Double garage tidy up and make better project
Discussion
I know some folks like to see pictures of messy garages rather than the Aston martin F1 team workshops some of the folks on here have, so here goes.
This is a cautionary tale to anyone who buys a house with their dream garage but fails to prepare early and finds themselves needing to sort it out a few years down the line. I convinced my wife to buy the house immediately opposite ours during lockdown because a) it was cheap as had been rented out for 10 years to a family that didn't care about it and b) it had my absolute dream garage. Oh, also c) it was a really lovely house and perfect for our family.
So, day one I got access. The power to the garage was off which meant the remote doors wouldn't operate but after much faffing about I found the master switch and opened it up. I wasn't surprised to find that the previous tenants had left a load of crap in it.
This is a cautionary tale to anyone who buys a house with their dream garage but fails to prepare early and finds themselves needing to sort it out a few years down the line. I convinced my wife to buy the house immediately opposite ours during lockdown because a) it was cheap as had been rented out for 10 years to a family that didn't care about it and b) it had my absolute dream garage. Oh, also c) it was a really lovely house and perfect for our family.
So, day one I got access. The power to the garage was off which meant the remote doors wouldn't operate but after much faffing about I found the master switch and opened it up. I wasn't surprised to find that the previous tenants had left a load of crap in it.
One of the excellent features that I've not been able to fully utilise for reasons that I'll come back to is that it has a full upstairs that is crying out to be turned into an office/sim rig room/man den/chill out area/storage.
When I first poked my head up the stairs I was not surprised to find that the previous tenants had left it full of junk. Storage units, two sofas, huge coffee tables etc. etc.
But, amazingly, they had spent the money to have it boarded and plastered with loads of sockets and some very basic strip lights installed.
I moved some stuff around and tested my new paint sprayer out with a tub of cheap white emulsion
I then decided, for reasons I can't remember, to not fully finish painting it and instead move the storage units that were left behind to the end of the room and put them on top of each other.
Item on the to-do list: finish painting this space, order some roller blinds for the windows.
When I first poked my head up the stairs I was not surprised to find that the previous tenants had left it full of junk. Storage units, two sofas, huge coffee tables etc. etc.
But, amazingly, they had spent the money to have it boarded and plastered with loads of sockets and some very basic strip lights installed.
I moved some stuff around and tested my new paint sprayer out with a tub of cheap white emulsion
I then decided, for reasons I can't remember, to not fully finish painting it and instead move the storage units that were left behind to the end of the room and put them on top of each other.
Item on the to-do list: finish painting this space, order some roller blinds for the windows.
Edited by SHutchinson on Friday 11th April 10:47
The house was previously a show home for Charles Church when they built the development. the garage had been used as the sales office complete with fancy glass doors which had luckily been removed and replaced with standard up and over garage doors. However, in the 10 years since it had been sold no one had removed the raised floor!!
It took an age to remove as it turned out to be the most solidly constructed piece of the entire house.
You can see the rot starting to set in already, I should have taken a step back at this point and finished the fit out before starting to fill the garage with stuff. But, with an entire 6 bed house to restore (it's amazing how derelict a 10yr old house can feel when it's been owned by a family that didn't care about it and rented out to a family who must have been trying to destroy it) I didn't have time spare to concentrate on this space, so it started to fill up quickly.
It took an age to remove as it turned out to be the most solidly constructed piece of the entire house.
You can see the rot starting to set in already, I should have taken a step back at this point and finished the fit out before starting to fill the garage with stuff. But, with an entire 6 bed house to restore (it's amazing how derelict a 10yr old house can feel when it's been owned by a family that didn't care about it and rented out to a family who must have been trying to destroy it) I didn't have time spare to concentrate on this space, so it started to fill up quickly.
Edited by SHutchinson on Friday 11th April 10:47
Once I got most of the raised floor out (the stairs are screwed to the top of it so I've left a section in that corner which I'll deal with later) I started to explore what was behind the plaster board but for reasons I can't remember decided not to fully finish removing it and paint the floor grey.
I then decided, for reasons I can't remember, to not fully finish painting it and instead buy a Mk2 Golf GTi to restore (but I had painted the now exposed blockwork white, with my new paint sprayer.
Item on the to-do list: finish painting this floor, finish removing/trimming the raised floor.
I then decided, for reasons I can't remember, to not fully finish painting it and instead buy a Mk2 Golf GTi to restore (but I had painted the now exposed blockwork white, with my new paint sprayer.
Item on the to-do list: finish painting this floor, finish removing/trimming the raised floor.
With the arrival of the Golf I switched my focus to not finishing the restoration of that instead of not finishing the fit out of my new lovely garage.
The garage quickly started to fill up with parts and tools.
That is two 2.0 16v VW engines. One is an ABF from a Mk3 Golf and the other is a 9A from a Corrado.
Then the strip down began to speed up. The car was stripped to a shell and mounted on a rotisserie.
A cautionary tale, when you strip a car down to a bare shell you need another car sized space (possibly more than) to store all of the parts!! You can guess what the upstairs of my garage looks like at this point and why it isn't yet being used as a man cave/office/sim rig room!!
The garage quickly started to fill up with parts and tools.
That is two 2.0 16v VW engines. One is an ABF from a Mk3 Golf and the other is a 9A from a Corrado.
Then the strip down began to speed up. The car was stripped to a shell and mounted on a rotisserie.
A cautionary tale, when you strip a car down to a bare shell you need another car sized space (possibly more than) to store all of the parts!! You can guess what the upstairs of my garage looks like at this point and why it isn't yet being used as a man cave/office/sim rig room!!
Edited by SHutchinson on Friday 11th April 11:04
And then this brings us to the state of it today. In this time I've almost finished the full refurb of the house and garden so tools and general stuff have taken over. It's amazing how much space disappears when you are disorganised and distracted.
The Golf is on it's side having new sills and floors welded in, you can see I've not quite finished it yet though, which will be a surprise to no one.
Items on the to-do list:
a) Sell the baby high chair as my daughter is now 5 and doesn't need it any longer (shows you how long I've been hoarding some of this stuff)
b) Put the garden tools and products in one of the garden sheds
c) Put my wifes bike in the bike shed
The Golf is on it's side having new sills and floors welded in, you can see I've not quite finished it yet though, which will be a surprise to no one.
Items on the to-do list:
a) Sell the baby high chair as my daughter is now 5 and doesn't need it any longer (shows you how long I've been hoarding some of this stuff)
b) Put the garden tools and products in one of the garden sheds
c) Put my wifes bike in the bike shed
The plan for this summer is to reorganise the garden storage so that all of those tools live outside, they end up in here through laziness because it's easier to just wheel them in here than put them away properly.
I'll get some pictures later but I want to take the plasterboard off the walls and refit them. The wall at the back of the garage has approximately 10" of void behind the stud wall. Other than a few cables for the garden power circuits there's nothing behind it so I would like to gain this space back by attaching the stud work to the wall and maybe ply lining it making it more solid to hang things from. The wall on the right has about 8" of void behind but has the garage consumer unit and cabling for our EV charger but again I'd like to take the plasterboard off, push the stud work back to the wall and line that to gain the additional space.
Because of the stairs I'd struggle to get a car in that side of the garage but I'm fairly happy that neither of our daily drivers will ever need to be in there. I've got to add a motorbike to the collection at some point so it can live on this side happily.
I want to get rid of most of my open racking shelving and replace it with a nice modular storage system like this:
https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-combgms03-w...
At 3.3m wide that unit would go nicely from the wall to the space where we've decided the tumble drier should live.
I'll get some pictures later but I want to take the plasterboard off the walls and refit them. The wall at the back of the garage has approximately 10" of void behind the stud wall. Other than a few cables for the garden power circuits there's nothing behind it so I would like to gain this space back by attaching the stud work to the wall and maybe ply lining it making it more solid to hang things from. The wall on the right has about 8" of void behind but has the garage consumer unit and cabling for our EV charger but again I'd like to take the plasterboard off, push the stud work back to the wall and line that to gain the additional space.
Because of the stairs I'd struggle to get a car in that side of the garage but I'm fairly happy that neither of our daily drivers will ever need to be in there. I've got to add a motorbike to the collection at some point so it can live on this side happily.
I want to get rid of most of my open racking shelving and replace it with a nice modular storage system like this:
https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-combgms03-w...
At 3.3m wide that unit would go nicely from the wall to the space where we've decided the tumble drier should live.
Edited by SHutchinson on Friday 11th April 11:27
B'stard Child said:
Excellent - good sized garage (looks oversize compared to normal doubles) - lots of storage above - I can see how you could see the potential
Yeah it's definitely on the generous size. It's deeper than most garages too so I can definitely put better storage along the rear wall and still get a good sized car in.My wife drives an Audi e-tron GT, I'm not 100% sure that boat would fit but luckily for her I'm never going to give her the opportunity to try!!
I can't wait to get the crap cleared out of the loft room and start to use it for something more fun.
skeeterm5 said:
A lot of potential there for a great space.
One thing I would do if it were me is hire a skip and just get rid of all the junk in one quick go.
I should have done this on day one! I've buried most of the junk now. One thing I would do if it were me is hire a skip and just get rid of all the junk in one quick go.
I'm definitely planning to visit the local tip a lot this summer though.
SHutchinson said:
I
So, day one I got access. The power to the garage was off which meant the remote doors wouldn't operate but after much faffing about I found the master switch and opened it up.
Perhaps with two doors it isn't considered necessary but you can get an emergency key (the barrel pulls out and has a wire attached) to release the mechanism so you can open the door manually if the opener jams / fails.So, day one I got access. The power to the garage was off which meant the remote doors wouldn't operate but after much faffing about I found the master switch and opened it up.
Sheepshanks said:
SHutchinson said:
I
So, day one I got access. The power to the garage was off which meant the remote doors wouldn't operate but after much faffing about I found the master switch and opened it up.
Perhaps with two doors it isn't considered necessary but you can get an emergency key (the barrel pulls out and has a wire attached) to release the mechanism so you can open the door manually if the opener jams / fails.So, day one I got access. The power to the garage was off which meant the remote doors wouldn't operate but after much faffing about I found the master switch and opened it up.
SHutchinson said:
benp1 said:
So much potential for this garage! What a great space
Yep, can't wait to start making it all nice, rather than a mess of projects.Grinder and consumable organiser
Getting chopsaws off the workbench or shelves is hand because you no longer have space above them or precarious stacks of tools
I love this thread, so much honesty, and real-life in it.
We also moved into our house 6 years ago, which also needed a lot of work including full re-wire and replumb (Edwardian, not had anything much spend on it since the mid 60s) and as such I am now only just starting to get the garage somewhere like where I might like it, spear headed a lot by a project that needs a functional workshop space.
Watching with interest.
We also moved into our house 6 years ago, which also needed a lot of work including full re-wire and replumb (Edwardian, not had anything much spend on it since the mid 60s) and as such I am now only just starting to get the garage somewhere like where I might like it, spear headed a lot by a project that needs a functional workshop space.
Watching with interest.
I like that disc storage. I bought a grinder hanger that takes all 3 of my grinders (haven't hung them yet) but I've been looking for a good disc hanger. Did you make that yourself or buy it?
I've got one of the big Evolution compound sliding chop saws, it takes up an entire shelf on my side racks on it's own! I've got an Evolution table saw too, it's such a huge lump even folded up. I'm hoping to hide it in the space under the stairs eventually.
I've got one of the big Evolution compound sliding chop saws, it takes up an entire shelf on my side racks on it's own! I've got an Evolution table saw too, it's such a huge lump even folded up. I'm hoping to hide it in the space under the stairs eventually.
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