Need IDEAS/Garage interiors...

You don't want to see the inside of MY garage.

 

My buddy has a bunch of 2x4's on his ceiling that make a rack that look not unlike the tire racks at your local repair shop, made at different widths they can accomodate wheels or tires. I always thought that was a better alternative than stacks of tires laying on the ground.
It also depends on what you are going to be doing in your garage, welding or what have you. Think of all of the stuff that you want to get in there and make a spot for it. (If you can).

 

BTTT, this subject matter is hard to get responses on. Trust me I tried.

 

i ran out of space in my garage and now have a warehouse with a fork lift and racking to store my harleys and motors.

make sure you have a big bench to work on and a place for all the big equipment

 

White pegboard used like wall paper. My ceiling is 12-feet, so I've got 4x8 sheets from the ceiling down all the way around. The bottom 4 feet is going to be bright-finish corrugated steel siding to keep floor jack handles and sparks out of the wall.

The white peg board is more expensive than dry-wall per sheet, but after you put up the drywall, tape it, mud it, sand it and paint it, you're money and time ahead. 1-inch long deck screws to fasten the pegboard. The bright finish really reflects light nicely.

Built a 4x6 closet in the back corner, and insulated (with a vent) to stick my air compressor and cleaning stuff in. Don't have a compressor yet, but I've seen this done, and when the compressor kicks in you can actually continue your conversation. Made it with 2x6 studs, 7 feet tall with 3x4-inch plywood deck so there's a storage loft on top of it. The closet also gives you two more corners on the shop floor to put tools, book cases, etc.

Half of one wall has 24-inch deep shelves going to the ceiling. (Actually, they're 7 feet tall, but future plans are for 24-inch industrial pallet racking). Don't get the 36-inch wide pallet racking--it's too deep, and you end up wasting space (a SBC head is only 19 inches deep or so).
Behind the shelves from floor to ceiling, along my storage loft is 1/4-inch plywood, painted gloss white, so that if I bang something into the wall sticking it in the loft or sliding it on the shelves (like a SBC cylinder head), it won't bust through the wall.

Went to Sam's club and bought heavy duty plastic tote boxes with the clam-shell lids. $125 worth, at $4 each. Spaced the shelves out to stack these boxes on it and not have "dead space" between the lid of a box and the shelf above it. Smartest thing I've ever done.

For half of the shelves, the first shelf is 3 feet off the floor, so I can stand engines on end and store them under it.

One of the shelves is only about 12 inches high until the shelf above it--intake manifold and valve cover storage.
Maximize your shelving to eliminate dead space between parts/boxes and the shelf above it. My shelves are 12-feet long. If I can lower each horizontal shelf segment 3 inches, and I start with 7 shelves per unit, that means I've "found" an extra 21 inches of horizontal space and can add another (8th) shelf. An additional 12-foot long shelf stores a lot of crap.

LOTS of electrical outlets. I have them every 4 feet, two-gang outlet, each half of the box on a different circuit so I can plug my bench grinder in next to my Coke machine and not blow a fuse.

Lots of insulation in the walls. I have to do the ceiling next--the black shingles turn it into an oven during the day.

Enough flourescent lights to make you squint at noon.

Ceiling fans are a good idea, too.

Thanks to Eastwood's powder coating system, I now have to have an oven in the shop--just picked one up. I'm going to build a stand to get the oven up off the floor about a foot or 18 inches--easier to put heavy stuff in it to cook because I won't have to bend over with it, and more importantly it gives me storage under the over for floor jacks or something.

I have water out there, too, so there's a sink, and I'll put in a hot water heater.

The Coke machine holds bottles, and will freeze beer. Gotta have a place to drain the beer after use, but rather than installing a toilet (which ALWAYS gets disgusting in a shop) I bought a full-length stand up urinal. The crowning piece of my shop! Easy to clean up (spray bottle with bleach), no disgusting splatter around the lid, and dirt won't settle on it and then turn to mud when my drunk buddies hit everything but the bowl. You gotta stand far more often than you gotta sit, so for those long breaks I go into the house.

Finally, don't start wrenching on any cars until the shop is done--almost everyone I know with a decent building started wrenching before the shop was finished and 15 years later they're still bitching about insulating, finishing the walls, running wires, more lights, etc.

I've got a ways to go to finish my shop, but it's getting close.

-Brad

Oh, here's two more:
Don't put a table, bench or shelves next to the overhead doors or the entrance door--it becomes a catch-all and starts the clutter snowball. You set stuff on it on your way out the door thinking "I'll throw this away later" and your wife and kid just open up the door and set stuff down.

Build a nice big welding table, and then along the wall behind it, just put a 18-inch deep, several feet long work counter. Don't use a work bench along a wall. Also always becomes a cluttered catch-all. You want to work at the welding table, and store some tools, cordless drill battery chargers, small parts storage, WD40, drill bits, etc. on the work counter behind you.

Lots of garbage cans. You'd be amazed at how much shit you just set down on the bench because you don't want to make the trip across the shop to the garbage can, thinking you'll throw it away in a minute. You never do, and then you've got old paper towels and soda cans everywhere.

I'm done now

 

How about a couple projects

 

Root, didn't we go through this subject earlier this year? Did it make it into TECH?

My shop has...
Lots of cupboards hanging from the walls (with doors; keeps the crap out) over workbenches that run along one wall and across the front. One just for reference books.

Drawers (deep) under each bench for big tool storage. (angle grinders, drills, etc.)

A HEAVY welding table (1/2" steel plate on steel legs with a BIG vise.

Room in one corner that has hardware bins from floor to ceiling.

Stereo, computer and telephone in another corner.

Now if a small refrigerator comes along; won't have to take my shoes off everytime I head into the house to fetch more beverages. (trouble is I don't know where I can put it!)

 

A rack to store rims. As you see this one that holds 63 filled up fast. I just finished another that holds 90 rims

 

The 90 rim rack

 

Along the line's of visual. A friend got a ton (free) of old barn wood rich in history and weather'd red patina. Used it through out the shop esp. the clean area. Then the el cheap-o tin storage shed was 'sided' w/ same wood. Open shelves and rack's can be covered with large flag's, art ect.

 

Hey Brush, just took a few images of my tool and storage cupboard area. My garage is 40 x 25 with 10 feet to the bottom of the trusses, a little smaller than yours. It is actually a prefabed unit, which I had the company design the major part to my specs. I assembled it my self. When I had settled on a size and design of the basic garage I then designed what would go in it in the form of permanent fittings. A lot of this design was based on the equipment I had already. Everything was designed prior to building my garage. I am pretty pleased with how it all turned out. As I said I erected and assembled my garage and did all the fit out. It has the walls lined and the floor is painted. As someone else said here, try and finish the whole project before working in it.( aprt from working in it to fit it out that is)!
The only thing I would do different is I would insulate the wallls and of course go bigger!
I work in steel fabrication so a lot of what I did came very easy to me and of course that was a big help and also saved a lot of dollars.
Almost forgot, I also put a couple of tracks on 2 of my trusses and have cross carriages on these, makes pulling engines by one's self very easy, as well as moving heavier stuff across the garage.
I have a series of shots some where that show all walls of my garage as fitted out, before I moves cars etc in, I'll see if I can find them.
Anyhow here is the 3 images I just took.
I hope this helps! Geoff PS sorry about the messy benchs

 

A loft for storage is cool.



Signs are cool I have "nationwide sin"



I also have clutter. And these pics are a little old.

 

Heres my shop, most think it's to clean and white.
But I can see in it

 

I'm working on wallpapering one wall of my shop with beer labels, no two alike.
Last week my neighbor gave me a commercial poster holder. It's a dandy thing to have, the garage was being taken over by bonneville posters, bikes, signs and other stuff on the walls. The poster holder allows me to change posters easily and keeps 'em clean.

mike

 

i'm going to paint mine white after i insulate it and finish the inside. two of my buddies have there's painted white. it's nice working in a bright shop. you can see! when i go home i feel like i'm in a cave.

 

Here's mine. Nothing fancy. It's more about working than anything. I've got really nice cabinets from a bank along one wall and a stainless steel table from a morgue(spell?) as a workbench. The walls have more junk on them now. I'll find something at a swapmeet for $5 or $10 and get it just to hang on the walls. Eventually the stuff on the walls gets used and gets replaced with new stuff.
Clark

 

When planning storage, THINK VERTICAL! Get all that stuff off the floor and up on hooks/shelves/cupboards on the walls and hanging from the ceiling.

 

My shop is way too full. There is NO wall space. How and where can I store 8 20' chains with hooks?

 

My father installed a couple of Solatube™ skylights and they are pretty cool. Lots of light, but not direct sunlight.

Used restaurant equipment rocks. A long time ago some HAMBer posted a photo of their shop with a stainless workbench with built-in refrigerator.

Jeff, if you're ever back in Hogtown check out Canada Food Equipment (off Keele near the QEW/Gardiner). They have about 10 acres of stainless steel shelving, racking, lockers and tons of cool shit, and it's pretty cheap.

Benaco Sales is up HWY 400 and they have used restaurant equipment too. http://www.benacosales.com/

Mr. Used in Hammertown (on Barton I think) has 50,000 sq. ft. of used equipment from restaurants and shops, businesses etc. Good place for work benches and even tools, and generally a damn cool place just to wander around. He advertises in the TriAd all the time.

 

Bigger is always better.Storage racks that go to the ceiling and a overhead crane is always good. All we need is some artwork to complete our shop.

 

I used 7/16 OSB all around mine (when it was still cheap at 7 bucks a sheet). That way I can put a nail or screw in anywhere and whatever I hang there will stay.

I used steel for the ceiling and have a foot of insulation blown in on top of it, highly recommmended. 6 inches in the walls too. It heats easier than my old farm house.

I painted it all white too, it is much brighter. Make sure you paint and get your walls put up before you start moving shit in though, because you just end up moving it all around then because it always seems to be in the way.

And yes, you can never have enough outlets.

 

[ QUOTE ]
Last week my neighbor gave me a commercial poster holder. It's a dandy thing to have, the garage was being taken over by bonneville posters, bikes, signs and other stuff on the walls. The poster holder allows me to change posters easily and keeps 'em clean.
mike

[/ QUOTE ]

Mike THAT'S the solution I need!! I have been doing a major clean up and reorginization of my shop. I put ALL the posters I have (that aren't already on the cabinet doors) in one place and found that I have OVER 150 MORE! I'm even hanging some of my signs in the car port!

The only problem (you've been in my shop) is where the heck do I hang a device like you describe?? Already have posters pinned to the ceiling!

I missed some things in the first description of my shop. Peg board; Yes. Lots of electical outlets; Yes. (spaced within 4 feet of each other) Lots of lights; Yes. EVERY SURFACE painted WHITE (except the bench tops (yellow powder coated) and the floor); Yes.

 

A central vac system with several outlets in logical areas. It's great having it beside the drill press.

 

I'm getting a lotta ideas,,,,,

I'm just not that far along with my shop! HRP

 

I think I speak for a lot of us.....you suck! In the nicest way. Actually I am just jealous.
That will be a great garage.

 

Hey brush,
How about something like this

 

That clean white shop gives me the shivers! I can see a guy in a chemical cleanup suit walking around in there!!

 

HEY!!
How'd you get pictures of my shop?


In my dreams.

I'll repeat what's been said...Make it bright, go UP with storage, tire racks(Frees up floor space).