How to make the most out of a 1 car garage...

i know i probably posted about a bazillion pictures of my garage renovation, but im finally at the point where im done...its a small 12x22ish

started out as this...


ended



that heater heats up the garage when its freezing out in about 5-10 minutes and i have to shut it off it gets so hot....since i built the low ceilings and insulated it, it keep heat GOOD. and i have tons of storage up in the little loft.



i had to put the car over as far as possible and as close to the front door as possible, but i can EASILY work on a bike and even park another bike if/when i need to.





I still have to put up a few shelves and repaint an old cabinet that was in the garage when i bought the house.

this is my first garage so i'm trying to make the most of it.

with electrical run by myself, and everything else done by me my girlfriend and my father, i think came in under 1000.00 and that includes building the work bench, heat, sheetrock, insulation, paint, wood, etc.

 

a picture from when i first got it finished before i built hte other table, etc.



it was my first try at sheetrock and everything, i think i did an OK job, hanging that stuff on the ceiling is a bitch! haha .

well today was new years and my goal was to be done by then so im pretty happy, today was a good day.

 

I wish I had your organizational skills - and that FRIGDE too!!



Looks great!!!!

 

Looks good, and I know the unstressed feeling of sitting in a finished garage.
cool man.

 

That is amazing! And I'm bitchin' about my two car garage. I gotta' get my sh*t together and do that to my pit.

 

hows that? haha

 

That's just wrong!

 

From dingy to a very cool area, looks great. A little drywall & mud does wonders.

 

That's nice Caffeine, looks like you made the most of it.

 

My one-car garage after bringing my big tool box home from work...I already had a few boxes at home so I removed the casters from my old home-garage box and stacked it on my big mac box...leaves 3 inches to the ceiling.
Ya do what ya gotta do in a 1 car..
Hey Caffine,,,that's the ex-Levis Classic sedan, right? SBF and a 4 speed? Sounds good....glad you got it.
The garage looks killer with the new drywall and paint. Resist the temptation to hang stuff on the walls. Covers the reflective white paint and gets dark as a dungeon...like mine!

 

Man, dude, that looks great!!!

Do you like the craftsman socket organizers? I bought the flat type and they won't fit in my tool chest. I burned the box so I probably can't take them back....just curious about that style..

 

looks good

 

yeah i like those organizers....they are great!!

 

The garage looks great!! I wish I had yours instead of mine.


Nik

 

to save some more space i stored my jacks, jackstands and ramps, under the car.

 

Looks killer man. The kind of garage that puts a smile on your face everytime you walk into it and hit the lights.

 

And just think...a few months ago you were still stuck in the apartment

 

Now that looks sweet! Can't wait to get my own place and do something similar...I've been working outta my old man's garage for a while now, and it's great cause it's big (6 car) but it's not insulated or heated, so it takes two torpedo heaters everything they've got just to heat up half of it...I guess I can't get too worked up about it...free work space is always good....Anywya, one hell of a job there caffiene!

 

Organizing a garage like that is such a good idea, having a desirable (not to mention warm) place to work will keep you in the garage instead of out. The H-bomb is in a shared and tiny garage right now.. I hate it!
Nice work!

 

Deffinatly gota look into some of these. Get tired of chasing sockets around the tool box.

Nice job man. seriously clean setup. Your garage looks cleaner them most operating rooms.

 

I'd be afraid to work in there and get something dirty

Those socket organizers are awesome, I need to get a few pair of those

 

how does a feller get stuff outta the top drawer there Wayne? dont tell me ya stand on your tippy toes

 

Man I wish mine was that clean and oginzed. It looks like a bomb whent off in mine most of the time.

bret

 

I wish I had your organizational skills... and the discipline to keep it organized! About every 6 months or so I get pissed because I cant find something so I re-organize.... then 6 months later repeat....

Garage looks real good!

Andy

 

Must be great to have all that room. My 'garage' (really a shed) is 10x16. The doors are 6 ft wide and the Beater measures 5'9". Barely fits. I also have my lawn mower, Frankie's Radio Flyer, a Matco box, big drill press, and other necessities in there. Sure I have to move stuff outside every time I need to do some work. But I get er done.

 

I got some of the red ones and I like em but then I dont. I ended up only using the ones for 1/4 the others I sfuffed in the top of the tool box and i was thinking of puttin em the next yard sale the wife has. I like the socket racks with the handle better.
Dave

 

i like the idea of them "pin rail" socket racks,,, specially for the 1/4" ones. i know i dont like the tab rail style i got now... who knows. i know sears is kinda proud of them things tho... like $10 a copy

 

Very nice.

If you go for shelving, Home Despair and the like have shelves that should work.
I have some really heavy duty ones in my present garage.
Along with some 2 x 12's dadoed and lag screwed together for heavy duty shelving.
Nice part about the commercial shelves is that they break down and are easily moved and/or are easy to move once assemble and empty.

I stored steel under the roadsters at the old place.
Most times 20' sticks cut in half, but if I wanted to keep the 20' length it was no big deal to run it on the floor beside both roadsters which were parked end to end in the old garage. (The old garage was 23' x 24' in the main area and had a bonus space on the left that was 6' x 12'. The small added area made a big difference and I was able to have two roadsters and a 19' long 4 door pickup inside.)
Storing steel under the 31 worked cuz it was a roller and usually came forward into the main work area for work.

The new garage is 24' x 28' and the vehicles park side by side with the 31 up on jackstands in the middle and the other roadster & same long pickup off to one side.
The open work area is where the pickup parks so it goes outside once in a while.
Steel is stored vertically in this garage, 10' & shorter at the top end and up to 14' or so betweed the double doors almost to the roof peak at the other end.

Granted, I have a lot of room, but it gets used up fast.

My friend built a 30' x 30' (dream) shop and it's got two Model A's, one running and one under construction along with a 34 pickup stored in there and he's running out of room.
Part of it is he's not finished organizing yet, but he's getting there.

Keep in mind you can go up or off the floor and walls for storage.
I had a couple of 3/4" plywood sheets (4' x 8') hanging down from the ceiling.
They sat on a couple of 1" square bars that were held up by chain connected to 3/8" hooks screwed into the ceiling joists.
There were a lot of well braced trusses under the roof and that supported the weight just fine.
I stored mostly lightweight stuff up there.

Note in the one pic, the ladders stored on bicycle hooks.
They're out of the way and handy.

In the present garage, nothing is stored over the work area - where the pickup is - but the old garage had a plywood sheet that hung about 1' down over the work area and it wasn't in the way.

Another similar setup with bars, chains & hooks, but without the plywood was used to store aluminum - bars, rod, tube etc.

Just gotta use your imagination.

I'm glad to see garage posts, I'm always looking for a better way to set up the garage.
Seems like it's a constantly evolving thing.

 

Nice work, Rob.... Great organizational skills... I could never live like that. No matter how big my shop is its always a mess...

 

Here's a couple views of the front end of the garage/shop when the 2" x 12" shelves were near completion.

The short shelf area with lots of shelves got a door - 3/8" particle board (shoulda been 1/2") - with piano hinge.

The short and sturdy shelves handle lathe chucks and other heavy stuff.

There's a fairly shallow dado cut where the shelves go, bout a 1/2" deep and the shelves are retained by 3/8" lag screws.

Makes for a very strong and not too wide (11 1/2") shelf. I've stored many coffee cans full of bolts & nuts as well as outboard motors, heads, cast iron intakes and similar on this style shelf with no problems.



The pic of the commercial shelving shows the Home Despair 6' tall, by 2' deep by 8' long shelves. Two of them end to end. They come with 3/4" particle board, go up quick and are nice shelves. No bolting required, it's a slip together deal. A hundred bucks apiece last year, seems like a lot, but it's not too much over building a similar unit from wood and in fact may be cheaper.