All – looking for any and all ideas/photos of workshops in a 2-car garage. Specificaly, shops that are versatile enough to act as garages for 2 cars, kids bikes, lawnmower, yard tools, etc. And, can be easily transformed into a woodoworking shop when cars are removed.
We are in the process of moving from a house with a detached, 2-car, 1.5-deep garage to a house with and attached, standard depth 2-car garage.
In the old shop, I gave up 1 bay for lumber storage, etc. The back of the garage was the shop. Wife parked car full time in other bay of garage.
New house will not have the 1.5 deep option. Looking to set up shop in this garage and park 2 cars when not in use.
I hope this is clear.
Replies
<< "I hope this is clear." >>
Not really............. Where do you plan on storing all your ww gear (when the 2 cars are in the garage) if you will no longer have the 1.5 option?
Maybe you should get out your checkbook and start planning an addition. A friend of mine is in the midst of putting up a 2 story structure that will include a double garage, a 20 X 40 1st floor workshop, and a studio on the 2nd floor. It will only cost $150,000...................
thanks for the reply. Pretty much all the machines in the shop are on wheels now. What I'm looking for are examples of garage shops that serve a dual purpose. Garage by day, shop by night...or vice versa.
I'm pretty sure someone on this forum has had to adapt to the same situation.
As far as the addition goes....I would love to do that, just don't have the money for it.
I don't know how much help you will get around here, since what you really need are shop pictures as a source of ideas. And Knots doesn't really have a place where such photos are gathered; but I think Woodcentral does. Have you tried over there?
All the magazines regularly feature pieces on garage shops. But finding a piece when you need can be an exercise in frustration.
In general (and aside from putting everything on castors), the concept you need to think about is devices that will do double duty -- i.e. an outfeed table for your saw, rigged for a router plate, useable as an assembly table, with ####bench top planer stored beneath (which can be set on the table when planing). That sort of thing...............
Good luck, and I hope you will return here with all the ideas you come up with.
Invest in a company that makes castors...your going to need a lot of them!
I work out of a 14' x 24' garage. The only "floor tools" I have is a table saw, jointer, and planer, and they are all on wheels. Router table, drill press, sander, band saw, etc. etc. are all bench top models. In the summer, I can wheel a few things outside. In the winter, I have to be more inventive. Storage is a BIG thing, but with some planning, anything can be done.
We do it - or did until the woodworking got big. The basic idea was to use the roughly 2 feet on each side of the garage normally saved to open the car door. The passengers are ejected outside the garage, and the cars enter so that the driver's door is in the center (one backed in, the other forward). The wood is stored along one garage wall and the tools along the other, in an interlocking pattern. The biggest problem was the contractor saw, since the motor sticks out the back. That is put in the back corner, face to the wall, motor just behind the bumper of the "backed in" car. Wood blocks at marks on the floor help stop within an inch of the target, and the passenger-side mirror helps align the backed-in car within an inch or two of the machinery. Work benches are folding saw horses with 2x8 sheets of plywood.
Woodworking is becoming more of a business than a hobby, so we only try to put in one car now, and not every day (too much work in process to store along with the tools), but as a hobby it only took 10-20 minutes to put everything away, clean up, (often stacking partial projects on the saws) and get two cars in the garage.
Wheelbarrows and other outside tools take more than their share of space - so I would consider a shed for lawn tools and bikes.
________________________
Charlie Plesums Austin, Texas
http://www.plesums.com/wood
Ron,
I've got a tiny shop about 180 sq. ft. with an oil tank in the corner. Other than everything on wheels, I try to make as much use out of walls and fixed objects...eg. cutoffs are stored on top of oil tank, 30x24" platform for TS stuff around lolly column.
In the garage I built a platform about 4x8' up around 4.5' high...bikes and stuff on top, lawn mower/snow blower underneath.
If I were you I'd consider a long wide shelf on the back wall of the garage...high enough that the car could slide under....that shelf could accomodate a host of tools...just pushing back one tool and pulling forward another when needed...and maybe even slide the TS with the drop down support under shelf when not in use.
Ron,
I worked out of a two car garage for about 18 years. Both cars were parked in the garage every (well almost every) night. As Charlie mentioned, the wall space has to used, but I also lined up a radial aem saw, a drill press (rigged mainly as a mortiser) and a bandsaw down the middle of the garage. Lumber was stored on racks placed high on the back walls. Under those shelves were a 6 inch jointer and a shaper. The only tool on casters was a W&H planner. Hand tools were in cabinets along the other walls. Not ideal but it worked!
The kids bicycles were hung from the ceiling, but I don't recall where I fit the lawnmower. You will find a solution.
Ron I
Ron, try to get your hands on FWW #167 (the Tools & Shops edition for Winter 2003/2004). It contained one of the best ideas for having a woodworking shop in a 2 car garage. It utilzed wheel-mounted tools and cabinets and was extremely versatile as well as neat and tidy.
Thanks everyone for the advice. I really appreciate all the input. At the risk of boring you all, I will send pics as I set up shop.
There are several problems with what you want to do.
The first is tool storage. I'm talking here about machines ... table saw, dust collector, band saw, etc. Even if you put these on wheels, you won't have enough floor space to store them and have two cars in the garage as well. I just don't see how it'll work.
The second problem is wood storage. This needs to be fixed. With no available floor space, this will need to be overhead. I don't see how you can design racks that can take the weight but not take up some floor space (to hold the weight).
John
Ron,
I built a substantial work bench that was hinged on the wall and dropped down flat aginst the wall when in the "car" mode. It was very stable. I also install a rear rail on the table saw with .5" dowels every 6" and built two 18" x 5' out tables. The underside of each end of the out tables were drilled to accept the dowels. This way I could psoition the tables based on the type of work I was doing. I built a saw horse leg set to hold the rear-most ends. For very long ripping, I put the tables end-to-end. The tables are easy to store when not in use, Anyway, these are two of the ways I juggled limited space.
Doug
Toss out the requirements for cars and kids stuff and I can help you out. - lol
I took over the garage almost 20 yrs ago when SWMBO had a Ford Bronco that wouldn't get under the garage door. (I could have fixed the problem, but I had my own agenda - lol)
When the last daughter moved out (for the last time), I completed the takeover.
You should take a look in the Workshop Book, By Scott Landis. It has a special section dealing with small shops. I love that book, it gave me so many ideas. One thing, don't put your main workbench on wheels, even locking ones. It will move every time you don't want it to.
RE: Workbench on wheels
Au contraire, my friend...... I have a big, heavy bench on wheels, and it does stay put. But I used 4" castors with step-on brakes (one on each corner, two in the middle). Bought them from Lee Valley, about $13 each, as I remember.
There is really no way to answer your question with out knowing what tools you have and what kind of projects you do. If you build bird houses and toy trains on bench top equipment finding space will be easy. I have a 50" Unisaw and a 6" joiner, the rest of the machines are bench top or movable. I manage to keep every thing in a 20 X20 garage and still have decient work space to build the large built-ins that are my bread and butter. No cars, lawn equip, or bikes. If I put the Unisaw on a moblie base I could park a car inside. But I always have work in progress...... so the cars are SOL. He he.
My main line of work is remodeling so I have a lot of construction tools that most wood workers would not have. I also keep a pretty large stock of lumber and sheet goods. here are some pics.
Well never mind cant get the attatch files button to work.
Mike
Edited 8/14/2004 1:54 pm ET by mike
I had to turn off the fire wall, here they are.please excuse my spelling.
Wow, do I have a tip for you!! Right here in my new and improved Rockler catalog that arrived today. On page 10, along with the Talon pegboard toolholders, is the Loft-It Storage Lift System. For a mere $1,999.99, you can get a 1,000# capacity tool-deck that rides on 10-foot vertical rails to go up, up and away out of the way of your cars. What will they think of next?! they show a Jet table saw and enclosed-stand bandsaw floating in mid-air.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
I'm not sure you will like this solution, but faced with your problem I kicked my car into the drive. Of course the wife's car can still park, if she doesn't mind the layer of dust. Do see the Tools and Shops FWW from last year, as someone else suggested - that guy had two long work surfaces down the sides, and he rolled everything under when it was put away. It looked pretty neat ... but not sure how it would really work. Once I had one side dedicated to the shop, I put a wall down the middle, which is tricky because it cannot interfere with the garage door, and that really gave me more storage space. Also, I put cut-offs and stored lumber in the attic, with the drop down stairs being convenient to reach, and I built an overhead rack over the space where the garage door rests when it is open, and lumber is stored there as well. You have to use every sqaure inch available.
Good luck and have fun.
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