28 Nov 04

4 day weekends kick ass. Cabinets are done, garage is cleaned, most of the stuff in and on the car is put away. The outlet next to the compressor cabinet is installed. I've added the track lighting and the third flourescent, now I need to add the boxes and outlets for them. With the wood out from the engine compartment of the car, I am able to push it over - it looks like there's almost enough room to park a second (small) car in there now.

The latch for the compressor-door works pretty well.

I still need to add the doors to the small paint cabinet. I've got the doors, but not the hinges (they're the 'euro' type). On the shopping list.

21 Nov 04

Cabinets complete and painted. The paint is a "Porch and Floor" paint from Lowes, which should hold up pretty well (I hope). The doors on the hanging cabinets aren't as badly aligned as they look, they're propped open so they don't stick to the paint. The compressor cabinet door has a bow to it. Once I've got a latch assembled it should pull it tight when it's closed.

The drawers are, indeed, as badly aligned as they look. Not all the drawers are square, so the faces aren't square. I spent hours getting them to line up as best I could and then the wife pointed it all out to me: They're garage cabinets, they don't have to look good.

Not pictured, but the 10ga wire to the compressor has been run.

The 14ga wires for the flourescents and the switch for them is installed (pictured). The outlets for them are not.

Still to do:

Electrician
Air piping
Ceiling outlets for flourescents
Outlet to the right of the compressor isn't installed
Outlet for the track-lights isn't installed
Install handles
Touch-up paint as needed

Once the paint is dry, I'll start putting things away which should do wonders for the garage in general. Not sure how long it'll take to dry though - yesterday's coat was still tacky when I went out this afternoon. I expect that by Tuesday or Wednesday I'll be able to decide what's going to go into what drawer.

10 Nov 04

Lots of work on the garage and not much posting. This past weekend I added the compressor-area door and started in on the drawer fronts. The part you can't see is that I finished running the 12ga wire for the outlets - well, at least to the area above the box, I'm still getting a real electrician to put the breaker in.

Today I put the pegboard up and wired the outlets I have - I need another 20a outlet to go on the far side of the compressor cabinet, and I still have to run the 10ga for the compressor. Once Lowes credits my account I should be able to finish that up, I've got the conduit and box already.

Next up - I need to get a paint that will stand up to garage-use... the latex in my study isn't sticking all that well. It'll all be painted white (for better lighting)... the outlets are grey. One change to the lighting - the switch on the wall here will control an outlet in the ceiling for the track lighting, I'll be running a switch IN the wall by the door for the main flourescents.

31 Oct 04

I'm done running conduit. I've got a conduit running from the ceiling to an outlet box, and then from there to each of the boxes that'll be behind the pegboard, ending in a box next to the radio (so I can plug it in). I've also got two conduits running to the ceiling for the switched power to the overheads. I might have been able to run both the wires in and out through a single conduit but fishing the first one through was difficult enough without having to do it in a more crowded pipe.

I've added a door for one of the cabinets (the one the chopsaw will sit in); I've started cutting the wood for the drawer fronts. I need to figure out what sort of paint to use on the bench - the latex in my study isn't very durable.

I've also added one of the boxes in the ceiling for an outlet for the overhead flourescents.

6 Sep 04

Cabinet progress:

I've now got the parts to put electric outlets behind where the pegboard goes. Not sure when free time will permit the next stage of construction. I'll need a couple more sheets of plywood to move forward on the compressor cabinet... but it's getting there. I'll only be roughing out the electric, that's something a professional needs to complete, I'm thinking.

22 Jul 04

No news on the cabinet front, but my new fence is spiffy - check out the 8ft tall power slide gate!

27 Jun 04

Progress.

20 Jun 04

Making progress on the cabinets. Of course, no plan ever seems to survive reality - I played with a full-size drill press at Home Depot and there's no way I'd be able to move one in and out of the cabinet. Instead, I'm going to mount the green drawer-cabinets where I was going to put the drill press. Additionally, the far-left drawers seem to be 12" instead of 18". I think I'm going to put the floor jacks under the compressor instead of a cabinet for them - the larger floor jack is too long to fit in the 2 foot deep cabinets.

20 May 04

Rushed home from work to go try and make some progress on the garage. Not all that great, but a step in the right direction (sorry, no thumbnails):

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16 May 04

Ok, I haven't updated in three weeks... because I haven't done anything. Money is pretty tight, some unexpected bills happened.. so my free time is taken up with listing crap on eBay - and money is tight enough that I would feel guilty spending money on plywood. If you feel like helping, (dead link removed) buy some of my eBay stuff

25 Apr 04

Honey-do's seem to have absorbed the time I had meant to work on the garage. I've got some of the hanging cabinets hung, but there is far to go yet. I've got a box of scrap wood I have to deal with too. I'll use some of it to build some shelves in the attic. Here's the pic of what's done so far. The file cabinets and the green drawers are here just because I don't really have another place for them yet. I had to do some repair work to one of the doors on the hanging cabinets; it still doesn't seem to fit right, I think I'll probably end up making new doors for these cabinets anyway.

I've got to cut a hole in the ceiling so I can hoist some of the larger pieces up (hood, fenders, the spare elky door) - I've got a pulley and rope to mount so I can do it easily (well, easier, anyway). I've got to get more cabinets done before I can strip the front end of the car, the hood seems to have taken the place of a workbench for stacking of crap.

I picked up a cordless Clarke drill - that thing works great. It's the 24v model; I used it to disassemble some of the previous owner's woodwork and to mount the cabinets and it didn't bog at all.

Something bad happened with the plans I had made (see 15 Apr) - 8 feet from the end of the garage door track was only 11 inches from the built-in shelving; not the 2 1/2 feet that was in the plan. It looks like everything can be moved down the other 19 inches, we'll see when I try to mount the last hanging cabinet.

This week's plan: buy plywood and start on the framework for the base cabinets.

15 Apr 04

The cabinets in my study are complete. I have planned the garage cabinets and should start on them this weekend. Here's a side (elevation) view. The thing sticking out from the right towards the top is the track for the garage door - it's only 11" from the wall so I need to work around it. The compressor cabinet is 3 feet deep. The rest are two feet deep. I already have the hanging cabinets, they just need to be moved. I'll have to add conduit for electrical cable so I can have outlets on the wall here.

I had a top view plan, but I guess I failed to save it - all I have is a previous revision which really doesn't show what I needed it to show.

16 Sep 03

I've started putting my new garage together. It's only about a foot narrower than the old one, but it sure feels a lot smaller than that.

Here's where I sat not too long after starting the evening's work. The previous owner left three workbenches - two on the wall on the left of this pic; one wide one on the wall you can't see. Immediately one of the three had to go - it was where the toolbox is now, and wasn't as sturdy as the other two.
This is as close as I came to getting a good pic of the other workbench (the one not seen). It's plenty sturdy, and provides storage for the wood stacked below.. but it sticks out too far from the wall and I can do better for storage. Current plan is to replace this with a whole bunch of drawers.
View towards the door of the garage. The large metal cabinet was left behind by the previous owner, which was awful nice of him.
This is kinda scary. The flourescent lights on the ceiling are all run through this switched extension cord that is just plugged into an outlet.
Here's part of why it's scary... each light is just plugged into an extension cord with multiple outlets, and they're all just chained together like that. Additionally, the only outlets in this garage are those 4 pictured above, and there is no 220 - so I'm going to need an electrician anyway (I wanted the compressor to be on the other side of the garage, I'll want a couple of 220 outlets, and I may as well add more outlets all over the place. Since it's a garage, I don't have any problem with exposed conduit. I'll get him to run several new breakers and all will be well.
The engine and solvent tank are about where I wanted the compressor to be.
A large proportion of the contents of the car are now in the attic. It's nice having that storage area, but some stuff (convertible top frame) is just too (spare elky door) heavy to even contemplate taking up there.
My mother-in-law supplied the hanging cabinets. These are great - I've got parts storage on top, plus room for whatever inside. I'm not sure what I'm going to put in them, but I do not doubt that something will appear. The only definite I've got so far is one has all the carbs I had sitting around, and one has the buffer and buffing compunds, but they aren't full and contents can change. I do think I'm going to have room for 2 more on the other side of the garage once I get to that point.
I'm just sticking whatever looks like it'll stack in this cabinet so far. I've still got a couple of boxes to unpack, plus the two rubbermaid containers full of 'Velle parts.. oh, and everything that's in the trunk. It's full too, and you'll remember how big it is..
Here's where I called it a day. The hood is cleared off; the interior is more empty than it was, and I've emptied a couple more boxes. Hopefully everyone will be able to resist the temptation to use the 'velle's hood as a workbench. I don't think I'm going to be able to get it up the attic stairs. The fenders should fit though, and the inner fenders and bumpers are already up there.
The only actual car-related thing I've got recently I actually got before the move - but they sat in the box through the entire move and just recently got opened.

The contents of this update were moved from the front page of the site.

20 Jul 03

It's now been one month since I started moving stuff from the old house to the new house. I've still got so much to do before I can get back to work on the car, which was towed to the new house with much of the contents of the garage in it. Since then, even more has been piled on top. Take a look:

Once I finish building the cabinets/desk for my study (major remaining task) and several minor tasks, I'll be able to start getting the garage in order. Of course, I'm now so broke I'll probably never be able to buy any parts, but if I can get the garage straight I'll at least be able to install the stuff I've already got. Hopefully this will be soon.

1 Jun 2003.

I'm moving to a larger garage, so updates may be less frequent for a while.