while the wife's away....

[pELYgroso]

After around 5 months of living here, I'm finally starting to make my shop a shop instead of a storage unit. My wife is out of town with the the kids until Wednesday so I thought I'd take advantage of the free time and get some work done.

Here is about how it started on Saturday: (it was actually even more cluttered. The before pics were taken in January.)


And here is how I finished tonight.

I put up the cabinets, built a 16' work bench, organized a few tools, built some stairs up to the loft and put a lot of boxes and bins up in the loft to go through later. I still have a lot to go, but it feels good to be able to walk around and find what I'm looking for.

What do you all try to do while your wife/kids are away?

 

[SAMI]

Nicely done.. I find myself deep cleaning guns when the wife is away.

 

[sixstringsteve]

Awesome! I love the stairs to the loft. And the heaters, those are sweet.

 

[pELYgroso]

Usually I try and do a project for her as well. Some sort of Honey-do that I've been meaning to get to. I do need to clean my guns though....

 

[ricsrx]

I like the wood stove and I have one in my shop but have never used it, I feel they would be good if you could commit to being in the shop all day, but i find myself only getting about a few hours a day to the shop, so i preheat with a kerosene heater, then follow up with the gas heater.

i love the shop, very nice,

 

[jeep-N-montero]

I have garage envy.

 

[pELYgroso]

I will be making the area under the loft a guest house/man cave/bugout spot, so that's where the wood stove is going. I'm going to frame it in and finish the bathroom (add a shower) and build out a small food storage room and a small bedroom and make the rest a hangout room w/ the wood stove in there. We had that wood stove in our last house and I loved it! I will get some water storage and put it on the loft, plumbed down to the sink and shower below for an emergency. The plan is to make it so that we can live in there for a few months if the power/gas/water goes out in the house.

This is definitely my dream garage! It's about the same sq. footage as the house More if you include the loft.

 

[pELYgroso]

Here is the honey-do that I've done the last couple of evenings:

This is where the washer/dryer used to be in the house. I pulled out some wire shelving that was above the washer/dryer previously and added this modular shelving. I'll probably add a couple more shelves but this is all I had for now. It adds a lot of storage to the house.

and here's the bigger project that I've been working on for the last few months.

I used half of our attached 2-car garage to build this room from scratch. I framed it out, wired, and plumbed it for the washer/dryer and added a mud room/pantry. The door at the top of the stairs goes into the kitchen, and the door across from that goes into the (now) 1-car garage. I left just enough garage to comfortably park our montero and walk around it with arms full of groceries. This weekend I had a friend help me wire the freezer which has been out in the shop, and finish some outlets. I still need to finish the mud room bench, paint the stairs, and now that the freezer is in there, add some more pantry shelving up tight to the side of the freezer. It's been really nice to have a separate laundry room instead of having the w/d in a closet in the downstairs bathroom, and the extra pantry space is really nice also.

She wasn't expecting any progress on these...she better be happy.

 

[sixstringsteve]

If she isnt happy, we need to talk.

 

[skiboarder]

I have garage envy.

Me also, BIG TIME!!!