One of the biggest (by physical size) projects that I’ve ever undertaken also turned out to be one of the quickest. I have a very tiny garage. It was a struggle just to get the motorcycle and the car in at the same time. Over the last two years, the floor of the garage and the three shelves got more and more full. It was time to build a bigger shelf/mini-attic at the back of the garage above the motorcycle. The only trick is that we had to build around the water heater and pipes in the corner.
Tim and I met at Home Depot at 5:45 on Monday evening. We headed home with the wood and soon BenH joined us. Ben and I built the frame while Tim notched the top of each post. The posts were 4×4’s and the 2×4 (and 2×8 front span) sit in notches on top of the posts for added strength. Just four hours after we started the project, we had the frame standing up on the posts and lightly secured.
On Tuesday night, we added some diagonal bracing and secured everything tightly. Screws were added between the structure and wall studs were we could to keep it all stable. For the final step, we cut the plywood to fit the top of the shelf and Tim screwed it into the frame.
Pretty much everything that we had on the floor of the garage now fits up on that shelf. We were even able to empty one of the white shelves. I’m probably going to be buying a cargo box for the top of my car and we should be able to hang it from the bottom of the shelf when not in use. We have just about crammed as much fun into the garage as we can physically fit!
We had about $20 worth of wood leftover due to some last minute design changes. Once I return that, the total project cost will only be about $80. We also learned that Stanley bits are worthless. We ruined about a half dozen of them trying to get all the screws in. Once we switched to DeWalt bits, everything went much more smoothly.
