Creating a Workshop & Home

[EddieWalker]

It rained all day Saturday, so Steph and I went to the Dallas Safari Club Convention. Perfect timing since I hate going anyplace when it's nice out and I have dirt to move. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Sunday was too muddy to do any work on the lake, so I decided to start organizing my outdoor storage area. Just to remind everyone. It's 12 feet wide and 30 feet long. The inside wall is 12 feet tall and the side opening is 8 feet tall.

This is what I've been triping over for the last 4 months.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

The hardest part of any project is the planning. What do I need and where do I need it?

Sizing and spacing my shelves fell under this catagory. I've spent many hours pondering this in my mind while moving dirt. It's not just what I want them to hold today, but what I might have in five or ten years.

I made the bottom shelf three feet off the ground. This will give me enough room for most of my "big" stuff that's too heavy to pick up and put on a shelf. The rest of them are two feet up from the next. That puts the to shelf at 9 feet.

I'm using scrap and left over lumber for this project. The longest 2x4's I have are all 12 feet. Most are covered with concrete from being forms.

The shelves will be 16 feet long and 2 feet wide.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Since I'm using scrap lumber for this, I've had to do some scrounging. When I built the house, I toss all my scrap pieces of wood into a pile. Over time, I find I use most of it up for smaller projects.

The shelves needed allot of 21 inch 2x4's. I hate cutting up a nice piece of wood for a bunch of small ones if I can avoid it.

In this picture, you can see a pallet and the frame my roll up door came in, plus the scrap pile. It took allot longer than I thought it would to take apart and remove the nails. Some people really love nailing!!!! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Once the pieces were cut, it's was pretty easy to put them together. I'm using ten foot 2x4's for the posts. That gives me an extra foot of height above the top shelf. The reason for that is it's where I plan to store all my PVC pipe. I have lots of it, but no place to keep it so it's out of the way, out of the weather, but readily accessable when I need it. Now I do.

The posts have PT 2x4's nailed onto the bottom as feet. I didn't want the wood to sit on the dirt, even though it's dry, so I thought this would work.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Years ago I bought some Rubbermaid shelves and a tool holder. They have worked great and I wanted to use them in this area. I have more hand tools than space for the tool holder and was going to buy another one when I got this idea.

I don't need the bottom part to hold the tools in position, and it's identical to the top part, so why not combine them into one super long tool holder. It was pretty easy to cut one end to line up flush eith the other, then screw it together from both ends so it's tight.

Than I put up a ledger board at the beginning of my storage area.

The grey boxes you see in the picture are my light switch, outdoor outlet and the big one on the bottom is a juction box with 4 12/2 wires dead headed. They will be used for future projects, but for now they are just in place waiting. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Here's a picture of the tool holder and shelves fastened to the wall.

I put screws with washers through the palstic shelves and hardi siding, and into the the studs. This should make it all very stable and secure.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

I started organizing a little and put a few things away. This is the part I hate the most. Where to put it so I can find it when I need it, but it won't be in the way, or it will be nice and handy.

I plan to get it all cleaned up and organized today. My goal is to be able to park my CUT with bush hog attached in this space out of the weather!!!!

Eddie

 

[DannyD]

Now Eddie, we all know how much Steph has done with you, are you SURE you can take credit for how nice that looks? Looks great, want to come over and fix up my barn too? Steph can take the photos and direct!

 

[EddieWalker]

Danny,

She's a great help on allot of what's been done on this place, but on this one, she was inside all day doing laundry. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

With her help it would have been done in just one day!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Here's the shelves all finished and most everything put away. There is still more stuff in different places that I'll get to, plus I want to go through my scrap wood pile and get that in there too.

Eddie

 

[RobS]

Things are looking great Eddie, keep it up! Don't ya just love that feeling of having everything put away, knowing exactly where it is for the next time you need it? Of course, KEEPING it that way is another struggle /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[andrewj]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Nat,

It will be poorly done, with lots of imperfections. The look I want is unskilled third world labor.

)</font>

The look you want is the one I always end up with!

 

[EddieWalker]

My dozer in down, it's raining out and I've been procrastinating long enough on these stairs. No more excuses, it's time to get some railings up!!!

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

I left the header exposed above the breakfast bar where the vaulted ceiling in the family room meets the normal ceiling in the kitchen. Before I can do the railing on the stairs, I have to do the beam, than I can wrap the post and finally I can put in the railings.

I had this idea that I'd cut out the insides of a 2x8 and slide it over the header. This is one of those ideas that sounded easier than it turned out to be. After doing this, I realize it wasn't the smartest of my ideas. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

This picture gives you an idea of how it slides over the header and ties into the post. The finished result is amazing, but the process was pretty bad.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

I had this idea of using rebar for the spindles on the railing and painting them black. This is one of those ideas that I was unsure about and part of my stalling on finishing this project. It might have looked alright, but it also had a good chance of looking aweful. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Last week at Lowes I saw they have a new brand of spindles for ourtoor decks. They cost $26 for five which is more than I planned on spending, but they were perfect!!! I bought five boxes.

The rest is just standard lumber stained to match the ceiling and beams in the family room.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Upstairs I just finished off a post to match downstairs so everything matches.

Eddie

 

[bmac]

Eddie,

You are quite the craftsman. That railing looks great. And, although they cost more than rebar, I think you made a good choice on the spindles. Rebar may have been a bit too "industrial" looking.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks bmac!

Way back when I was framing the stairs out I new storage was going to be an issue. No home has enough storage, and small ones are just that much tougher to find places to keep things.

The space under the stairs was a good area to create storage, but it was kind of tricky. I had to spend allot of extra time framing in the openings that I had no idea of what I was going to do with.

This weekend I decided it was time to finish these openings off. My plan all along has been to put doors on them and maybe some shelves to split up the space.

Than while in the bathroom, I had a thought. Why not create sliding drawers like I did on the bed??? All of a sudden it all made sense.

I bought some wheels for moving appliances and built some boxes out of half inch plywood that will roll in and out.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

This was the biggest space I had to work with. I decided to create two seperate drawers. Each one is 21 inches wide and two feet tall. The bottom part is accessable from the sides and is 12 inches tall.

The advantage to haveing the whole thing roll out is how easy it is to access whats in there. Shelves and doors would have forced us to crawl into the space to store things. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

To be honest with everyone, this space was what I thought would be used for the air conditioner return. It seemd to me a perfect spot for it at the time, but the HVAC guy I used had different ideas.

The kids adapted it to a storage spot for their shoes. It's worked wll for that, so I made a shoe rack that slides in and out.

Eddie