A Bigger Toybox - Part 3

Whoah, it’s like the entire winter has passed us by. I’ve been slacking hard on updating the site.

With the garage mainly dried in, we needed to start electrical rough in. I had a very basic idea of what I wanted. Extend the main 20 amp outlet circuit, and extend the existing lighting circuit. Simple. Even for a guy with no residential electrical know-how.

A quick google search and youtube showed me the ropes. Kill power at the breaker (test the outlet!) and start adding onto the existing outlet circuit.

Over about 3 nights, I was able to run all the outlets I wanted and add the basic lighting fixtures. Eventually we’ll be adding a 220 circuit for welders, compressors, light sabers, etc. But for now, let’s keep things simple. Unbelievably, I hadn’t shocked myself once!

Once the electrical was “complete”, I had it inspected… and passed! The inspector was more into my car than the wiring, he’s a big drag racer.

With the electrical bought off, I still needed to pass my county building framing inspection. I took a lot of time wrapping up loose ends. He was VERY close to signing it off… but then noticed my shear wall seams needed to be backed by 2x6s. I had a few other punch list items, but nothing too complicated. Over a few weeknights the garage was once again inspection ready. This time, I passed!

With the framing inspection complete, I could really focus on building out the interior. The exterior siding could wait til spring.

This leads us to one of the big additions to the garage, an attic!

The truss package I originally ordered were attic style. For a mere $400 more, the trusses are built with a large opening in the middle that you can finish into an attic. A traditional truss wastes this space with bracing running through it. Remember my roof is a crazy steep slope? (12:12) Well, that means I can build an attic room 14‘ by 10’, with 7’ ceilings. Pretty good value for the extra price in the truss package!

I had a bunch of leftover 2x6s, 2x10s, 2x8s leftover from the framing, so why not use those as the floor. They’ll be MUCH more stout than some 3/4” plywood floor.

In the end I only had to buy 3 2x12”s to finish the floor. The framing gun was very handy here. 3” nails driven with 100psi of air secured everything, all of a sudden the entire garage felt much stiffer.

I also added one of my florescent lights, and the walls were built with the sheathing of my old exterior wall we tore down months before. All in all, a cheap attic, that can hold 4400 pounds! That’s right, I could add a whole ‘nother MR2 and a half up here.

Sometimes, you get lucky. Sometimes, you’re a hoarder. My apprenticeship school was remodeling some classrooms, and we were helping with the demo. My instructor wanted to throw out a bunch of industrial shelving. So, we threw them directly into my truck.

SO MUCH ROOM FOR ACTIVITIES. We immediately filled this up with all sorts of crap. Car parts, skis, camping gear, tools, christmas decorations, the kitchen sink, you name it.

While wrapping up the attic, I got notification my garage door was ready for pickup. One oversight I made with this garage build was the door. When originally figuring out pricing, I assumed it was your everyday 9’x7’ door. I wanted to match the existing door in the old garage bay. Turns out, it was a custom 9’x8’ door. Yeah, we went from a $300 door to a $800 door, and 3 weeks to build it. Bummer.

So here it is. When picking it up, the warehouse guy asked who was putting it together. He made a funny face when I said I was.

…he might have been right.

Lots of parts and pieces. So, I turned to the sacred texts of our society, Youtube. Over two nights the door slowly turned to reality.

Installing the spring. Easily the most dangerous part of the ordeal. You have to spin it once for every foot of door height, 8 times around. They suggest using 1/2” round stock as your handles, and I highly encourage you to follow their directions! If you lost control of the spring at 8 revolutions, it could be very dangerous.

With the spring ready, let’s see if this thing opens, or falls onto my car.

Success! It actually opens astonishingly easy. My old door will need a tune up to hold a candle to this one. Butter smooth and very little effort. The garage door opening will come later this spring.

With the door hung, we were ready to really start on the interior. Eventually I plan to add some sort of heat in here for those cold winter nights. Turns out, insulation is expensive.

$300 of insulation. Only took 2 hours to install. By install, I mean cram it into the space between the studs.

Nevermind all the garbage. Building a shop requires lots of garbage.

With the insulation in, it was time for more lighting. months ago, a friend gave me 4 florescent lights. They were beat up, dirty, and very free. I cleaned them up and installed some new bulbs. They all run off a typical 110 plug, which plugs right into my basic light fixtures I installed with the electrical work.

All in all, I have 6 lights hanging so far, and will add more as the need arises.

When that finished, I received another call that another very special piece of the shop had arrived. I had to pick it up from the local shipping depot.

This was a VERY exciting thing for me, something I’ve dreamed of for years, and never thought I’d actually own.

With that special package back home, I also bought 20 sheets of 7/16” OSB. I had a few options for the interior walls, drywall, or sheathing. I chose sheathing. In the PNW, it’s only $9 a sheet, its sturdy (you can mount almost anything directly to the sheathing and not worry about hitting a stud), and for a garage, it’ll look just fine. This is a working garage, so fancy finished drywall isn’t needed.

I chose to install the OSB sheathing with drywall screws. This way, if I ever want to add more electrical/gas/air lines, I can pull the sheathing down easily compared to busting holes in drywall.

Over the next week I hit the sheathing hard. Lots of cutting, I had a 5 gallon bucket full of sawdust when I swept up at the end.

Looking good! Also, I guess the cat is out of the bag, that special package… was a MaxJax two post lift!

I researched lifts heavily. There are cheaper ones out there. There are bigger, taller ones out there. But, I only have 9’ ceilings. Most lifts go 9’-6” and above. The big pro, this lift is removable in about 15 minutes. All other lifts are pretty much permanent. I don’t always want the lift there.

The biggest con of the lift, it only goes about 4’ high. I figure using a badass stool/laz-e-boy to wheel under the lift will be better than jackstands. Anything is better than jackstands. Anything.

Want more on the lift? Check it out here: https://www.maxjaxusa.com

We’ll cover the install later. Let’s get back to finishing this shop! After the sheathing was finally complete… I wanted to finish the interior look. So, off to Home Depot we go for their cheapest interior paint!

Remember I used to own a painting company? This was the first part of this project I actually knew what I was doing.

Once the paint had dried, we needed to build a decent workbench. My old bench would still be living in the old portion of the shop, the new shop needed a new shiny bench.

When you work in construction, your boss generally tends to “over order” material. Somehow this unistrut found its’ way into my truck one day. Crazy, it’s all cut to build a bench…

Since I had a welder, I welded it together. Here’s the top of the bench.

Some legs added, and a lower shelf on the bench. 8’ long and 2’ wide, she sits about 40” high.

Using some leftover 3/4” plywood, they made the perfect tops. Pretty easy project, built over two nights. I eventually want to also build a more welder friendly fabrication table, ideally on wheels to move about the shop… just need more time and preferably, money.

To keep my morale up, I hung this amazing sign that was made for me by a family member as a great Christmas present. The LED can change to any color, and shows my original logo for the site. It’s an awesome finishing touch for the shop.

We live in a pretty cool neighborhood. Often people are getting rid of stuff, and I end up with it for free. About 6 months ago someone was tossing out a few old kitchen cupboards. I took them, and stored them in my crappy shed. It all paid off, as I can FINALLY use them.

And in the old shop I hung and painted some shelving, and some old skis. I will likely mount and tune all my own skis on this side of the garage. It’ll be the catch all space for all the home projects, and anything not related to the car. So, it needed some old skis on the wall.

Holy crap, the garage is almost… FINISHED?! A couple punch list things here and there, and of course, some decorating.

Cabinets painted, toolboxes in place.

We’ve also saved a few TVs for the last few months. Why not hang one up? Will I ever watch it? Probably not. Maybe just loop all the FnF movies on it?

That brings us to the wall of shame. I’ve saved one of the wheels from my first MR2 (ya know, the one that hit the wall at 50mph). It’s so destroyed it’s cool. On the wall it goes.

Remember when my F40 engine lid took out my GT wing? Here it is, in it’s delaminated and cracked glory. My wall of shame is done…. until I add more broken parts to it.

Truly starting to feel like a real shop. I still have plans for the corner below the TV for a drafting/workbench to dream up my ideas. I also have room to add some other tooling in the future. This really is starting to feel like a great place to build my dreams.

So, let’s install that lift.

The MaxJax comes with a rather large instruction manual, and a lot of parts in baggies and boxes.

First, I built a cart.

Then, I added the hydraulic pump and fluid reservoir to the cart.

Then it was time to space and layout the posts.

The blue chalk line is used to find the center of the shop in relation to the garage door. The orange string keeps the posts square to each other. I went with a 130” spacing between the posts…. but should’ve gone bigger.

Borrow a rotohammer from work. Hopefully you work somewhere that uses rotohammers. You’ll need a 5/8” bit and a 7/8” bit….which also came from work.

Once your first pilot hole is in, enlarge with the 7/8” bit.

These are the collared female drop ins that go into the floor. They need to be at least 4'“ deep.

Drill baby, drill.

Posts installed!

The lifting arms install easily. Hook up the hoses, add 9 quarts of hydraulic oil, and start testing and bleeding the lift.

When things seem good, I brought the car in for its first lift. Getting the lift arms to hit my pinch rails was an extreme pain the first time. Turns out, I might have installed the posts too close together and too far back in the shop. The car fits, but has to be lifted pretty far back in the shop. My original goal was to have as much room as possible in the back of the shop, where I’ll primarily be working. Instead, we have the opposite. It can be fixed with more mounting holes in the floor. But… it works! Car is in the air! I can easily glide under the car and work from a stool comfortably. I’m psyched!

Yeah, eventually I’ll need more room.

The overall picture though, dreams coming true.

All that access, no more creeper life.

To celebrate, I gave the car its first wash in almost 6 months, and went for a little cruise to blow the cobwebs out.

The car is running well, and I had a blast getting acquainted with it again. But, a bunch of things reminded me why I want to make some big changes. And overall, she just needs a refresh. My 10 foot car has turned into a 20 foot car. I have a lot of cool parts I’ve collected over the winter, let’s start putting them to good use. I’ll have another blog update sooner than later, we’re gonna start using that sparkly new shop heavily!