Need help laying out my garage

[jeff0547]

About three years ago, I moved into my current house and garage. The garage is 30'X50' and I was excited. Here is what greeted me then:

See, you like it, too.




The problem is that I had no "plan" as to how to lay it out as a working home shop. I have no horizontal surface left to work on. So at the risk of public humiliation, I'm going to let you see what it looks like now.

The reason I'm willing to show this picture is because next year I'll be moving again to another house and building another 30'X50' garage; and I don't want it to look as bad as this one.

So, could you post some pics of your home shop so I can work out a plan, this time?

Thanks, and BTW I'm sure I'm not the only one who has created a mess__there are just no 12 step programs. HELP !!!

Oh yeah, I am working to clean it up this week but it may take until Christmas before I finish.

 

[gpguy]

:shock: Yikes and I meen Yikes :shock:

 

[username]

Thats about typical so dont feel to bad.It looks like its time to have a huge discount garage sale.Here is another helpful hint when you build another garage build a separate building for all the Ms Jeff's items, Lay the thing out with tape on the floors if you have plans per se to buy a drill press and put it in its spot that you layed out but you just have to store old paint buckets there, dont do it. Consider that real estate already taken not designated this way you are forced to start making some trips to the dump once in a while. And I agree taking a second look :shock: YIKES!!

 

[Mike P]

First thing, build or buy a storage shed for the “junk” (no offence intended). Shelves/cabinets/peg boards are your friends anything you can do to get stuff off the floor frees up more room.

Depending on the height and what you want you want to do in the garage another effective thing for freeing up space is to raise the office. I’m currently in the process of building a new shop; it will have 12’ foot eves so I am going to raise the office 5’. The space underneath will be used to store the cherry picker, engine stands, jacks etc that would be taking up space anyway so I kill 2 birds with one stone.

My pad got poured last week so I don’t have pictures of a finished product but here the sketch we used to draw up the blue prints. It’s going to be a bit bigger than yours but maybe it will give you some ideas.

 

[jeff0547]

Anyone have some pics of your home shop to share? :?:

 

[Longroof79]

Wow!! Jeff, looking at the first few pics, I thought, look at all that space...I'm envious ....then you show a pic of what it looks like filled to capacity...Wow again,.. They fill up fast, don't they? :shock: My garage would fit inside yours...empty, of course :lol:

Jack

 

[Doober]

I may head up to the Phoenix area (or wherever you are) in the coming years.... buddy! :lol:

 

[jeff0547]

I started this morning, taking stuff off the bench tops and putting them in boxes or bins. Also spotted several things that I drug home with the intention of giving them to a specific person. Well, that person will get a Thanksgiving gift this week.

Also the table at the front of pic #3 is full of s-10 parts for my 85. I'm going to set up a 4-shelf set to put those parts on.

Here is a thread from garagejournal.com that is going to be my inspiration:

http://garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47899

Thanks to all for the kick in the a$$.
btw: my wife agrees; now I don't a choice.

 

[Oldsmoletick]

I don't have any good pics of the home garage, but if you look beyond the car you can get a basic idea of what was done to maximize floor space with very limited room. The cabinets in the background are mostly for tools, they actually just random ones picked up at estates sales and what not, but make great storage. Stack and stack some more, we tried to use any space possible for tools, equiptment, random junk, parts, etc, etc. We have one actual workbench (storage below) far corner with the vise, grinder on pedestal (saves workbench space), woodstove tucked in one back corner, compressor in the other, fridge mounted under stairs (with random junk storage below), the width of the over head door gives an idea on how limited the space is, work space is about 3 feet on either side of the car, cramped but it works.

click for larger versions.

 

[rccktmn2]

Mines a 30x40 and what helped allot is the fact that I put a loft upstairs, all the car stuff is downstairs and the mrs. and house things we want to store are upstairs, plus it makes a great mancave. I can get 4 cars side by side downstairs with room to work and a mac toolbox, workbench, etc. The downstairs has an 11ft ceiling, the upstairs has an 8 ft ceiling and runs the full length of the building.