My garage is actually condemned and we knew it was a tear-down when we bought our house. Half of the bottom sills are rotten, there was no power, and it used to move a little when hit by a strong gust of wind. I have planned some projects in the house that require some saw and painting space, so we decided to leave the garage up until we completed the wanted updates to the house and then replace it with a somewhat larger, yet period-appropriate, garage/shop combo with a studio apartment above.
Right after we moved in, I scrubbed the place, applied some leverage to the walls to square them up as possible, reinforced the roof trusses, glued and screwed 3/8 plywood sheathing to two of the interior walls, installed florescent lighting, installed 9 bike hooks in the rafters, added garden tool holders and box storage shelves, built a narrow stout plywood work bench, and partially wired 5 outlets. I did most of it with lumber, wire, and lights that I already owned, so my total outlay was less than $200 and the structure is now solid as possible given the years of neglect and will usable for the next couple of years. I was going to do a little more – rebuild the barn doors and finish the wiring, but a surprise shoulder injury and subsequent surgery put that off indefinably. I now have more projects than time and can’t fit it all in.
The little bit of work making the garage usable has really been a blessing: In the six months that we have owned La Maison Du Talley, I have built our compost bins, the three huge garden boxes, two window flower boxes, a mason bee house, refinished a massive hutch, built a rolling utility cabinet, stripped and repainted furniture, built stuff for the kids, stored and serviced my fleet of bicycles, rewired a couple of lamps, etc… all without filling our house or basement with noise, sawdust, or fumes, which keeps The Mrs. happy!
For the last couple of months my kids have been here and cleanup and organization after this or that project was minimal. Crap started piling up. I got some new lumber and supplies dropped in my lap and they were just sort of tossed in. There were semi-emergency house and bike repairs that left tools splayed about, my larger table saw (every proper joiner/cabinet maker needs two…) is in pieces as I am rebuilding the fence and adding a router table to the side leaf. I had to crawl around and under bikes, push saw horses out of the way, step over a wheel barrow, and move the drill press to get a set of micro pliers to repair a necklace for my happy wife. It was starting to look like Godzilla ate a strip mall containing a furniture, garden and bike shop then pooped in my garage.
After dropping my daughter off at the Airport the past Sunday morning at 5:00am, I went home, snuggled with the wife and the puppy for a couple hours, spent the rest of the morning in my bathrobe reading part of a book, consuming a large amount of coffee, and had a leisurely lunch. I then spent the entire afternoon cleaning and reorganizing the garage so that it would again be usable and so I wouldn’t brain myself every time I opened the door. I was super-productive:
Completely cleared and cleaned my bench top
Hung all the bikes on their assigned hook
Worked on stripping “new” Schwinn frame
Unpacked two boxes of refinishing and painting supplies
Sweep up a summers worth of saw dust
Emptied trash and recycling bins
Got the Tug-a-bike trailer ready to sale on Craigslist
Completely reorganized my tool chest (All the bike tools now have their own drawer!)
Put some labels on the nail and screw bin
Organized bench tools
Worked on a secret project for Laurel
Hung up First Aid Kit
Reinforced a wooden table
Made up a complete took kit for the house (no more in and out for little repairs)
Moved drill press to better location
Worked on finishing table saw fence
In addition to my sometimes compulsive need for organization, there will be a number of Engineers and builders staying at or visiting my home in the next month and it would kill me if my work space looked like that when they showed up. When I shut off the lights at 10:00 PM, it was a whole new space and ready for inspection and for me to jump into a new project that I have planned for September.
a few pictures of the building and the organization spaces/racks from earlier this summer.
