Moving soon and need garage ideas...
 

So as the title says, we'll be moving soon, in the next few months (which can't come soon enough).

It's an old small house built in 1951, very well maintained and comes at a great price. We'll still be renting, but will also be saving nearly $400 a month. The main thing is however, it has a garage! It's a small-ish single car garage, but nonetheless a garage.

I only got a quick glimpse of the inside of the garage, but from what I remember, it was unfinished inside, i.e. - exposed 2x4 walls and rafters and very poor, dim lighting. I think it only had the one light in the garage door opener and a single bulb a little further forward towards the front wall.

I plan on flooding the entire garage with loads of 4' LED lighting on the rafters and walls. I eventually plan on buying a 5000 lbs Quickjack, a wall mount garage vacuum and a small air compressor. Of course, more tools, a tool chest and other goodies will come as well over time along with a small digital amplifier and some indoor/outdoor speakers, but the lighting is first on the list.

Luckily, the gentleman we will be renting from is also a good friend for the past 11 years. He's retired and builds hot rods all the time. His wife refurbishes old Airstream campers, all just for fun. They're really cool, good people. So I can get some ideas from them as well as find out what all we can actually do with this house.

I'm just looking for more ideas, tricks and tips on how to make the most use of a small garage and retain as much floor space as possible. Hopefully I can go over to the house again this week at some point and take some pics and possibly some measurements.

I'm pretty excited to say the least.

I would really appreciate some pictures of your garage spaces if you like, just to give me some ideas. Many thanks in advance!

Just for fun, here's an old pic of his garage behind his house back when I still had my 1991 Miata. And that's only half of it. To the left is a rather large single car space that has a full size lift and paint booth!

https://charlest.zenfolio.com/img/s/...59702104-5.jpg

What part of town are ya moving to?

If the landlord will let ya, paint the inside white to help reflect some of that new light

I bought some used, heavy-duty shelves (not warehouse duty, more like you would find in a stock room) for tools and heavy parts, then got some smaller, medium-duty shelves at Home Depot for the lighter stuff. I set some of the shelving up so the bottom shelf is high enough off the ground to roll my floor jacks and creepers under.

If the owner is cool with it, insulating the hell out of it and putting up drywall will make it a lot more pleasant to work out there in the winter. A portable AC unit will help in the summer, or see if he's ok with framing in a window air conditioner.

Also, make sure that the roll up door and any pedestrian doors have secure locks before you start storing thousands of dollars of tools in there.

You didn't mention the beer fridge, but we're all in agreement that it's an absolute necessity, right?

Goes without saying. I just assumed that was on the top of the list.

Just a couple miles away from where I'm at now. Nothing major.

I think he just might let me. I know he's given us free rein as far as different paint colors for in the house itself which is cool.



Good ideas. Thanks!



Working in the garage in the cold isn't an issue. With the heat on the other hand, I plan on installing some of that garage door insulation and either a portable air conditioner or a Hessaire swamp cooler.



The entire house is already pretty secure with an included alarm system. I plan on installing a camera system just for good measure, even though it's a small, quiet neighborhood and I already know 6 or 7 different people that live a stone's throw away... Literally.

No beer here, but plenty of ice cold water, coffee and the occasional Mountain Dew.

Garagejournal.com/forum

So many great ideas for space savings, lighting and storage ideas.

Excellent site! Thank you! I haven't joined the forum there yet, but I just might. :tup::tiphat:

We'll be meeting up at the house again this Wednesday. This time we can take a bit more time to look around, take some measurements and some pictures.

The first time, I was talking with my friend and his wife more than really looking at stuff. So, looking forward to this next visit! I'll also ask more questions as to what he'll allow us to do.

Already, it sounds like he's going to be giving us some pretty decent leeway considering the couple of things I've already asked him... Which is a good thing. :tup:

Sounds like we have pretty much free liberty on what we can do to this house, within reason of course. We were told that any upgrades we make on our own, they will deduct that amount off of that month's rent.

I can change/update/upgrade power outlets (mainly for in the soon to be dedicated music/listening room), light switches and associated plates, light fixtures, paint, cabinet hardware, etc, etc.

They will be upgrading and or replacing the ceiling fans, new oven, new thick style window blinds throughout, new door locks throughout, new window screens, new garage door opener, etc, etc.

And as far as the garage is concerned, I was way off on what I remembered about it. It's all cinder block and painted white! I forgot to measure, but I'd guess it's 10' wide and probably at least 25' long. There's no ceiling, just open rafters which is fine. And he's perfectly fine with me loading up the joint with LED lighting everywhere.

Anyway, here's a couple shots of the garage. I can definitely make this work. I'll also be investing in battery powered lawn equipment. No stinky, smelly, messy gas power stuff in here except for my Z or the Fiat. Or... A project car later on. :stirthepot:

https://charlest.zenfolio.com/img/s/...32213866-5.jpg

https://charlest.zenfolio.com/img/s/...32213876-5.jpg

My only suggestion would be to have everything in the garage on wheels. Most of the stuff in my garage is wheeled so when I need to have some room in garage itself I can just wheel some of the stuff outside while I'm working in the garage. Once I'm done everything just gets wheeled back into the garage.

Yes! That is an excellent suggestion! Thanks for that. THIS I will definitely do! :tiphat: