I am in my 20th(or so) version on my garage shop ! Two cars..one done..one to finish. Two bikes..and some house stuff. I built a second garage..still finishing it. The plan was to make my garage THE SHOP..and second garage the car park with house crap. The second shop is between my house and my Mom's guest house I built for her and Dad.. That new garage is way cooler..faces south with both east and west walls attached to the houses..and stays warmer in winter. I put AC in my shop..but the new garage has windows for cross vent..dam...and two walkin doors...even built it with stairs to a porch on top.. I built the new garage 20 years after the first..came out better than I Imagined..but way to difficult to swap now. I use it for cleaning the cars and bikes..but mostly park cars and store shit.. My shop has storage closets I built..a large very heavy homemade workbench with 3" top..built in that will never move..overhead closets above the bench.with a lot of years of organized parts and project stuff..built in tool chests areas. Compressor..welder..and AC all have home runs to elec box. Bike lift..sink..and fridge..are built in coveys, along with two desks to design and read manuals. Never enough room though. ..so I'm stayin' with it. Plus..I have Direct TV..a good sound system..and a nice comfy chair for cigar smokin'.. All the necessities..hot rods..bikes..TV and tunes..tools..and cigars 'n cold brew.. It will never be like the great shops I see here..but I live out there.. Always sort of sad when it's late and I got to come in to check the HAMB..and then get some sleep.. Maybe a bed.. Uh..wife thinks (knows) I'm nuts anyway..
My garage is absolutely full. I have a little path through all the junk so i can get to the ladder to the attic. Thats full as well. It,s a four car garage . The cars are outside. Promised the missus to finally finish the house and then i can get stuck into the cars again.
I made my racks, so that the stock stands on end,each size of stock has it own slot, that way nothing is ever on the bottom. The sheet metal is all in one rack, but its alot easier to get out when its on its side.
...you have to walk sideways thru all my buildings! ...trying to get some needed shop space now by moving some engines/trannys that I've accumilated to another storage area. Anybody need a 250 Chevy six or a 267 or a 305 or a 283...or...
Nice job, but I have to say, that extension cord looks like a bit of a pup, considering the load you are putting on it.
Photo looks bad. It's got balz.. It's the same stuff that is running from the box to the outlet ( with a heavier rubber coating ). Also, I don't run the plasma and the mig at the same time, just have them hooked up so I don't have to run two cords or keep swapping them out
My garage is like 10x30, so I have to get reeeeally creative with space usage. My next one is around 18x24 so Im planning things here and that for there now.
Chopperman is cheating! I only see tools in his shop, no car parts 'cept for the grill on the wall... Where you hiding all your parts, stuff and other junk? Below is how my workbench-area looked like about 2 years ago. The engines have since then moved to the woodpanel with the hanging oilpans because the space is needed when a car has to drive on my carlift...
Looks great! "A place for everything and everything in its place". I have been trying to organize my 1 car garage, been going down to nearby Pratt and Whitney's surplus store and picking up used heavy duty shelving and lockers for peanuts. I was going to start a thread about the size of garages built in the past. My house AND car were built in the same year (1960). We always laugh because, for the life of me, I can't see how they ever thought my car could fit in the garage, unless they assumed you'd be climbing out of a sunroof...completely nutz!
I would like to think I am an organized person, but after a couple of days all goes lost. Great job Chopperman! The Bosch work radios are nice. We have one in one of our studios on my campus.
Jeff...I would be glad to help...you can store the t bucket (with keys) at my place in Mooresville...that should free up some room and give me extra motivation to get back there
I'll never fit my cars in my garage due to the physical size, of them, but I'm reorganizing my 11x22 1 car now. Make use of the walls! I hate clutter.
Here's a tip- Put an ad on your local craigslist that you'll buy any automotive logo metal cabinet for $25. All kinds of delco/motorcraft/berryman/etc cabinets designed to be point-of-use sales racks in small shops, the kind restocked weekly. Tune up parts and chemicals seem to be the most popular. They've got automotive logos, sometimes racing stripes, decent construction, and will make your garage look much cooler than old kitchen cabinets. Gets your stuff off the floor and workbenches, and since they "hang" unlike built-ins, you can take em when you move. They're a lifetime purchase. Be the envy of your buddies.
My last place in PA i used the rafters a lot. Here I have another building for that kind of stuff. My shop has 15 ft walls so My goal is to use shelves as high as I can and then hang stuff like grille shells and other light stuff above that. If it is not neeed for one of the cars in my shop it will go in the other building.
I don't feel so bad now. With the demands on you time it is hard enough getting into the garage. Time to put everything away just eats into work time. I hate the mess though.
ODDRODGARAGE, I think I should store my '31 Chevy Chassis there.....with keys. We are supposed to be renting a shop so I can move the '54 over and the Chassis there so that I can work on my coupe at home. Oh did I mention I have a '99 S-10 that has not been driven in 3 years that needs to go? Soon I will have the room to build and nothing will stop me...except buying or trading for more shit!
I'll find a use for the s10 chassis...you can keep the body...love the 54's...my first car was a 54 belair
well Ive got to stop trying to stuff more..stuff ,in my Pole Barn/shop. I find that i do a weekends worth of work, and need 2 days to clean up and re-organize. maybe thats typical? what gets bad is when i keep doing more and more and more, with out cleaning up after myself Than it just seems to over come me. cleaning up sucks..its just not as fun as creating or building. i need some elfs or something to come in after i leave. I'd like to do the same thing that he did with those motorcycles, with the 2 i have..but they are complete and friggen heavy..one H.D and the other a Ural with a side car..and not having a steel beam to chain them to, i guess im screwed
I don't have any photos of my shop, but I can tell you that three things make a huge difference: 1. anything that can go on the wall, should go on the wall! You'd be amazed at how many tools and parts you can hang on a hook or nail and get them off the floor and out of the way. 2. Rafters! I have seats, bumpers, long pipe, you name it up in my rafters. Everything is accessible, most of it is visible from the floor, but it is completely out of the way. 3. Cabinets. I had solid oak kitchen cabinets built locally for less than the cost of one big rolling tool box (and about 1/4 the cost of buying "garage cabinets" at Lowe's or Sears) and now virtually everything I own has a place to go. 14 feet of counter space and 10 feet of floor and wall cabinets. Plus storage on top of the wall cabinets, underneath the 4 feet of open counter top, and storage between the wall and the side of the cabinets. I built my first ground-up kustom in a small 2-car garage with no other storage space and I did it by putting everything possible on the wall or in the attic.
At one time I had a 40x80 Pole barn for a garage. I STILL needed a storage building for parts. At my place crap expands to fill the container. it must be a virus or something.
What really helped me clean up a lot of space and organize stuff was I bought a big wall mounted rack of shelves that holds a whole bunch of yellow plastic bins. I got it on sale from Enco. Most of the bins are like 4" wide and 12" deep and the bins in the bottom couple of rows are like 8 or 10" wide bins. The whole rack is maybe 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall. I completely filled up all of the bins and got a lot of stuff organized. I screwed the rack to the wall pretty securely so I wouldn't have to worry about it falling over in an earthquake or under its own weight. Another thing that helped out a lot was I made a big platform out of 2x4s and plywood that hangs down from the rafters, and filled that up with junk that I don't need to get at very often, like lightweight car parts. Then I screwed a bunch of hooks into the bottom of it and hung lots of stuff I need pretty often from under it -- welding mask, face shields, air hoses, spare Mig gun cables, D/A sander. They're hanging just high enough that I don't bang my head on them, but not so high that I can't reach them. I have 2x12s spanning the width of my garage standing on edge and those are pretty sturdy so I have a bunch of stuff like fenders, grilles, steering columns, etc. up there hanging off hooks and tied up well.
Pallet racking. You can buy it cheap at auctions; its heavy enough for complete engines, etc; and the shelves are fully adjustable. You can literally put tons of parts on them. You can always use a securely fastened chain hoist to lift even big blocks or hemis up to the top shelf, if you so desire. Pallet racking is great to get stuff up off the floor and out of the way.
this isn't the best pic but this rim rack has saved me a ton of space. i just moved into the house so its still a bit messy but the rack is helping. sorry for the crappy shot too.
Man I have the same problem........but Chopperman's welding work table is awesome! One of these days I plan on enclosing & enlarging the $h!t box.
What happens when you fill all the vertical areas? This has been the case for many years for me. I just start going out from the wall then build another building and do the same. Pretty soon, I'll have to dig down.
The Jalopy Journal
