Is your wood shop organization a challenge? Do you have a one car garage that has to serve as your shop and lumber storage? Oh wait! That’s ME! Generally I have so much stuff in my garage (shop) that I may have to wheel the saws to the driveway. I always have to work on projects in the driveway. There is no room in the garage for building. But all that is changing now. My neighbor Rodney and I spent five full days working on the garage organization.
On the morning we were to start, I had to take my truck to the shop (rodent damaged wiring, probably a squirrel). When I returned, Rodney had a good start of emptying out the stuff. On my way to the dealership, I phoned him to ask him to take some pics for me.
It’s pretty scary, so I’m including the before and after pictures together!
The garage has 2 sides, the inside wall (near the house) and the outside wall. This is the before and after of the inside wall.
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This collage shows the storage of all the sections of the inside wall.
Top image shows new shelving Rodney built to hold paints, stains and assorted Homeright products.
The middle images are of the small stoop area where I exit the house. To the left are my yard tools-under the stoop are milk crates of spray paint separated by color-making it easy to grab the entire crate to find the color I need. Rodney built a “skid” to keep everything off the ground.
The bottoms left is another small skid we built to hold my gallon paints. The image on the right is a full shot of the left side of the garage (the inside wall).
This before and after isn’t exactly from the same view, but you can get an idea of the improvement.
This collage is of the outside wall. Top left shows most of the outside wall. Much of this area was organized and tidied with the exception of the top right image. That area contained an old tall storage cabinet. It has been replaced with new vertical storage to get my long trim pieces out of the lumber cart that rests on the inside wall.
The bottom left shows all my bits and pieces and my stands. This is one of the areas that was totally out of control. The bottom right fuzzy image was taken from the facebook video and shows a nice long shot of the entire area.
This was taken from the driveway. You can see the lumber storage bench in the back left corner. In the middle of the garage in the back, the lumber storage cart, and on the right (front) is my rolling tool cart. My table saw and compound miter saw are both on wheels.
Rodney has been trying to help me figure out how to keep the garage from flooding. He chiseled out some pavement to allow the door to close more which left a huge gap and made it impossible for me to wheel anything from the garage to the driveway. We designed this handy ramp that allows me to move my mobile tools and rolling tool cart to the driveway.
If you’d like to see a video, check out this facebook live video showing the reveal of the garage.
I’ve already worked on a couple of projects and I can tell you it was so much easier. I always knew where my tools were, that wasn’t the problem. The problem in this one car garage wood shop was the clutter!! I’m so happy this huge job is behind me.
We also worked on the shed, more about that later. But you can see the before and after of the shed exterior over on the Homeright DIY blog later today.
Can you work in the space where you house your tools and lumber?
gail
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I love to see other people's clean garages. Mine only gets cleaned when I absolutely cannot move around in it anymore. I like to think I clean it when my van won't fit it in anymore (It's a 2 car deep garage and extra wide). I need to get back in there and purge and organize....again!
And yes, I do house all my tools and scrap wood in there. But I am always, always looking for improvement
Gail...what an improvement! Kudos to you. I have heard that paint will not be good after it freezes. Do you bring in all your paint in the winter? TIA Kaye Miller
Kaye,
I do bring my paint in when the weather turns cold. I line the gallons up on my basement stairs, all the way down both sides. It keeps it safe, and handy for me to grab when I need it. I grab it for projects as the weather warms and then just leave it outside till winter.
gail
First- I need Rodney to please move next door to me! :o)
We owned 2 summer properties in northern MN for 27 years. One property was just about empty. And the other had ALL our stuff! Until we sold it! We threw out a lot. But we still had a lot! We had to put it all into its new home a 30' x 30' garage space. (there are 14 still at home here and we are 60 & 63) I had 2 teens help me, husband is not helpful with cleaning! I finished in August. It took me 6 weeks!! I LOVE it. I regularly check to make sure everyone puts things away! LOL!
I loved seeing your results! Thank You for sharing!
p.s. we have lots of woodworking tools too, but here in MN paints must be stored in the basement.
I have to clean out the garage, have a garage sale and clean it out some more before I can even think about buying the larger equipment for woodworking. It's something I really want to do, too. So, after I go through all of those boxes and find the items I will use for decorating, I will price the ones I don't plan to keep and start setting up for that yard sale. It must be done this fall!!! I'll save some money over the winter and buy what I think I'll need to have a nice shop set-up.
You garage and work space look so much better. I hope it works for you in the long term. Some times you just have to stop what you love to organize to make it easier on yourself. I hope it's a permanent solution.
It's always darkest before dawn, right? This job was so overwhelming to even think about. I'm so thankful that I ad Rodney's help. It just makes everything easier when you have an extra pair of hands. I hope you have a helper when you tackle the task!
I'm sure my new shop will need some reorganizing a couple of times a year, but I plan to never let it get like it was. 😉
gail
This is inspiring! I've been putting off my wood shop organization all summer, but as the fall winds start to blow, I've got to get to it. Your photos show the effort will be worth it!
Yes! the effort was so worth it, and thankfully it was a very cool week. I could never have tackled this job in the heat of the summer Sandy!
good luck with your organization!
gail
The "before" looks a lot like my garage. My husband and I will organize it and I just cram more in. 🙂
Lena
My shop (garage) tends to get really bad in the Summer and Winter when the weather is too extreme to take the time to properly put things away. Hopefully with the new storage options that will be better.
Good luck with your garage!
gail
Gail, hope this cheers you as much as your timely reorganization made my morning ............we're in the very same type of reorganizing a two car garage plus adding on another 16' x 20' addition . Ours was greatly slowed by prepping for Irma and we're hustling before we may have to watch Maria. They'd also just dropped the lumber the day before Irma. Irma jogged West before reaching us so mostly wind and rain. The original house and garage were built in the 1900's so we work with wonky things. It's a work in progress of Re-purposing , salvaging ,auction finds and generally getting creative. So , BIG thanks for sharing. Raising my coffee mug to seeing light at the end of the garage !
To Sara Mullis: I'm so sorry about you were in the path of Hurricane Irma and now Maria looks pretty scary. I live in Houston and we were hit hard by Harvey. So many people still trying to recover and the flood waters haven't totally receded everywhere yet. I wish you luck.
Sara,
So happy to make your morning! 🙂 Wishing you safe times in the storm as Maria bears down on the area. Light at the end of the garage--I love that! It's a tough task, but so fulfilling once it's done!
I still smile BIG every time I open the door!
gail
Looks nice! I need a Rodney. 🙂