Thread: From a garage to a shop.

Good progress Expat!

I;m interested to know how efficient that insulating material is.

Originally Posted by artme

Good progress Expat!
I;m interested to know how efficient that insulating material is.

Let's see....... it's 7c outside and raining and you can't see the other side of the road for fog but I was painting wearing shorts and a t-shirt no problems. No heater out there or anything else and the door to the house was closed. The wind is still coming in under the garage door but it's quite acceptable out there. Can't wait to see what it's like once I have the seal fixed and the small holes filled and a bit of spray foam and insulation on the unfinished walls.

First coat of gloss went on tonight. Blasted tray almost collapsed on me and I spilled some cleanup water on a couple of sheets of ply but I got all that sorted and tomorrow night I'm starting to build the storage shelves.

Paint dried well enough to put the carcass of the storage shelf up tonight. It was quite a job let me tell you. From the unsquare walls and ceiling, to trying to find studs and joists to screw into, to the wavy ply itself it was a battle but it got done.

I screwed the top and bottom to the sides from above and below using 11/4" course thread pocket hole and regular screws. A liberal dose of Titebond III didn't hurt. The biggest help in assembly though was the Kreg clamp. Wish I had two of them and I think I'll have to do just that!

Screwed and glued and ready to hoist up the wall. Now the fun really begins!!

At this point it's screwed into the right wall and is sitting on a 3/4" ply cleat screwed to the back wall. There is only one screw into the ceiling joists and it's not tight yet. Notice the gap at the ceiling line? The rear of the top panel is tight to the ceiling and of course the sides are tight to the wall. I told you the whole place was unsquare!!

Here's my 6' level resting against the top of the left side piece and the ceiling. That's about 3/4" out at the bottom which is 54" down from the ceiling unless of course you also add in the 1/2" spacers I had to put between the front of the top panel and the ceiling to make it seat properly!

I can hardly wait to begin putting the shelves in this thing (I'm being sarcastic here folks!). They are all cut oversize because I knew it would end up out of square so I'm just going to scribe them to seat them properly. I'll be using pocket holes and through screws again to secure them to the sides and each shelf will be supported by at least two dividers which will also use pocket holes and through screws to secure the shelves to each other, the bottom and the top. I'm now thinking about adding a 3/4" piece of ply with a rabbet 3" wide taking the thickness down to 1/2" to run along the entire front of the top panel. Making it long enough to span 4 or even 5 ceiling joists will give the whole unit more support than the three joists I can screw to at the moment. Trying to find those joists closer to the rear wall is fun too because so far I can't!

I know that I will get my self in trouble and might anger a few people in the process but I hope that Expat see the funny side of this.

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together in a little crooked house

Originally Posted by Christos

I know that I will get my self in trouble and might anger a few people in the process but I hope that Expat see the funny side of this.

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together in a little crooked house

No mice. Two cats. I limp all over the place thanks to all those years of football, motocross, road racing, drag racing and generally throwing my body around like it meant nothing. As for walking a mile....... not on my ankles I don't! If I found sixpence crooked or not it would be a blessing.

Other than that......... funny.

Almost there! I changed the plan slightly to account for the fact that I really needed to attach the dividers/supports to the rear wall studs to give the whole structure some extra support. Three screws into the ceiling joists isn't nearly enough! So each support is secured by three up/down pocket hole screws and into the stud by another much longer pocket hole screw driven into the stud. I could only put one into the stud because of course the wall is not even close to being square so only the upper portion of each support makes contact with the wall!

And here she is. I still have a shelf to put into the notch on the right side but it's going to be a complete pain to install because again none of the walls are square over there! It'll be level with the bottom of the metal shelf I've hung there.

I'm debating whether to install two more vertical supports from the top shelf to the ceiling joists. I can only secure them along the front edge of the top panel because I simply cannot find any joists to drive into further back. I'd love to open up the ceiling and have a look around in there to see what's going on but I'm a little worried about what I might see! I might just go with something to replace the clamp I have on the left front corner of the unit angled back into the wall at the floor. No guarantee there'll be anything to secure it there either!

Oh well..... at least I can start bringing things back in from the storage container now. I have need of a great many items out there to build the mitre saw cabinet and the mitre saw table itself. Plenty to do but at least it looks like it's progressing now.

I don't recall any earlier mention, but the floor in the last pic looks uneven too - if this is the case you are definiitely having a struggle, eh?

soth

Originally Posted by masoth

I don't recall any earlier mention, but the floor in the last pic looks uneven too - if this is the case you are definiitely having a struggle, eh?
soth

The floor slopes down from the back wall to the door by about 41/2"-5". Other than that it's not too bad...... at least the Delta-FL, Reflectofoil and OSB make it seem that way. The layout lines on the OSB make it seem out of whack more than it probably is because each row of OSB is staggered compared to the next row.

Well after putting off a lot of things in the garage/shop to do fun stuff like shovel snow and put up Christmas lights in -9c weather I actually got around to using some more of the ply I cut last month....... Struth! That seems like a long time ago now!


The cabinet that supports the mitre saw table is the first step. I was going to dado and rabbet everything but it's a pain in the butt and the pocket hole jig made it simple and quick. The Bessey's keep everything in place while I drive the screws and then off they come because before the glue dries I need this up on the wall so it can be "manipulated" to wind up with the top panel level front to back and side to side.

It's attached to the cleat by 4 pocket hole screws as well. The stack of ply at the front corners will be replaced by adjustable feet that will attach to a jointed 2x4 that will run along the underside of the front edge of the bottom panel. Right now I'm not that concerned with the bottom panel, it's the top panel that's the main focus here.
You might note that I'm tying back into the studs using pocket hole screws again in the side panels. If you saw that then you also saw that the right side panel has to be shimmed for the screws to pass through. These bloody walls!!

Here's why the right side panel had to be shimmed. This is looking from the left side along the top. The bottom panel is tight to the wall most of the way along it's length but look at that top panel! The cabinet is within 1/16" of square and that's plenty good enough for me and obviously way too hard for the nongs that framed this place!
Anyway the top is level front to back and side to side and the side panels are true so I'm happy with that. I'm thinking about putting some jointed 2x4's on the outside of the cabinet end panels to help prevent racking. We'll see.

Next up is fitting the sliding surface top. I was originally going to use the piece of ply for the back of the cabinet but I changed my mind when I first laid it on the wall. It would have been a waste with the way that wall was built. So because of that and the fact I couldn't get the lower cleat into the position I originally wanted - again because of the way the wall was framed - I made the side panels of the cabinet slightly shorter and decided to use the back panel ply as a second top panel for the cabinet. It has to have two dados cut in it and then have those undercut for the lengths of LV double t-track I'll be using. These t-tracks will allow the entire mitre saw table to move in and out from the wall not just to gain some extra real estate should I need to roll the car in at some point but also to allow really long pieces of stock to pass through the garage door to be chopped. Just like Jacko I'm thinkin' all the time!

So a little bit of painting tomorrow and then finish the electrical on Wednesday and back into the mitre saw table after that. Lots to do but I want to add that I was working out there in shorts and t-shirt with just my little fan heater roaring away and it was not cold by any stretch of the imagination. There's still a breeze coming under the door and there will be till Spring rolls around now but what a difference that floor has made. Easy to walk and work on too.

Well Expat that is some transformation.,particularly since you had to cope with all those "wrong angles".

Originally Posted by artme

Well Expat that is some transformation.,particularly since you had to cope with all those "wrong angles".

It's not over yet! I still have a shelf to fit between the rear wall storage shelves and the right wall and everything is out of whack there. I won't even go into the work bench that'll be mounted to the left wall. I'm dreading the day I start on the built-in bookcases in the family room!

Originally Posted by Expat

I want to add that I was working out there in shorts and t-shirt

Yeah I do the same but only in Summer.

Well for the most part there hasn't been much progress in the garage since my last bunch of photos. Lots of other things to keep me busy including using the garage as a place to wrap gifts so little eyes and fingers wouldn't get to the parcels!

I bought a second small fan heater to help keep the temperature acceptable what with the weather outside turning decidedly frosty. We've had a couple of days in the negative teens and combined with the wind from the East blowing under the door even with the improved insulation the existing heater couldn't keep up.

A couple of hours after I turned on the second heater things were very different out there. In fact they were rather familiar to me because opening the door from the house it was like walking outside of an a/c cooled house into a Queensland February afternoon! Talk about raising a sweat! I wound up turning both heaters down to about half way and that got the temperature to a usable 19c. It was about that time that the missus called me upstairs. She told me to go into the unused front bedroom. Now that's the one above the garage and it's always cold in there in the Winter so we leave the door shut so it doesn't take the whole house down. Well not that day boy! It was warmer in there than the rest of the house with the exception of the garage. In fact there was a pile of clothes on the floor and when I felt under that the hardwood was warm to the touch!

So that about settles things for me. Come the Spring the ceiling in that garage is coming out. I have a feeling there is little to no insulation up there and some serious vapour leakage. By code here garages MUST be vapour sealed if there are rooms adjoining or above them. Like a whole lot of other stuff I'm finding this place - and probably every other home in our neighbourhood - doesn't come close to meeting that code or a bunch of others.

At least I don't have to paint the bloody ceiling now!

Happy New Year!

Very interesting read and yes Happy New Year.