My garage - tips, ideas and recommendations please

[JFReturns]

Hi PH'ers,

I have recently brought my first house which came with a small garage. My '5 just fits, but as you can see, space is at a premium:



I've brought a few tools and have a large collection of old wood working tools from my Grandad, and I want to store them all in the garage in a tidy and accessible way. However, after neary seven years of studying IT my DIY skills are pretty much non-existant so your help is required.

I want to paint the walls white, and put up a couple of EVO prints. Maybe put a strip of carpet on the wall to save the doors... but otherwise, has anyone got any suggestions on how best to store the tools? Any cool ideas to make the most of the wall space?

Also, the side walls are breeze block - will I have to treat these before painting? They seem quite porous and I'm worried the paint will be soaked up like a sponge.

Thanks,

J

P.S. SWMBO has been banned from putting her stuff in the garage, so no worries there. She gets the house for that

[GingerWizard]

No idea with the shelves.

Regarding the walls, get a big 15litre tub of white paint and get a litre of pva glue, mix into the paint with a little water and bobs your uncle, should cost no more then 30 with rollers. You can do the floor with this as well, but if you can stretch to a proper garage fllor paint, its almost a latex style paint then it is well worht it. It keeps the dust to a minimum and is moppable so the garage is spic and span. Oh and carpet for the floor to sit on, and rude pictures go on the back of the garage door, the missis will never know!

Gwiz

[pmanson]

I would put some ex display kitchen cupboards along the rear wall with a piece of worktop on top for you to dump stuff on!

Above that either some adjustable shelves or that tool board stuff where you hang your tools from little hooks.

Some shallow shelving along one of the walls (make sure it's not anywhere that you'll bang your head) can give you storage for car cleaning stuff/tins of paint etc

Like my garage (which is currently a mess) you have to keep it simple.

[Steve_W]

pmanson gives good advice - keep it simple and don't let the junk build up.

Do you have any room in the roof? If so, you could get some boarding up there to keep light items out of the way - perhaps the old tools you want to keep but don't need to access too often?

Of course, if you want to go nuts, lose several hours of you life looking at some of the garages created by folks on this forum - Yanks have so much more space than us.

Garage Journal

[RonJohnson]

I'm always an advocate of having no more workbench/worktop space than you really need. Experience has told be that it inevitably attract clutter, no matter how you try to avoid it.
The suggestion of kitchen units is a good one - if not ex display most of the DIY chains will do a budget 'take away' range which is suitable.

[dirty boy]

Out of curiosity, what's the width of that garage?

Cheers

dirt

[JFReturns]

GingerWizard said:

No idea with the shelves.

Regarding the walls, get a big 15litre tub of white paint and get a litre of pva glue, mix into the paint with a little water and bobs your uncle, should cost no more then 30 with rollers.

Gwiz

Done, cost £25 all in (joys of working near Wilkos..) but the PVA tub instructions state I should mix one part PVA with three or four parts water and apply this before the paint. Is it better to do this or mix straight into the paint?

pmanson said:

I would put some ex display kitchen cupboards along the rear wall

Above that either some adjustable shelves or that tool board stuff where you hang your tools from little hooks.

Yup, like this. I'm on a limited budget and have brought some plastic wall mounted draws and tool rack from EBay already, but will keep an eye out on freecycle in case anyone is getting rid of kitchen cupboads...

Steve_W said:

Do you have any room in the roof?

Yes, there are chipboards laid across the rafters which I will remove and replace with some decent timber. I'm hatching a plan where I get some kind of folding board that hoists back to the rafters when not in use.....

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

I have a combination of the above. (and same car )

Narrow shelves on the Left hand side with Paint tins, and crap.

Lots of nails and hooks on the left for Garden Tools etc.

Oh and a Golfball on a string to stop me in 'just' the right place.

• plus Loaded Calender type thing.

You have good taste in cars Some good advice too, I like the golfball idea but I might replace with a tennis ball so as not to damage my paint work

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

If I remember I will post some pics if interested.

Pictures speak a thousand words

[JFReturns]

dirty boy said:

Out of curiosity, what's the width of that garage?

Cheers

dirt

It is 2.5 metres inside the garage and 2.24 at the door. 5 Metres long.

I have cleared it out now and started clearing the huge amounts of dust out. Hate spiders, so went and got Henry and vacuumed the buggers up

Here are a couple of pics to get a better idea of what we are working with (all shelving and tat since been removed):





This week I am preparing the walls by brushing them down with a stiff bristled broom, a quick sandpaper, another brush then maybe a vacuum. Any other prep required for breeze block before I slap on the PVA/paint?

Edited by JFReturns on Tuesday 29th June 08:09

[GingerWizard]

Mix the PVA with the water but (you can make it stronger if you like). Then add it to the paint. I would'nt worry about sanding the wall! A stiff bristled broom will be fine me thinks!!!

Personally i would do it like this.

Clean out and sweep the walls and floor.
Hoover.

Mix 2 parts paint to 1 part water. This should be super runny. Essentially use this mix to white wash the walls and floor. Just slap it on all over!

Wait for it to dry, say about 1 hours on a balmy day

Next mix 1 part water to 1 part pva, and add this to the rest of your paint. ( if you have 5 LTR of paint then 1 LTR of PVA is fine) And roller this on round the garage untill you run out. and wallah! you have a painted dust free garage!

hope it helps

Gwiz

[Stu R]

Make a toolboard with a big sheet of ply / chipboard. Hang all your stuff up on the wall. The fiddly stuff like drill bits etc that you can't hang, get some rack mountable plastic storage bins. Couple of kitchen units for the big stuff like power tools and what not, job's a cracker.

I'd far rather have a neat and tidy, well laid out toolboard than have everything stuffed away in boxes / cupboards.

As for the paint, no problem painting breeze block, just use something like Sandtex masonry paint.

Edited by Stu R on Tuesday 29th June 08:55

[Streetrod]

Go to this tread for all the ideas you want:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[JFReturns]

GingerWizard said:

• some paint advice

hope it helps

Gwiz

Thanks Gwiz, I shall do just that.

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

• some pics*

WOW! That is exactly the reason why I have banned SWMBO from putting her stuff in my garage! Hats off for the use of space though Paddy

Streetrod said:

Go to this tread for all the ideas you want:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

That thread was making me feel bad about how small my garage was until I saw this:



Last night I got rid of the final bits of dust and spiders webs ready for the paint stage (I got a weird look from my neighbour who saw me vacuuming the walls though...). Next step is to mask up the wires and lights. Also having a Sketchup done to play around with space, and woke up in the middle of the night with some genius space saving ideas... watch this ..erm.. space

[The Black Flash]

I've used a few of these magnetic knife racks from ikea for all my spanners, screwdrivers and pliers etc:
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/0011035...

[GingerWizard]

The Black Flash said:

I've used a few of these magnetic knife racks from ikea for all my spanners, screwdrivers and pliers etc:
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/0011035...

THIS^^^ I have loads of them in my kitchen.... maybe too many.... maybe enough to move one to the lock up..... I'm really pleased with this! Why i never thought of it!

[JFReturns]

Thanks for the tip, but Im not planning on keeping kitchen knives in the garage

So, the garage is pretty much prepped and ready for painting this weekend. Need to rip out the 'orrible chalk board currently laid across the rafters (found a nice pool cue up there - bonus!)which I'll do tonight, and give a final sweep/vacuum.

Here are a couple of ideas on what it could look like:







Just noticed the cupboard and workbench look like a cross eyed monster!

[Tumbler]

This any good http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/...

[DocJock]

Do you really want those shelves on the drivers side of the car?

Could make getting in and out a bit painful if you forget they're there.

[Tumbler]

Have you got space to hang stuff in the roof?

http://www.aplaceforeverything.co.uk/shop/index.ph...

[JFReturns]

Tumbler said:

This any good http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/...

Already got one very similar, thats what the grey bit is in the sketch up

DocJock said:

Do you really want those shelves on the drivers side of the car?

Could make getting in and out a bit painful if you forget they're there.

No, I normally reverse in, hard to that wall so I have plenty of room to get out. The only problem with that is I will have to move the car to get to the shelves.... not sure about their position yet.

Tumbler said:

Have you got space to hang stuff in the roof?

http://www.aplaceforeverything.co.uk/shop/index.ph...

You legend! Perfect for hanging my fishing rods Thanks!

Edited by JFReturns on Friday 2nd July 08:23

[JFReturns]

Update after a weekend of graft! I've never done so much screwing

Walls now painted white, could possibly do with another coat but I am happy with it. Brick work sealed with watered down PVA to prevent dust, shelves painted and fitted (I know they are bowed, I recycled them... hoping they will level out with stuff on). Pics:



Shelves, bits n bobs draws and EVO print



Steering wheel from my first car And something to hang my most used tools up for easy access (bit empty at the mo!).



Plenty of room



Car put away, fits nicely! Very dusty though, I am hoping now its all sealed and painted it won't be as bad...



Next plans:

- Paint floor light grey
- Get more EVO prints and various die cast models up
- Figure out ingenius ways of storing stuff out of the way...

P.S. Bit of a rant here.... I went to my local tip to get rid of some plaster board, and they had the most perfect work bench and set of drawers that someone wanted to chuck, and they wouldn't let me take it away! Local council rules apparently! ggrrrrr