this shelf support method. I see the all-thread going through the ceiling but what is it attaching to? Pic seems to show some kind of metal - what you're calling a "sammy" - never heard of that before. Are you drilling THROUGH a ceiling joist and this sammy thing goes on top of the joist, or are you laying a 2x4 across two adjacent joists and the sammy thing goes through that?

On the bottom, I THINK you're saying you use two 2x4's. One flat the allthread goes through(?) and another nailed to it upright which will provide the hiding place for wiring, etc. Is that about right? (Sorry for all the questions)

A beautiful saw and a great find! It is nice that it comes with a bunch of dirty paper!

The 10 inchers were the best of the bench saws. I have heard more than one person say that they have nearly zero measurable runout on these little saws.

A lot of folks like to scoff at the little contractor saws, but sometimes they can be more precise and problem-free than the big boy saws. The nice thing too is that there are a zillion of them so if you ever need parts, it is a non-issue.

By the way, can you tell us more about the motor on the back?

That looks like a keeper to me

-RL

Thanks everyone for the "you ****", I know it's pretty much the best wishes given on the GJ.

I don't think I understand what is happening with this shelf support method. I see the all-thread going through the ceiling but what is it attaching to? Pic seems to show some kind of metal - what you're calling a "sammy" - never heard of that before. Are you drilling THROUGH a ceiling joist and this sammy thing goes on top of the joist, or are you laying a 2x4 across two adjacent joists and the sammy thing goes through that?

On the bottom, I THINK you're saying you use two 2x4's. One flat the allthread goes through(?) and another nailed to it upright which will provide the hiding place for wiring, etc. Is that about right? (Sorry for all the questions)

Click to expand...

Dan, Pic1,2 are of the 'sammy' (as dubbed by the hardware guy at the store). It gets screwed right into the ceiling joist through the drywall. It's a lag type bolt with a thread inside to thread the rod into. Snug it in there good and tight. Pic 3 shows it screwed into the ceiling, all thread, which comes down through the shelf. If you look under the shelf, you see pic 4. There's a hole drilled through the 2x4 on flat and nut & washer on the bottom (there's also a nut & washer on the top of the 2x4, but it's hidden by the plywood).
Hope this makes sense?

By the way, can you tell us more about the motor on the back?

Click to expand...

RL, I've attached a couple of pics of the motor plate. It's a 3/4 HP motor, its says. 3450 RPM, 1 phase, 8 amps, Mod. no. 113.19051 - I also have the book for it (as you can see in the pics on my last post). If you need any scans from the book, let me know. I started the motor up and it seems to run great...I haven't hook up the belt to the saw yet though.

Great deal on the saw. A classic saw used by many to create lots of masterpieces.

!st and most important is to buy good saw blades, they make a huge difference in the performance of the saw. I am partial to Freud blades, but there are several others that work well such as Forrest. Just find decent ones and then have them sharpened when they get dull.

Another suggestion is to stick new bearings in the saw and the motor, this will also ahva a positive impact on performance. Several people over on the OWWM site are wizards on these saws and can give you the low down on changing bearings.