Some good stuff happening

[Patfromny]

Advice: two shelves, one half way up the window, second above the window. Each 18 " wide. Whatever don't fit gets sold or tossed. Floor shelves by the door like that wood one are fine but should be used for jumper boxes and gardening tools etc. I'll post a pic of my 2+ car garage that I can't store a thing in because of junk to prove my point. Keep it spartan now or it will become the place were bad ideas go to die and you'll be buying tarps for the boats and a car cover for the admirals new wheels within two years. Don't make me come back here with pics of my nightmare garage. You'll be sorry.

 

[Watermann]

My advice for storage in a garage is to get a storage yard shed and don't even allow that stuff inside. Remember that slippery slope? The next thing you know there's no room for a boat to be inside it's all carp. This is from experience talking. :lol:

 

[Patfromny]

^^^^^ agreed. Sometimes you have to bow to the admiral though and find some common ground where you're both happy. The 18 inch shelves are a good automatic line in the sand. They aren't too obtrusive and they won't hold a lot of the junk that seems to make its way into a garage. Make the number one rule, "nothing on the floor" and go from there. Just a suggestion from a guy that has to spend 2 days a year cleaning the one Bay he calls his own just to shoehorn the boat inside. Lol

 

[DLNorth]

Is that a garage or storage shed? Looks more like a shed to me.
Being that it took me 4 weeks to find room for the wife's car in our garage, I'm not sure I'm a good example but, I'd line the walls with floor standing shelfs, 12-15" deep max. You will need places to put all your boat rebuilding material/tools. I'd also hang what ever I could from the rafters, (light stuff). And make plans to build another shed for when this one gets full.

Dan

 

[BWR1953]

Advice: two shelves, one half way up the window, second above the window. Each 18 " wide. Whatever don't fit gets sold or tossed. Floor shelves by the door like that wood one are fine but should be used for jumper boxes and gardening tools etc. I'll post a pic of my 2+ car garage that I can't store a thing in because of junk to prove my point. Keep it spartan now or it will become the place were bad ideas go to die and you'll be buying tarps for the boats and a car cover for the admirals new wheels within two years. Don't make me come back here with pics of my nightmare garage. You'll be sorry.

Need pix of nightmare garage!

Important note: Having the shelves above the window means that the Chieftain won't bump up against anything when both boats are in the garage at the same time. It's pretty tall and could hit a shelf that sticks out at the mid-window level.

My advice for storage in a garage is to get a storage yard shed and don't even allow that stuff inside. Remember that slippery slope? The next thing you know there's no room for a boat to be inside it's all carp. This is from experience talking. :lol:

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna have to do something to store the gardening stuff. Those gardening related things are still out in my old 10' x 10' shed along with a bunch of other junk and I don't want any of it migrating to the garage. The old shed will be given to my neighbor buddy (the one who helped me clear the property with his tractors and whatnot) sometime after the concrete is poured.

And I haven't even begun to address what to do with my own tractors and related stuff! :laugh:

^^^^^ agreed. Sometimes you have to bow to the admiral though and find some common ground where you're both happy. The 18 inch shelves are a good automatic line in the sand. They aren't too obtrusive and they won't hold a lot of the junk that seems to make its way into a garage. Make the number one rule, "nothing on the floor" and go from there. Just a suggestion from a guy that has to spend 2 days a year cleaning the one Bay he calls his own just to shoehorn the boat inside. Lol

I like the 18" max depth rule. Less is more sometimes. I did buy a 14" x 35" x 41" wire framed shelving unit today for $15 from a guy on craigslist. See pic below. It'll be used to store tackle boxes and boating stuff. Definitely no unauthorized storage on the floor!

Is that a garage or storage shed? Looks more like a shed to me.
Being that it took me 4 weeks to find room for the wife's car in our garage, I'm not sure I'm a good example but, I'd line the walls with floor standing shelfs, 12-15" deep max. You will need places to put all your boat rebuilding material/tools. I'd also hang what ever I could from the rafters, (light stuff). And make plans to build another shed for when this one gets full.

Dan

Yah, it's a garage alrighty. Definitely in a state of transition though! :lol:

Guys, I didn't get any work done at all in the garage today. Had too many errands to run and made a short trip to pick up that single shelving unit. Heck, I didn't even have time for my afternoon nap! :sleeping:

Guess I'll start the New Year off right tomorrow!

This is the little steel shelf I bought today. It'll be fine for fishing stuff. The boy took the pic and actually put the shelf upside down. But you get the idea.




I'm planning on buying this small roll around tool chest from HF in the not-too-distant future. My buddy suggested that I wait till after the concrete pour. Makes sense but I'm eager.

I don't have very many tools and quite frankly, I think it will hold all of them with room leftover. Even after I buy the new additional tools I plan to get! And it's on rollers so it will be easily moveable once the concrete is in place.

It measures 28 x 18 x 52 so it won't take up too much room. :joyous:

 

[BWR1953]

Alrighty then, let's talk about electricity!

I want it out there. Got to have it out there! Right now I just have an extension cord running out to the garage from the house. Ugh! :nono:

And I know that I should fully install electricity in the garage as the next logical step in the build-out process. Before the concrete is installed.

But the concrete pour must take priority! It'll make the building much more functional much faster. And the days are getting longer again so that usefulness will be accented as time goes by. As much as I'd like to get electricity into the building quickly, it's just gonna have to wait awhile.

So what steps do I need to take now, prior to the concrete pour, to prepare for electric later? The electric will be run underground (along a pretty good slope) from the house to the garage some 25' or so away. Can I install cable runs first? I'd like to do that if I can. Otherwise I have to deal with concrete already being poured over the area where the runs will be.

I've done a little online research and know that there are limitations on how many turns the wires can take and that there are certain size and type requirements for the underground tubing for the wire runs.

Assume I know zip about home electric installations. A safe bet! :noidea: :lol:

A little help? :joyous:

 

[DLNorth]

When we built our garage, I ran 2 - 2" "pvc" lines from the house to garage, 1 for elec and 1 for gas.
The lines come up through the slab and the 2 layers of blocks on the edge.
Some years later I pulled a 220 v extension cord through to provide power.

The other comment is to poor ALL the concrete you plan to when you do it. I didn't have the cash for an apron and still don't have it, big mistake.

Dan

 

[Watermann]

Run schedule 40 conduit into the building below where you want the service panel. You'll have to check for local codes on how deep it needs to be buried. Problem will be if you have a 100 amp service the wire will be some pretty thick primary wire. You'll need some wide sweeps in the conduit to pull the wire through it from your meter base. With the conduit in and capped they can pour the slab around it no problem.

 

[jbcurt00]

You need to check local code 1st

IMO, at 25+ft away, you should probably be using a sub-panel, its size and amp carrying capacity is likely to be dictated by the size of your current service. Dont want the house lights to dim every time you fire up a compressor..... And if you pop a breaker while in the garage, flipping it back on while still in the garage will certainly be handy.....

W a sub-panel, you'd want a grounding rod, in a metal bldg you might want 1 any way.

Not knowing how you'll outfit the garage or the tools you'll run, it'll be tough to say if you 'need' 220/240, but I'd want it if at all possible.

I suspect you could get away w a simple direct burial line run to a 4gang outlet. It'd be a little more then an extension cord, have limited load capacity, but it'd be underground rather on top of it. And might be enough to get by until you can upgrade to a sub-panel.

A 2in conduit run under the side wall of the garage and stubbed up thru the to be poured concrete near where you want to put a panel, would be enough to move forward w the pour. As long as you run the buried end out past where the apron around the bldg stops. Then run direct burial wire from the house into the conduit and it'll stub up into the garage. That'll get you by until you can run a panel.

Been a while, but IIRC, the limitation on bends is on primary power run only, and is 270degrees, so 3 90s max. But for your garage, I dont think its relevant.

Be sure to use gray electrical conduit. Reg PVC isnt UV stable.

 

[BWR1953]

Well guys, the boy and I did get out there today and got things cleaned up and organized a bit more.

Fishing stuff, boating stuff, tools and supplies, RC airplane stuff, etc. all separated into different areas. At least on one side of the boat. Not much on the other side but we'll get that stuff moved over to this side and organized tomorrow.

That big pile of stuff blocking the rear door is... trash! Gonna haul it to the dump in a couple days when the dump reopens after the holiday. There will be more! I have plenty of stuff to go through item by item. And some choices to make, like whether or not it's realistic that I "may" get back into RC someday. Just not sure right now.

Missed out on some jammin' speakers and metal storage shelves and a workbench on craigslist again today. "Missed it by that much." they said. :lol:

Will keep looking...


Sorry for the pic quality. It was actually well after sundown and dark inside the garage and I used my cell phone/flash.

 

[jbcurt00]

Nice work

 

[BWR1953]

Well it's a start anyway.

Am looking forward to getting the overhead shelf situation figured out.

 

[BWR1953]

The only electrical thing I've been working on is trying to figure out why our home AC unit failed yesterday afternoon. :blue:

I decided not to call a service tech on New Years Eve. :lol:

My buddy is gonna come over tomorrow to have a look.

The weather has been cool enough that we can sleep comfortably at night by using our window and ceiling fans. Low 50s outside is plenty cool.

Been thinking about and researching the info y'all gave me about codes and schedules and whatnot! Much appreciated! :joyous:

 

[BWR1953]

This evening I combined, re-captioned and otherwise merged a couple of videos that I already had which show what this project has been about. (At a buddy of mine's request.) It tells the whole story I believe.

For those new to this thread, it should clarify where I started and how we got to where I am now. There will be much more to come as I continue to improve my garage/workshop over time. :joyous:

 

[BWR1953]

AC is fixed. I'm such a dumbcarp sometimes. Doofus. Jeez. :embarassed:

 

[BWR1953]

Gaining ground here?

Made some progress this week.

My quest for shelving, tool storage, speakers and a work bench of some kind kept me busy. One thing I want to do is get rid of the particle board storage shelves. They?re already showing signs of difficulty and stress out there. I also needed to get rid of the too large dining set cluttering up the building. The buyer hadn?t been back in touch for awhile.

I?d grown weary of chasing craigslist ghosts; that is, "super deals" that were already gone or turned out to not be super. Finally, I decided that I really didn?t want to carp up my beautiful new building with a bunch of beat up, carpy, rusty, cheap or free used junk.

But fate was to intervene?

On Monday this week (just 5 short days ago) my wife?s employer disposed of these configurable cubbies. They were free and made of steel so I decided to at least check them out. Got ?em home and once correctly assembled the next day, they stiffened up nicely so I decided to use them ?for now? and see how they go. Many were already joined together (badly) with zip ties so I had to remove most of those. Now that I have the cubes reassembled, I may tie them back together again. Time will tell.









But I wanted some proven backup. Something more ?real? than the cubbies. So I went ahead and ordered a brand new 60? x 12? x 30? metal storage shelf to get started. It should be here next week. And with my other storage shelving, I should hopefully be set for awhile once the new unit arrives.





And then, like a bolt from the blue, I got these speakers from craigslist for just 30 bucks!

The ad had been posted 3 hours before but as soon as I saw it, I jumped at the chance. Bose 301 Series IV direct/reflecting speakers which are perfect for my garage application. Plenty of bass and a wide soundstage. Connected to my old Pioneer VSX-5400 at 100 watts RMS per channel, they can even get loud enough to drown out the sounds of wire wheels grinding crud from a boat bottom!

The seller had them sitting in his garage unused, just collecting dust for years. You know the kind of garage I mean... totally cluttered up storing all kinds of useless junk and whatnot such that it was unusable as a garage. Ya know? It was so crowded in there that we had to clear off a stool for my receiver and drag another one over and clear it off in order to stack the speakers for testing.

From the seller's ad:





I took my receiver over to the seller's place and was so fired up checking them out after we got them connected that I didn't notice that both speakers were marked as LEFT speakers until I got them home! Doh! :facepalm: No problemo though. I flipped one over and voila! A right speaker! Who knows, maybe I'll go all fancy and move the Bose emblem to the correct place! :lol:

Got 'em cleaned up and they're out in the garage now. Working great! They really fill up that space with sound.











Finally the news I'd been waiting to hear... the furniture guys were on their way to pick up that dining set! I guess my face to face meeting with the buyer a couple days before paid off. Literally! Cha-ching! :tongue-new:

All gone!




On top of all that, I'd stopped and visited with a buddy to get caught up on life and such. Told him of my need for tool storage and the research I'd been doing. He then told me that he's going to be upgrading to a new tool storage box and said I could have his old cabinets. Plural! He's gonna GIVE me FOUR, count 'em FOUR tool chest/cabinet combos!! :faint2:

WOO HOO!! :rockon:

 

[BWR1953]

So we got out there this afternoon and got to work.

First thing was to repair the erosion damage caused by the rain yesterday. No biggie. Fixed it then covered it with tarps for now. Will be buying and planting some Rye grass to help hold things in place till the concrete gets poured. Not gonna mess with sod. Too expensive for a temporary fix.







Space!!


I'll be emptying boxes and the shelves from the wooden storage units and getting things arranged in the cubbies and the new metal shelf when it arrives. Gotta get organized! :joyous:



Cubbies assembled. If I zip tie them back together and strap them to the building, they may work out okay. Maybe. We'll see. Stay tuned. opcorn:












Making progress! Still haven't found that "ideal" workbench yet, but I'm keeping my eyes open!

 

[BWR1953]

Forgot to mention... my wife's employer also tossed out this heavy steel rolling filing cabinet with lower shelf. I scarfed it up for easily movable storage. Gotta get a handle attached to the front because the lid only stays closed when locked and there's no key.

 

[Patfromny]

You're on your way. The steel shelving unit comes with particle board shelves. If it's the same as the ones I have. With a little humidity they just started to bow and mold up like crazy. I replaced them with 1/2 or 3/8 plywood. Whatever the thickness of the old shelves were and painted them with oil prime then gloss oil paint. No more problems. You could also just hit them with poly once or twice to protect. I imagine you'll be dealing with a bit of humidity down your way.

 

[Watermann]

You're fighting the good fight to keep things tidy, never give up or all will be lost!