A Guy's Garage

One of the things that really sold us on this house when we started looking was the three car garage. We knew it would be great to have room to park both our cars inside and have extra space for all our junk. We also knew that we would want to do a little work to the garage space in order to maximize its functionality. Well, the time finally came to do that work, and here we are now.

We wanted to be able to keep a bunch of boxes and whatnot out there without taking up too much space. We decided to do that with shelving. We also built the shelves with room underneath for the chest freezer and a little "saw garage" space where I've got my miter saw and table saw stored (along with my golf clubs, paintball guns, and fishing rods because I'm awesome). The top row is all decorations and stuff that Leslie had stashed away in closets. Below that on the left is some lesser used appliances (roaster pan, ice cream maker, etc.) and on the right is tools storage for me (Sawzall, air compressor, wrench set, etc.). There's more space that's yet to be filled, but I'm sure we'll get around to that eventually.

The shelves themselves are made out of plywood and dimensional lumber. They're anchored to the wall studs in the back and then there are three floor supports on the front of the shelves. Since all the weight on the front is centered on these supports I attached the shelf rail with 1/4" lag screws just to be sure it could take the weight. I haven't looked up the shear strength of these screws, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it'll be ok since we aren't storing elephants or anything.

I also wanted to integrate a new workbench. The bench top is plywood over 2x4 supports attached to the wall studs and with three legs in front. I also added a heavy duty power strip above the work surface and a little under cabinet lighting and task lighting to make working on small projects easier. The workbench is about 8'x3', which is a very nice size. It's also tall enough that there's room underneath for a few things like paint cans, the shop vac, and our halogen floodlight. I also mounted some pegboard to the new shelves on the left side of the bench to hold hand tools. There were already cabinets in the garage when we moved in (likely leftover from a kitchen remodel), so we simply moved those around a bit to fit the new configuration. Those now house a bunch of miscellaneous items such as gloves, sandpaper, and whatever other misfit toys won't go anywhere else. I also got a little swivel stool to go with it, so now I can work in style and comfort (or at least comfort). There are a few more improvements for the workbench area... but they aren't finalized yet. I'll update on those once they're up.

We also covered most of one of the walls with pegboard to give us even more storage. There are three 4'x8' sheets up there, which gives us lots of room. I've got it only about two-thirds of the way filled for now, so there's plenty of room to add new tools. We also mounted the big 5'x3' whiteboard I had in college up next to the pegboard and a large wall calendar I got from work next to that. (Yes, the area looks cluttered in the pictures, but we're still figuring out where everything goes.)

We made a few other changes like replacing the weak little bare-bulb light fixtures with big 2'x4' fluorescent fixtures and adding a little coat hook thingy to the wall that we use to store Leo's leashes and towels (for drying him off when it's wet out). Yes, they're small changes, but they make a difference and help the whole space be even more useful.

And that's about for the garage (for now). Thanks for reading and we'll see you soon!