Monday, April 16, 2007

It has been over a month since I posted an update. This is an update on what I've been doing.

Most of my spare time has been spent redoing the garage. I had planned on putting a workshop in the basement, but I have developed a pre-asthmatic condition and we are concerned that the closed basement could aggravate it. So, we built the shed you saw in earlier posts and the workshop is going into the garage.

When we started this redo we had mostly space inefficient storage, and almost no electrical outlets. We moved most of what was there into storage. What was left was mostly what we needed to get to for daily living or the project.

The North wall.
The South wall.
The West wall with items we needed to keep around.
The first step was to patch and paint. After that we had the garage and house electrical improved. Our main breaker box did not have a whole house cutoff, and there were not enough garage and outdoor outlets. We added two outdoor outlets, several garage outlets, and several garage lights.

The North wall got several of the outlets and a track light aimed at what will be the work bench.
The East half of the garage got three florescent light fixtures. Many of the larger tools will be on wheels to they can be rolled over to this side of the garage.
The one bulb the garage already had was moved towards the door into the house. The dangling wires are data and video wires. Since this picture was taken we have added wire management.
The window on the North was a fixed pane widow with two panes. I removed one of the panes and installed a reversible fan. A wood "pane" was added to slide behind the fan when it is not in use. On the outside I will be adding a shade over the window to minimize snow and rain issues.

One of my concerns was the potential of the fan causing an explosion if there were explosive gas or sawdust in the air. To minimize that hazard the fan is reversible. I can turn the fan on to blow in, and open the garage door.
I am finally adding cupboard. These are architectural salvage units. On top of lower cupboards I have taken units intended to be lower ones, cut the legs off and mounted them upside down. This places the drawer at the bottom, and the handles at a cumfortable height.
Since this picture we have modified the drawers to work in upside down cupboards, started the South wall, and installed a (salvaged) granite counter top covering about half the work surface. The other half of the work surface will be wood.

I will try and be better on my posts, giving more frequent updates.