Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT 3rd time's a charm with a 3 car workshop

Alright....3rd garage in a dozen years, going to try and do a proper thread on it. Historically been a garage focused on woodworking support for the house renovations, now that those are over I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I'm going to be doing in it....but there are lots of hobbies on the table

Before I get into the new garage, here are the last couple garages first to give a bit of a history

1st Garage-Rural Iowa, started this project circa 2008. First couple pictures taken just prior to closing, sat on 7 acres and basically everything on the house needed updates. Also had a 40 x 60 pole barn in pretty good shape, dirt floor but had power so that was overflow storage and for parking the vehicles in when necessary.

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After moving stuff in and with a minor amount of paint and some organization:

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Towards the end of this one...wish I hadn't sold that 18" Powermatic bandsaw but I did....I'll get another.

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Gotta pay the dog tax
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So garage 1 lasted from 2008 until like always....a woman changed things in 2015. 3 or 4 months after getting married, the new wife got an opportunity for a great new job....just happened to be in Chicago...so East we went.

Ended up in a suburb as I said no to anything in Cook County, so we found a house that was a fixer upper for sure but seemed like it would be a great opportunity for sweat equity....might have under estimated just how much updating it would take.

Some crappy pictures from listings:

Detached 2 car garage, unfinished, with a small lean too on one end for lawn equipment, then an attached sunroom/Florida room that ended up getting used for overflow storage

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The lean too
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Starting to slowly finish the garage, almost all walls were open, the few that were finished were done with 3/8" OSB and it was all removed and all walls were redone with 1/2" OSB under 1/2" sheetrock. I wanted the ability to screw things anywhere I wanted without much 2nd thought. One of teh things I learned from the 1st garage was that I personally didn't think it was worthwhile to finish walls in OSB, just didn't like the way it looked even after 3 coats of paint so determined in the future I'd either do plywood or OSB under rock.

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Eventually got around to enclosing the lean too as well, all insulated, in this case there was no OSB under the rock.

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Somewhat of a beauty shot from the listing. The single best thing I did on this space was redo the ceiling. Originally headroom was just under 7' tall and the ceiling structure wasn't impressive. All new bottom chords on all rafters instead of every 3rd, insulated then hired new drywall to be hung...placed the new chords so that with the ceiling mounted lights would have 98-100" of clear height under them...absolutely worth it. Should have done this first instead of towards the end....

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Finally a couple before/after shots of the house in total:

Full exterior renovation, new roof, new front exterior, removed the enclosed porch that got added in the late 80's etc

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It's amazing what light can do for a space:
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Upstairs bathroom, was a 3 bedroom/2 bath house....huge improvement as you can see. Kept the original tub, new shower, floor, vanity, paint etc

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So once again...finishing the house was a mad rush as again...new job for the boss lady spurred a move, this time back towards family for both of us which gained some importance for both of us as when we moved to Chicago it was just us and a dog...now we have a toddler so being closer to family was important. Moving is fun....says only insane folks. Moving during a pandemic....definitely not fun but we were extremely fortunate in that many things went our way and we were able to manage work and child care successfully

So with taking the famous advice to "Go West, Young Man", west we went....I-88 to I-80 and onto Omaha Nebraska. Things worked out well on our sweat equity fixer upper in a desirable neighborhood and combined with moving to a place with substantially lower housing prices we were able to upgrade houses which was important as now with a toddler we didn't want to devote as much time as we had before to major house projects. Wife is an interior designer and I want projects, but I was tired of doing complete house updates as I had done on the last two so a place that was pretty updated without substantial work required and had at minimum a 3 garage was important....fortunately we found one we're very happy with and closed in late June and moved in early July:

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And the future garage, very nice in that this model had an upgraded beam spanning the full space so no support posts between the double and single door as some other houses have. Headroom is nice as it's between 9 and almost 10' depending on where...there are 3 different ceiling heights due to how the framing worked out so that's a bit odd but I'm really liking the larger feel

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Mind is turning on what's going to go where....but also in a bit of a quandry as not really sure what the projects will be....been directed for so long by house remodel requirements not sure what to do when those aren't driving the work! To better start with a "clean slate" and really re-think what I'm doing and how i'm doing it I also sold several of my larger tools that weren't all that unique/special and that I wasn't looking forward to moving again....including a larger disc sander, very large toolbox and the Unisaw tablesaw...

Alright, July came and by the middle of it all our stuff was here...so time to get stuff organized. As often happens the garage and basement became somewhat of a catch all for the less critical stuff


This was probably a couple days after really started working to organize and locate things where they belonged.

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It was quickly apparent(and something we had expected would happen) that we needed more "tote" type storage. Prior house had a very nice attic with great access and a finished floor so all the sometimes used totes went there. No such luck here, but the 9-10' garage ceilings presented a great opportunity for storage space of those bulky or not often used items so it was time to make some shelves.

Pretty basic, based on how they framed out the door the garage door header was proud of the sheetrock around 3/4" so it presented a great lip/ledger to set the back edge of the shelf on. Went with 24 x 96" top dimensions made out of a 2x3 framework with 1 center support and 3/4" plywood top as I already had 5 sheets of it. Complete overkill on the top, aside from being 3/4" plywood I also glued it with construction adhesive and used the coil nailer and nailed the top on at roughly 8" centers...cause hey it's really easy to put nails in with a coil nailer!

First 2 assembled prior on the table prior to getting muscled up. Built them in pairs as I didn't have space to build them all up then mount them all

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First set partially anchored up, mounting to the studs with GRK 3.5" structural screws, I'm a fan of overkill

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For the outboard corners I used Sammy Anchors which are basically a lag screw thread with a female thread adapter to allow you easily run all-thread into them. Thought this was cleaner than unistrut and gave easier access than using 2x4 framing lumber. Located the ceiling joist then dropped a plumb bob down to identify drill point on the shelf, drilled thru and then ran the allthread up with washers and nuts on top and bottom of the shelf.

First all thread in...only half a dozen or more to go:
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Repeat those prior steps a couple more times and eventually got them all completed, ended up with 5 shelves total and almost completely covered the space along the walls above the doors so pretty happy with the utilization, now to get them full:

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Based on my learnings on the prior garages there were a couple things I knew I wanted to get done quickly as it made the time in it not just more efficient but also more enjoyable:

• Lighting
• Storage
• Easy to use compressed air
• Easy to clean floor

I'm on the way with the initial storage and getting "non-tool stuff" out of the space or at least out of the way so it was time to work on lighting. Over the prior months I'd been lurking in the lighting forum and knew the 4' 2-bulb LED lights weren't the recommended solution for a 9 or 10' ceiling and ended up going with this 15k lumen highway fixture:

Hykolity High Bay Light

I don't honestly know what the final configuration is going to be, or how the garage is going to be laid out but as I had (3) current single bulbs with junction boxes already wired I took the quick and dirty approach and ordered 3 lights and swapped them out in the existing locations to see what I thought.

First light arrived....I knew they'd be smaller than my prior 4' at least in length but still surprised with how many lumens they were saying would come out of this:

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Quickly pulled out the ladder and got to work as I was excited to see what I thought. Used some smaller D ring hardware I had laying around the S hook's they came with to hang them and just centered them as close as I could over the existing junction box while still hitting a ceiling joist and left the wiring open as I didn't know what would happen over time

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All three went up in under and hour, very straight forward with the wiring already there. These are 0-10v dimming but don't have that wired up at this point as that will require me to pull new wires.

Initial report is I'm very happy, very fast to flip on and off, fixture appears to be well built and good packaging and are putting out a ton of light so I've gone ahead and ordered 2 more but they're not installed yet. I'll have to pull wire for those, not sure if I'm going to try and figure out where those should go and cut in boxes to get them permanently mounted with the risk I might want to move them...or if I should just run some temporary romex and make it easy to move in case I don't like the location. Longer term I'm thinking I'll probably end up with 8 lights all on the same switch(dimmable) but not positive yet

Another quick hit(to both my wallet and the garage) was a electric cord reel. I've got several air reels waiting to get mounted but didn't yet have an electric one and Amazon recently had some on a deal of the day and I thought one looked good enough:

Goodyear 12/3 Hose Reel

Liked that it was 12 gauge instead of 14 and that it had enough reach that I could get all the way around the garage and into the driveway no matter where it was mounted in the garage so I pulled the trigger.

Plugged it into one of the existing ceiling boxes for the garage door opener so install was maybe 10 minutes....I'm honestly not used to working in something that's been built in the modern era so in cases like this I'm dramatically over estimating the work to install in my head as I assume I have to run power!

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So far liking it, handy and seems to wind/unwind well. Some people aren't a fan of the triple tap end, for me it's nice as it means I can plug a saw and the vacuum into it at the same time. Probably been used 2 dozen times and still seems to work well, if that continues I won't hesitate to get another down the road to put closer to the garage door for faster outside access.

Some details on some of the upcoming projects both to the garage and in the garage:

• New 100 amp elec subpanel
• Floor coating
• Mini-split hyper heat unit
• More lights
• Additional attic insulation

Projects in the garage in the hopefully near-ish future include:

Getting this nice Walker Turner drill press back on it's table, rewired and all the various bits organized close by

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I picked up (2) of these old paper cabinets and am planning on converting them to be primary duty on hardware storage cabinets. Some of the more commonly used screws(especially those used across the house) will be in some other organizers but with the roughly (200) bins from Schaller I hope to get all other small parts and similar "stuff" into these

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Also need to get homes for most everything in this picture. Not sure what the home for the Emmert will be yet as I don't have a handtool workbench(yet) and I don't want to wait for that so it may get some type of "temporary" location until I build a more proper handtool bench to put it on

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You’ve Made Good progress. Before you start loading the totes and hardware bins try and label each one with contents. It’s hard work sifting thru 6 totes or 12 drawers looking for the remaining part you knew had someplace....

captain14 said:

You’ve Made Good progress. Before you start loading the totes and hardware bins try and label each one with contents. It’s hard work sifting thru 6 totes or 12 drawers looking for the remaining part you knew had someplace....

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Absolutely plan on my Brother Labelmaker getting a solid workout as I transition hardware around. Right now I'm thinking I'll label all the individual bins first with basic adhesive labels, but will try and label the drawers with magnetic backed labels so I can move the labels around as I change my mind on what stuff belongs in what drawers

Slowly getting more organized and stuff where it belongs:

New to me air cleaner via Facebook marketplace a few weeks ago up on the ceiling...still needs either a longer power cord or a new ceiling mounted box installed

Found most of the nail and staple guns and into their homes....still one wayward soul in a box somewhere....

Got more contents consolidated and moved around so could pull out one of the 3 bays of pallet racking. That allowed me to roll the laser over & out of the way...not sure yet where it lives long term. Also allows me to start placing the new sub-panel as its going to go in that back corner where the plywood is leaned up

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Slow progress....but it's progress. Joys of a "new to us" house are that projects are everywhere...this weekend the main project has been yard work. First time I've had a sprinkler system and got tired of having rotators that didn't rotate and with no knowledge of how old anything was...got 19 of them replaced and adjusted across Friday evening and Saturday morning. 4 or 5 more left to do

One of the reasons we bought this house was the large yard but also means significant upkeep. One of the neighbors coordinated a large aerator rental, so went in on that and got everything flagged to prepare for aerating...got that done and now next weekend is seeder rental so that we can hopefully rid ourselves of the dead spots that developed while the house was on the market.

During some dead time after bed time did get another one of the original wood "shelving units" that came with the house down. Worked for the prior tenants but wasn't going to meet my needs so out it goes. Some more work to do on the organizing front before I can get the unit on the left empty to allow it to come down and make way for the future workbench/miter station/French cleat wall/overhead storage



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Another slow progress weekend...after a week of cold and damp in the midwest it got back to 70's which was awesome but meant bunch of other priorities and not much garage time...oh well.

Most of the effort right now is still in trying to find homes for much of the stuff and kick the stuff that doesn't belong in the garage....for anyone familiar with the "5S" concept of factory organization I'm going to be solidly in the first two S's for awhile....but while sorting thru the workbench and working to set in place some stuff did knock out a holder for the box of gloves I had been moving from place to place so its now out of the way and in a convenient spot.

Also got a long overdue project finished up of upgrading the battery charger with new leads. Old ones had no strain relief on the clamps and had badly frayed and the cables were always too short anyway so sacrificed a set of jumper cables for the new leads. As an IT guy I worked with would say, it's "way gooder" now....and its off the workbench! Now to find it a home...



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A quick lunch break to hit saved searches on FB marketplace may have landed some new iron in the garage....so tried to spend a bit more time today getting more stuff that hadn't made it farther than the garage from unpacking out to help make room....more to hopefully come tomorrow on that

Also started playing around with the box of Schaller bins in the metal "paper cabinets" I plan on using for hardware and fastener storage...haven't done much other than to start sorting into drawers and see how the various size bins lay out but thinking I'll like the flexibility here a lot

Trying to be a bit rational about how many of some of the screws do I need and of what types....probably don't need the 2 large totes on the left of 1-5/8" drywall screws when not planning on redoing any drywall in this house....more of that to come as I get a better view if what the collection entails and what's missing.



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New addition made it's way home....now to get unloaded, a mobile base and the new subpanel in the garage installed so I actually have 240V in the garage to use it!

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You did start a thread! Nice.

3 garages in 12 years, wow you're a veteran. It shows, I like the quick decisions about lighting and organization.

The fun of a new space / clean slate / life situation is you don't know exactly where it will take you. When I started my thread, woodworking wasn't even really on my radar. Now it's my main focus.

Some nice work on your old spaces.

Cool drill press and vises

Looks like you've owned some serious woodworking machinery. For someone who's unsure if it still has a place with a newish house, you sure just picked up a big *** jointer!

Even if there aren't major house renovations to do... have you considered something like making furniture for it?

I totally feel you on not wanting to go through a full remodel again. In my current situation, my first house, I want to change it all. Kids can be a reality check when it comes to time and money as far as big projects go. But as I've put effort into it, it becomes harder to picture moving, not because I don't think there's something better out there, but because I've become attached to it personally. Question for you, knowing you did some extensive work in your past places, was it easy to move on?

Anyways looks like you have a great new home, and garage! Moving ***** but the new possibilities are exciting, too.

I'll be sure to follow along, whatever path it takes.

nicholam77 said:

You did start a thread! Nice.

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Thanks for the push! Forgot to mention in your thread I got mine started...looking forward to use it to help me stay making forward progress....direction TBD!

nicholam77 said:

The fun of a new space / clean slate / life situation is you don't know exactly where it will take you. When I started my thread, woodworking wasn't even really on my radar. Now it's my main focus.

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nicholam77 said:

Even if there aren't major house renovations to do... have you considered something like making furniture for it?

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Lumping these together as your spot on with where things are likely going. Long story short....we had a wood shop and a metal shop on the farm growing up and always enjoyed making things, when I got out of college and got my 1st place it was cheaper(and easier to move down the road) if i started "fleshing out" my woodworking equipment before the metal working....so here I am. I've got half a dozen smaller furniture projects on the list(adirondack chairs, toddler "stools" for kitchen and bathroom, possibly a similar version of the bed you're doing etc!) to get back into that before I consider tackling a larger single piece build like a bed. High school shop I made a couple dressers, book case, end tables etc but it's been 15-ish years since I've done any stand alone "house furniture" and looking forward to getting back to it

nicholam77 said:

Some nice work on your old spaces.

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Thanks! Looking back at the 1st garage highlights all the things I'd do different now....Chicago garage I just should've done a lot of it much sooner!

nicholam77 said:

Cool drill press and vises

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Hopefully be end of this weekend I get at least one of those vises back to a spot I can more easily use!

nicholam77 said:

Looks like you've owned some serious woodworking machinery. For someone who's unsure if it still has a place with a newish house, you sure just picked up a big *** jointer!

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Hi, I'm Logan and I'm addicted to old iron! Yeah....again it's an illness I caught growing up. I found out that I really really like functionality & features the quality high end stuff has...but generally can't afford it new so I'll buy older stuff and deal with the "gifts" that buying used brings. Frequently those "gifts" involve ugly paint jobs I say I'll paint but rarely do and frequently needing to re-wire them as they're often coming out of factories and using 3 phase or a 440V single phase so new motors/transformers/VFD's required....but when I come across something solid that should last me forever(like that jointer) with a good service history I have a hard time saying no....even if it's probably not the ideal time for it...case in point that jointer!

nicholam77 said:

Question for you, knowing you did some extensive work in your past places, was it easy to move on?

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That's an excellent question. Honestly no, wasn't mentally hard at all to move on(physically hard is another story...) but there were some other things that helped with that. Both moves aligned well with "phases" of our lives where we were ready for the next thing. Iowa to Chicago was 5-ish months after we got married and was a chance to start fresh, in a house we both picked with a great professional opportunity for the wife at a point in our life were moving was relatively easy. Just us, a dog and a lot of stuff...

Chicago to Omaha was a job change, again for the wife but one we had 9 months notice a layoff was coming and now with a toddler were feeling the call to get closer to family as a 7-10 hour drive to see grandparents was getting tougher. We were fortunate that we had 9 months notice, got a nice jump start on updates before COVID hit and then some COVID related stuff actually did "fall our way" to help with some timing etc. Again, we were excited about the future opportunities, being closer to family and friends, an upgraded house...and i had 0 disappointment with getting out of IL and the financial mess that the taxpayers were going to be holding even more of in the coming years

nicholam77 said:

I'll be sure to follow along, whatever path it takes.

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Thanks! Looking forward to sharing the journey and seeing how many rabbit holes we can each go down

Got the jointer home and unloaded...only to be dishonored by stripping it down and placing on a shelf

It wasn't in the cards to use it immediately and I have a couple thoughts on what I'm going to do to make it better fit with the new arrangement so I got it stripped down to the major components and hoisted up onto a shelf for now....hopefully will start putting it back together in a month or so. In good news all I've found it needs is a slight cleaning and new power cords/belt/switch. Everything else appears to be in great shape so very happy with the buy

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And finally reduced to a pile of lumber that got cut up Sunday and stuck into the trash
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Leaving this:
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So with the shelfing down, I starred at the wall with a beer in the hand and tossed up some painters tape to see if my original idea still made sense. Concept in my head has been work bench from the door to the wall on the right, a roughly 4' high tool wall(likely french cleat but still TBD) then 2 sets of shelves above to help make use of the headroom(10'+). The two tape lines are at 84" and 108" respectively to better visualize what I'd have for storage. Ultimately I think the top shelf will "set" on top of that door brickmould/casing and span the entire front wall of the garage and I'll stop the lower shelf at the door....possibly to be continued on the other side of the door down the road. The freezer is eventually moving to the basement to be replaced with a bench so that'll come first and we'll evaluate storage after it's done.

After getting a better idea of what the space looks like now that it's empty and storage...I joined the wife on the couch Saturday night while she caught up on the TV show Suits and sketched out what my thoughts are for that front wall. At this point intention is for:

• Cantilevered work bench for easy "docking" of tools underneath
• Chop saw ends up in the middle...didn't draw in that
• LED light strips under the lower shelf
• Thinking backwall from benchtop to shelf gets "skinned" in 1/4" prefinished plywood, then french cleats over the top of that

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The sketch I think is pretty close to what I'm going to do....few tweaks here and there but I'm pretty happy with how quickly it came together on paper. Will be starting on the shelves and working down as I think I know what I'm doing with the shelves and have surprisingly few opinions yet on what the benchtop will be...any input on workbench tops you wish you would've done, will never do without or would never do again?

Always good to see another local on here.

Holt said:

Always good to see another local on here.

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Thanks! I'm just down 370 from you(Papillion)

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Been slow going recently with work and other stuff getting in the way. Trying to clean up and get things put away in spare moments but not a ton of longer blocks of time.

This evening the quick project was putting up a railing going on the steps up into the house so the toddler can traverse them easier. I've been working on putting toddler height railings on the other stairs in the house, so had the railing on hand. Quick measure of the current railing angle, cut the top angle and then cut the bottom to fit. Used 2 trim screws to anchor it, seems stout enough for a little one

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Alright, so back to the problem of too much stuff and making the tall ceiling height useful. The 2x framed shelves I put above the garage door are plenty functional and easy to knock out, so in typical fashion for both me and GJ...can't do more of those as that's too easy. As these have a more prominent position in the garage, I also wanted something that would look more finished and I'm thinking there will be a fair amount of natural finished wood tones...thought why not include it here?

So to improve the look, and maximize storage space I decided to do a metal framework and skin the visible surfaces with plywood for the finished look. Was going down the path of using square tubing and welding it, but my brother made the comment about Unistrut and after seeing some other impressive units from the same material on here I decided why not. I've got lots of experience with prepping/assy/welding/finishing tubing...so sure let's do something new and I'll be wiser down the road....so here we go. Any input from those who have done this is appreciated as it's my first go with Unistrut construction

First up...check to make sure I think it's still "About right" for what I was thinking, basically intend for the top shelf to rest onto the top of the door brickmould, will eventually extend the full distance of the garage wall, but decided to start in the middle so I could ensure I get the door reference right.

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Doing all cuts with a Milwaukee M12 Mini Portaband....really digging this saw and use it for way more than I expected to. First cuts I didn't have a guide set just right and it wouldn't cut clear through, adjusted that and no more problems

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Have the short pieces all cut and the frame assembled, nothing is spaced correctly yet but wanted to get the pieces up so I could verify measurements for the top deck

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Using some of the better 1/2" from Menards...don't recall if it was their "Baltic Birch" or not...but do recall it was just under $50/sheet so when I cut into it I don't expect to get this! Was flat when I got it, stored it vertically on the long side in my plywood cart, but had a bit of a twist when I laid it out...didn't take long to find out why

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So outcomes Titebond and a collection of the smaller clamps. Glued both halfs at the same time, tossed a straight edge across after and no discernable "hump" so good enough for what it's being used for

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Once the clamps came off, was time to get it up onto the deck! I keep forgetting(it is a new to me place) that the ceiling joists on this part of the garage run parallel to the back wall which is not how I had "envisioned" this in my head. I was thinking to use a Sammy all-thread anchor directly into a joist and not have to mount the strut...but it's framed on 24" centers and the spacing put the first joist about 8" off the back wall so I felt stut was the best option here. You can see a slight rise in the ceiling at the right side of the shelf, that's the transition from the bathroom above on the left to the attic above on the right and joists are running the other direction in the attic so I can ditch the strut on the ceiling there and go back to anchor direct to the joist.

No pictures of it included but anchoring the plywood to the frame with self tapping lath screws, wanted something that would let me sink the screws flush and these seemed substantially faster than some countersunk machine screws that would require a tapped hole!

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Next up...maybe this week but not looking promising will be to try and get the Unistrut components picked up to do that "right hand" portion so I can get the top all decked, then it will be to decide what the "front" edgband will be. Some sort of likely 3/4" thick lumber, sized to cover the front edges of both the 1/2" ply on top and the 1/4" that will be added last to the bottom

We were just talking about plywood on a different thread. I haven’t had that happen, but I have had a lot of voids that needed too much filler.

Unruh said:

We were just talking about plywood on a different thread. I haven’t had that happen, but I have had a lot of voids that needed too much filler.

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Thanks for joinin Unruh...one of my future updates I hope to have some type of a picture journey of a pretty Sawstop unboxing/setup like you!

I saw that plywood discussion...or at least one of them! It was a first for me as well on this "better" grade but definitely better looking stuff. The Lay's potato chip stuff frequently seen in the big box not surprised as much when that delam's on me, but this was flat and smooth....but oh well have to remind myself it's what I get for getting fancy and using it on a shelf 9' off the ground. Had it been "true" 5x5 Baltic Birch for a more important project I'd be taking it back...but it's more than sufficient for what I need it for

As it's been a popular project around here of making some snazzy rolling cabinets for benchtop drill presses I took a closer look at mine the other day and realized I had the makings for what could be an interesting hardware/drill bit storage cabinet and drill press mobile station and I already owned everything I needed. If I'm being totally honest I was rather envious of some of the sweet setups and having everything in one place like should be...and I wanted to try and get admitted to the club...so here goes

Shown earlier in the thread was an order of 2" deep Schaller bins for these "paper cabinets" and I had intended to build a spot into my main workbench and mount them underneath. However the 29" depth of them kept giving me fits on how to incorporate into a bench build for my average length arms so rolling around in the back of my mind was questions on how else to use them. After seeing some of the other mobile drill press stations, I realized that with some casters and a bit of 3/4" plywood, stacking my (2) cabinets up and then mounting the drill press on top could be a workable solution as the height would be right. Before going to that work I wanted to find out if I even liked the cabinets for hardware storage in the first place....so time to empty the box of Schaller bins and start seeing what fits!

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Initial thought....I think they'll work. It's not as nice as a conventional Lista/Vidmar type cabinet where you generally have variable depth drawers in a single cabinet, but with the varied sizes of Schaller bins I can make that work. The drawers are big...approximately 36 x 26 x 2 so lots of square inches but aren't full extension so the back 3" inches will get a filler block to keep bins from sliding out of reach and ruining the tetris game I worked to create.

Long term I think the top most drawer will be drill bits and associated drill tools, and the bottom 5 or 6 drawers will be focused on hardware...screws, nails, bolts, nuts etc with room in the middle for the other small assortments as well as possibly a drawer for some of the nicer layout/measurement devices.

With (2) cabinets each having 10 drawers....Schaller bins may get expensive as a roughly $200 order got me enough for 3.5 drawers or so....yikes. Just reading up on slodat's awesome build out the other day and saw his tabbed laser cut boxes and I've got a K40 style China laser that hasn't been set back up yet from the move so may look at some of those as a potential alternative option to Schaller bins....If I get smart I'll just order more Schaller's and be done with it

Grrrr.....people who enclose exterior walls in a climate that needs insulation without actually insulating them should be strung up by their toes.....

Poked a hole into the garage wall for conduit to feed the subpanel and not thrilled....probably should have expected it but still annoyed about the unexpected add to the to do list

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Was running the conduit yesterday for the garage subpanel so had to poke a hole in the exterior wall which was the first time opening up this particular wall. As alluded too, they enclosed the wall but didn't insulate. Thinking through it I should've expected it ot at least been prepared for it as the true "attic" over the garage is uninsulated as well but was apparently overly helpful as the house was well built(except for one backstabbing electrician) so disappointed.

But as part of the attic is uninsulated its not a huge deal, was going to do batts for the attic as its small and wouldn't get the minimum for free blower rental...but now I will hit the minumum so insulating and fixing the required fill holes is now on the to do list



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Productive weekend on the updates:

Going into winter (2) main projects still left....upgraded electric service into the garage and heat. Thanks to the support of a great wife I got the electric conduit run, and panel up, not wired yet but the 2/2/2/4 service cable is laying out in the garage and the breakers are on order. Thanks to the layout of the current main panel the run was easy and all on the exterior of the house and should blend right in once it's painted(next spring). Toughest part was poking the hole for the 2" PVC thru the 8" poured wall. The open 8 x 8 junction box is there as that's where the power for the mini-split will connect as well as it's the location for the future generator plugin.

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Next up was today and after an automated search on Craigslist hit for something I wasn't super interested in, got a jump on some other items all from the same seller who was motivated to clear space quickly:

15" 4 post Delta Planer with stand and mobile base....not picked up yet as it was too heavy to load into my pickup as it was so have to go back

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Leigh 24" dovetail jig, believe this is the D4R but not positive, the price was right so when I saw about what it was I didn't look much closer
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Delta 14" Bandsaw with some extras and the not pictured mobile base
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And a Kreg bandsaw fence, never installed....hopefully all there:

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Oh yeah, that DJ20 jointer in the background of the planer picture? Yeah probably buying that as well but won't keep it as I already have that exact machine but as it free's up space for the seller and simplifies his life is willing to part with it for what I felt was an attractive price. As I said...seller was very motivated to free up space and I believe I was the first one there with money

The cabinets and schaller bins should make for a nice drill press base.

Bummer about the insulation but it will be worth it to get it done.

Will the mini split be for the garage? If so I'll be super jealous!

Some pretty sweet additions on the new woodworking machines!

nicholam77 said:

The cabinets and schaller bins should make for a nice drill press base.

Bummer about the insulation but it will be worth it to get it done.

Will the mini split be for the garage? If so I'll be super jealous!

Some pretty sweet additions on the new woodworking machines!

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Thanks for swinging by!

Yes, mini-split is going in the garage. Decided that I'd spend some of my "tool fund" that was generated from selling stuff pre-move to put it into the garage as I'd rather be comfortable temp and able to easily work with fewer/more old tools than upgrade additional tools and it be too cold to get motivated out there. Was originally looking at a gas heater and not thinking about AC, however gas entrance is on the wrong side of the house with a fully finished basement and there isn't a good way to get the supply line where it needs to be. With already planning on pulling electric service to support garage stuff and some of the very attractive prices and strong feedback here on mini-splits I decided why not. The dehumidification will be very nice in our often muggy Omaha summers

And hold on for the "rest of the haul" on the new tools...I'm beyond stoked

Ok took most of a day off today to get the rest of the tools I bought the prior night home...bandsaw the seller and loaded easy enough and I got unloaded....the rest wasn't so easy.

Adding to the challenges was the workshop/garage was a tuck under, with very difficult and tight access off a wicked busy 4 lane road so anything bigger than a pickup truck was a no-no and can't get a trailer in either....hum....

Couldn't find any local rental outfits who had pickup trucks with lift gates/Tommy Lifts as that would've been the cat's meow I think....so I hit the local rental place webpage to see what they had for more manual equipment. First choice was a power stair climber, got it reserved and meetup coordinated with seller to be disappointed by a return call 20 minutes later saying the machine was damaged by the last renter and still waiting on a new control switch....grrrr.....back to the drawing board

Ended up with a "High Lift Jack" as they called it....cable and winch operated telescoping manual forklift basically. I'd used them before but never for this but figured it would work. Could load by myself but was a bit worried about how much space might still be in the bed....but without any better choices I picked it up and headed there

Started on the planer, no pictures of this one prior to getting it into the bed but basically worked back and forth on each side to crib up the machine to 7.5" height so I could get the lift under it, then cranked it up and slide it into the bed. Nothing fancy to make it happen, just a 24" prybar and a stack of 2x4 tails. Everything has the factory mobile base and that generally made things easier...but not always. Biggest challenge here with the planer was it being a roughly square base it was just the wrong size to easily straddle the legs of the lift so it took a bit to get it cribbed in a manor I could still pick it up

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With that strapped in, I loaded the lift back up which really wasn't bad for an advertised 180 lbs. it's designed to be loaded with the big wheels and winch down, grab the "forks" and tip it into the bed, then pick up the forks and the wheels under the winch should be on the bed of the truck and walk forward till the big wheels are in. Was tight front to back of the truck bed in my short bed with the tailgate up which made it nice to only want to strap it down to keep from rocking on corners. Then ready for the short drive back to my place

Now reverse the process....
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Back to get the jointer....now this was offered up for an unbeatable price as it was taking space which was much more valuable to seller then waiting for a larger offer and I was buying a bunch of other stuff already. Bed has a fair amount of surface rust but should clean up well. I picked up this same model of jointer 6 weeks ago...so now I have 2....one will stay(probably this one) and I'll sell the other one

The dimensions of this base worked out much better for picking one this, just remember that the center of gravity is not the middle of the base due to the infeed table being longer. It took just short of an hour from opening to closing the cab door to load the planer...this was 18 minutes

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All loaded up for the last time:

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Eagle eyes caught something extra in this load....yes that's a MFT3 on the passenger side. Seller mentioned it last night and I pondered it, overnight glanced thru some of the threads I've seen them on and for a barely used one with the accessories I couldn't say no...my Makita tracksaw is going to love it...or I'll sell it and be money ahead(I think).

And a new family shot now that they're all home and unloaded. All in this entire buy was under $1k including gas, today's lunch and the lift rental

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Now it's time to get some more space made in the garage via more shelves and additional rearranging, then sell the DeWalt 735 planer and the art deco vintage Craftsman bandsaw these are replacing so I can get down the path of showing the wife this really was a "revenue neutral" purchas!

Oh for sure, that will be super nice. Where I'm at in Minneapolis it's like 99% humidity during the summer and subzero temps in the winter. With a detached space and plenty of air leaks it's pretty brutal.

nicholam77 said:

Oh for sure, that will be super nice. Where I'm at in Minneapolis it's like 99% humidity during the summer and subzero temps in the winter. With a detached space and plenty of air leaks it's pretty brutal.

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Yeah I hadn't thought thru the benefits on heating/cooling of the attached until I was doing some load calcs online for the mini split and was surprised at how small of a system it was calling for. With just over half the walls being shared with the house, the house protecting it from north winds and roughly 2/3rds of the ceiling having living space over it, the HVAC loads aren't as bad as my old detached in Chicago. The fact its 40 years newer construction doesn't hurt either....


In other news....found out someone screwed up on my service cable order

Either me with an addition or measuring error...or the Menards guy who cut it too short... tried to fish that thru and got halfway and realized I was about 4' too short....grrrr

Have it pulled back out on the garage floor so I can figure out who screwed up, but that will be next week. I already have an 8x8 junction box in the middle of the run for other reasons....but if I need to splice this I guess I can...still annoyed as hell

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Oops I missed those extra pics you posted somehow. That's a killer haul for under $1k!

Looks like somebody's a Delta fan!

Re: the MFT/3 if you got a good deal on it I'm sure you'll be able to find a good use for it. They are super versatile. You don't have a tiny table saw like me, but if you do sheet goods much it's still pretty awesome to be able to crosscut with the tracksaw.

You might find you can integrate it more if you build a cart for it, like many do:



The one above is very simple but there are a million and one custom inspirations out there if you Google "MFT/3 cart". By making a cart or base for it you would add stability, add options for custom expansions and jigs, can dial it in to whatever height is useful for you (maybe it doubles as table saw or planer outfeed?) etc. Another nice thing about it as a workstation (with cart or not) is super mobile -- can take your work out to the driveway or to a different part of the garage easily, or even into the house.

Anyways, pretty envious right now!

Very little accomplished on the garage this weekend as we were back home at my parents on the farm, but as harvest is something fewer and fewer people experience I tried to take a few pictures to share. If all went well this would be the final weekend so I helped with support stuff while others ran the big stuff

So for us, we usually end the night with all the semi's full of grain for several reasons, but regardless it means before you can't go too far the next day those all get emptied. Here we're setup dumping into one of the farm bins, that auger is 13" diameter by 114' long. Truck on the left is dumping, truck on the right was just emptied. Once the auger is setup on the bin, it goes pretty smoothly

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There is a horizontal swing auger/hopper that goes under the trailer, the semi hopper gets opened into it and then augered up into the bin. Not pictured is the John Deere 5020 that is tasked with spinning the augers with PTO power....130 hp and she has to use most of it here

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As it's unloading, it's not all that exciting and it's kinda noisy with a 130 hp diesel beast churning about 40' from you...doesn't take too long...around 10 minutes to unload 55k lbs of corn.

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Now that the trucks are empty....time for the field and to get started combining! Well sorta....we got there, made it 5 minutes with the combine and found a hydraulic oil line was leaking

Fortunately it was a small metal line, without serious damage and was easy to get removed so it was off to the shop for Dad to braze it up. Didn't get pictures of the removal or the fix....so a picture of the weld area and part of the fabrication space in said shop. Also shown is the other combine in a slight state of disrepair as the dealer struggles to get a gearbox and associated inputs/outputs working correctly

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Ok, back to the field to install the newly repaired line...fingers crossed while checking for leaks....all good and back at it.

In this field we're able to "dump on the go" so the combine will unload into the grain cart without slowing down as shown here....running approximately 4 mph and speed is controlled by the operator in their respective equipment. Tech is out there to "automatically" sync and match combine speed for the tractors, we're not using it. A little bit of practice, coupled with the radio in each cab so that the operators can easily talk to one another without making a phone call and it works pretty well. The cart can hold approximately 1.5 semi loads allowing it to take a couple dumps from the combine before it scurries to the waiting trucks to unload and then races back to the combine before it fills up and has to stop

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I'm fairly impressed with that picture...that was from approximately 1/4 mile away with my phone(Note 20).

Now that the combine is back and doing it's thing at about 4 mile an hour, time to go back to support jobs. Including fuel man!

This is the nose of that John Deere 5020 we're using to run the auger, 130 HP doesn't do much good without fuel. And when it never actually goes anywhere, and you don't sit in the seat often to see the fuel gauge...it's surprisingly easy to forget it needs fuel too...

With a small fleet of equipment, some operations get creative about names....that's not us.....it's either the year of manufacturer or their color...in this case meet "Big White" wearing her fall "fuel bowser" costume. The combines have fuel tanks in that 260-300 gallon capacity, the tractor is 170 gallons and they have appetite's such that 2 long days generally won't happen without fueling up so a more substantial fuel solution than the 120-ish gallon tank in the bed of a 3/4 ton pickup is needed these days. Coupled in the Tier 4 Emissions requirements that added DEF to the list of fluids to top off, it takes longer and longer to fuel and service equipment in the morning. Yes that's a former steel pressure vessel, previously was an anhydrous ammonia tank(farms use it for fertilizer....many folks may know it's more nefarious use from Breaking Bad). Prior owner wasn't interested in getting it re-certified as a pressure vessel as it was rather old so Dad picked it up for cheap and converted it to be the mobile diesel tank.

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So jump forward a couple hours where my assistance wasn't needed(which worked out as I was booked up with my 2 year old visiting family)...get back just in time to help(really just to watch) unhook the header as they got all done!

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It's a rather large beast....that's a 16 row header which at times is a bit too unwieldly for some of the fields but we make it work Disconnecting isn't too bad with practice and that happens frequently as the header width prevents you from "roading it" to the next field still on the combine. It's a common practice with narrower headers but when you get over 8 rows wide it starts to become challenging quickly. A quick connect drive shaft on each side that get unhooked, and then a single quick connect hydraulic block to release and it's ready to set on the trailer...then it's all about getting the header in the right spot left to right on the trailer, setting it down and backing away.

Next up later this week after it warms back up will be cleaning everything up, blowing the **** out and doing a good "once over" before putting it back into the shed for next year.....unless they find some stuff that needs fixed before it goes into hibernation in which case it'll sit next to it's slightly larger sibling in the shop for a bit.

And that ends the quick less glamourous harvest tour! Thanks for following along and feel free to ask questions if you've got them. Farming practices, even for the same crops vary dramatically by area and with fewer people exposed to it then ever before, education about what goes on is important.


I did get back to the garage in time to swap the factory battery out of my '14 Silverado before it stranded me this winter. Kinda annoying with how they mounted the buss bar on top and had a cross bar to remove in order to get it out...but not terrible.

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With a forecast of a couple inches of sleet/snow accumulation possible overnight, decided to prove to a couple doubtful family members that both rides could fit inside if I so choose....

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Also helped me better understand how much more stuff I need to find new homes for as there may be a new more permanent winter garage guest joining the family....more to come on that later as it's not a done deal yet

loganb said:

And a new family shot now that they're all home and unloaded. All in this entire buy was under $1k including gas, today's lunch and the lift rental

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What a haul! I don’t ever seem to be able to find deals like that and if I do, I’m the second guy calling. Great deal.

A long awaited day finally got here....fence day! Well kinda....

With a dog and a kid we knew we wanted a fenced yard, and we did our last house as well and liked the 6' cedar privacy fence look and function over the decorative metal or plastic. Unfortunately Covid added to the normal summer deluge of jobs so we Hve been on the books for awhile but alas they started today. 5 man crew, in about 4 hours they set all the posts and got things cleaned up and packed back up

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Practice here is to set posts then come back and hang the panels later, so wont be till next week when its actually "done" but this was a nice step

Did get 45 minutes or so in the garage....the snow shower over the weekend and parking both cars in the garage highlighted how much stuff I need to find a home for...so got the Burley trailer up and off the ground. Don't love the solution but for this winter it works


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loganb said:

The sketch I think is pretty close to what I'm going to do....few tweaks here and there but I'm pretty happy with how quickly it came together on paper. Will be starting on the shelves and working down as I think I know what I'm doing with the shelves and have surprisingly few opinions yet on what the benchtop will be...any input on workbench tops you wish you would've done, will never do without or would never do again?

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I like all your storage solutions and will definitely be watching your progress for more ideas on mine. Looks we are working on each of our own garages simultaneously.

I wish I had seen those lights before I put can light in my garage last week.

Not sure how much abuse you expect your bench top to get, but I've had okay luck with Formica over layered plywood as a bench top.

Not a ton to show this weekend...other commitments took precedence

Did get the new subpanel in the garage wired up, don't have it done at the main panel though. Hoping to take some half days at work this week to take advantage of upper 60's forecast and finish the panel wiring. Assuming that happens I will then be trying to get fresh primer and paint up on a couple walls before I start surface mounting too much conduit.

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PileDriver said:

I like all your storage solutions and will definitely be watching your progress for more ideas on mine. Looks we are working on each of our own garages simultaneously.

I wish I had seen those lights before I put can light in my garage last week.

Not sure how much abuse you expect your bench top to get, but I've had okay luck with Formica over layered plywood as a bench top.

Click to expand...

Thanks for swinging by!

I'm challenged by an inability to easily say no to great used tool deals battling against finite space coming up on winter with an edict from the wife that her ride will sleep inside! Last 2 garages were more conventional ceiling height so this ability to store lesser used stuff(that honestly probably should be disposed of instead of kept) is new to me so stealing liberally from the folks here is fun

Formica is definitely an option for the workbench, my rolling assy table has a replacable temper board/hardboard top over a torsion box frame which has done shockingly well. Its due for a replacement but I'm impressed with how well its worn so it's in the running as well

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Took advantage of weather that was 30 degrees above average and got some garage time. The recent purchases changed up some plans for where the drill press would go...so here is it's new home:

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I bought the drill press as part of a package deal and it was wired into a switch setup attached to its table along with some other items. As I separated the components from that table I needed a power switch and the wiring was original to the machine so it was time for it to go as well. Not exactly sure how I'm going to mount the switch yet, probably put magnets on the back and top of the housing so it can be moved around easily. Still need to either replace or rewire the drill lamp socket that's concealed in the cast housing...part of me wants to keep the original look...other part of me wants to retrofit a flexible arm LED fixture.

By mounting the drill press off center it gave room to put my two Huot index cabinets on the back. The tight quarters gave me the first shot at using the right angle attachment on the Milwaukee install driver:

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Now to use it and get a feel for what else needs to go with it and what drill press table i should make for it. I may need to rework the casters to lower the cabinet 4-5" as currently the drill press quill and chuck is a bit tall for my preference but want to give it a try before I get too crazy about that.

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