Garage Overhaul

[cjm180]

Hi everyone.

The Background

So i am sure i am like many people that live in the uk, with a garage too small to fit a car in, that soon turns into a dumping ground. Somehow years of stuff (and all the odds and sods from a house move) slowly build up and we find our garages full. We try to maintain it best we can, call it a hobby room, but the facts remain 90% of the stuff in them really is junk. Me particularly, i found all the junk / older stuff got its place on the shelf from when my garage was once tidy. Over the years more bits get put on the shelf in front of it, and so on. Then i arrive at a time in this great hobby where your really expensive helis and equipment end up on the floor because you dont have shelf space. In essence the junk gets prime estate in the garage, while your expensive stuff gets the floor!!!!

The inspiration

http://www.rcheliaddict.co.uk/fpv/84...roject-18.html

I saw the awesome work Zee had done in creating a hobby cave at the bottom of his garden. I think we will all agree this is stella work and made a fair few of us jealous (in a good way) at the fact someone had pulled their finger out and made something fantastic. This was largely my inspiration in doing my own garage make over.

The Disclaimer

I am not ashamed to say my work is not in the same league as Zee. The purpose of this thread is to try and show what i have done to make my helis more enjoyable, and maybe give a little inspiration. It is in no means exceptional. But all of it is in the realm of the most basic DIY'er, of which i am.

The Beginning

This has been a work in progress for over a year now. My i spent a fair amount of time and effort in my last property to make a garage more like a hobby room. I made a big U shaped bench, with the idea of working on helis on the side so you could get round most of it without turning the heli. My last garage was a little wider so when i moved i had to shorten this a little.

I found the bench over the years to be really good and i took it to my new house / garage. So really the whole design is based from this.

The state i found myself in.....

[cjm180]

So it was clear from the outset that i wouldnt be able to have such a clean and inviting space as Zee. Simply too much stuff and no where else really for it to go.

The three main issues were:

1, The mess. Simply no where to work cleanly.
2, Organisation of parts - Trying to keep spares and tooling separated and so i could find them.
3, Somewhere for my models to go

As stated above the bench was staying. It is made from 3"x3" planed timber (roughly 70mm x 70mm) with a 40mm worktop on top. This is a pretty strong bench for helis anyways. I will talk more about its construction later.

Also not having used autocad for a few years (since my studies really) i thought i would kick some ideas about...



Once i got going and thought i could make a half decent cave, i started to think a bit more carefully. I have the bench, a cupboard complete with a shadow board for my tools, some shelving etc. I have charge cases etc and a few other bits and bobs that need a home. This lot generally was located down the right side of the garage where i placed the units above. this worked well with the bench worktop. So i decided i would continue to use the right hand side for this, but use the left hand side for storage or parts.

I required storage solutions for several 700 class helis, 1/5th scale buggies, planks and quads. As well as soldering stuff, tooling, oils and greases etc. So kicking a few more ideas around i arrived at this:

[cjm180]

So from this point forward i will call the work on the left side (where the blue boxes are) phase 1, and the right side phase 2

So storage i guess had to be the first part. the left hand side.



As the majority of heli stuff is small, i thought it best to use boxes to store stuff in. A box per heli, per plane, per quad, per buggy. A box for soldering stuff, another for oils and greases etc. I game amazon a bashing and found these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Really-Usef...s%2C184&sr=8-1

they are made by a company called really useful storage boxes. I went with these as they look like they have been around for a while and make loads of sizes. So if a box got damaged over time i feel i would have a good chance to getting a matching replacement.

So the above is what will go down the left side of my garage. The lower half on the right is lower to accomadate my garage door. The open bit at the bottom is to store some camping gear.

The construction of the bench was literally screwed together. I made a small template up with 4 holes in. So each joint has 4 screws in. The bench had help up to several years of use and had worked perfectly, so i was keen to employ this method here. Obviously no fancy joints or anything. Just a square cut, pilot drilled then screwed. i used 5.0 120mm riesser screws...

as mentioned the wood was 3" square (70mm) planed softwood. Where i wanted each section separated with a board, i used 2x lengths of 3"x1.5", with a 6mm ply board sandwiched between. Thus making it 76mm x 70mm in section. The plan is to finally paint all the exposed wood black, and then clad the front of it in 80mm x 15mm oak (or something that looks nice). Due to the agricultural workmanship, some paint and cladding could really make it look good. A small bit of this was rendered into the right hand side of the garage CAD drawings

the start....

[cjm180]

All clading and painting is to be done once all units are made. I got to this stage then unfortunately life got in the way.....

[cjm180]

No real progress was done in the garage for around 9 months. The left hand side tho has been functioning really well. Stuff is well protected and easy to find. I can pull a box out, use some parts and put the box back. Perfect!

But one thing i didnt do is fix the core issue with the garage in the first place, and that was literally sorting the stuff out i have, and stop adding more stuff to it. Soon enough the lower boxes became hard to get to because stuff was mounting up on the floor. Under my bench was still a mess, as was the right hand side. So while i had done good work i could see i had an amount of work to go.



Anyways i was presented with an opportunity where the mrs was away for a week, and i siezed the opportunity to empty the remaining stuff out and start phase 2...

so this is really this unit here:



So really this side is more for storage of tools and models themselves. A bit of a working side in a way. If we break this up into three sections. The freezer section. Unfortunately i cant move the freezer out of the garage. So i felt it best to box it in and clear the stuff above it. I am still undecided what to do with the bit above the freezer. Maybe some draws??

The middle section... So i really wanted to move the red two tool chests off the back wall of the bench. This is to free up bench space, but also because i do do a bit of computing / gaming and i want to mount a pair of 30" monitors / tv's on the wall there. So most of this unit is for that. The bit above the boxes is to replace the shadow board i had in my cupboard. Maybe some LED lights in there also....

[trillian]

For some reason I am not able to see the pics in posts 3,4 and 5.

[p4ddy]

I wish I could get my car in my garage, it's got motorcycles in the way

[cjm180]

For some reason I am not able to see the pics in posts 3,4 and 5.

Re-uploaded them so hopefully they work now...

[cjm180]

I wish I could get my car in my garage, it's got motorcycles in the way

Ha yeah. My bike has had to go

[cjm180]

So off we go again. This time i was ruthless and took several van loads to the tip. There was nothing really i felt i would miss sorting through the stuff i had collected over the years. First order of business is take the important stuff out of the garage for safe keeping while the mrs was not there:



Next was the slow and painful clear out and moving the old units out

[cjm180]

I emptied as much tools and stuff i wanted to keep / sort out later and dotted them round the house. But there were a few things that i couldnt put in the house, so they were piled around my bench



Then on with construction

[Mike Sanders]

Fascinating story. You really have your work cut out there. Good pictures, keep them coming please.

[pooleman]

Looking very good Can you come and do mine next?!!

[Gixxer]

I wish I could get my car in my garage, it's got motorcycles in the way

I wish I could get my bike in the garage but there are too many bikes in the way

[cjm180]

A narrow shelf for router and a few IT bits



And the rest