I'm buying a new house with a 2 car garage and trying to figure out how I want to set it up, so looking for ideas from everyone. I want to be able to do work on our vehicles and also do some basic woodworking. The garage is ~18.5' wide x 22.75' deep (blue line in screenshot is the garage door).

For those of you who do car work and woodworking, what does your setup look like? Workbench, storage, etc.

 

You won't like this answer - but I absolutely hate doing wood working in the garage because it just kicks debris/dust onto the cars. And it means moving various pieces of wood near cars as well, which I don't like.

I've decided to take my wood working to another space in the home than to keep the two hobbies adjacent.

 

^^ This. And you won't like this answer either - that is a pretty small garage for two cars. 25x25 is what I minimally spec to be able to put in a 1/2 ton truck with room to walk in front of it, and have normal storage cabinets and a workbench. And to be able to safely open the doors on both cars without dinging the one next to it or the wall. Talking like 2 feet to spare between the front of truck and the workbench. I use Gladiator cabinets from Lowes - not high-end, but affordable, look good, and work just fine.

Appears you have space on the northeast wall for a workbench and cabinets where the jog in the wall is. At 22 feet deep, you won't have a lot of room on the north wall.

I would find another place for your woodworking stuff due to lack of space, and the mess as @hexagone pointed out.

Good luck, keep us posted. We love garage photos. And congrats on the new house, always an exciting time.

.

 

I'm on the fence about adding a mud/laundry room, but I don't want to encroach what little garage space I would have already.....

 

Garagejournal.com Forum..........lose yourself down whatever rabbit hole you desire......

My answer for garage space was a 24x32 Morton building with 14' walls......

 

I have a highbay garage with a four post lift on one end and a basic woodworking station (miter on rolling bench) at the other. For storage I use old steel Home Depot pallet racks - the shelves used in every store, which you can find online practically everywhere. If you're in a cold climate, I highly recommend floor heating. I keep the space at 55* during Winter. I'll be out there later today working on my truck and will snap a few shots.

 

I like this idea but would make the kitchen and bath smaller, adding enough room to the bedroom for a California King bed. Its not about being comfortable alone or even with another as much as it is having plenty of room for three... Use any extra space for the garage.

 

This is an old shot of the back half. Will take some more later. Maybe it will give you some ideas. The sink in the back right corner is nice to have too.

 

You could install an industrial curtain system that would temporarily provide separation between the wood working side and automotive side.

This would keep the dust & debris contained but is not a fixed wall. An extractor fan would help also.

 

 

I have actually done this. Mine is three bays detached from the house supports auto service, yard equipment service, wood working (small operation, nothing industrial), metal working, etc.

The house has an attached 2 car with two purposes, house two cars.

All bay walls have storage against them or tool boxes
Each bay has its own high lift door
12.5 ceiling height to accommodate the lift
350 amp service. All outlets are 120V 20amp or 240v 60amp
HVAC heating and cooling.
Floor is LEVEL! no drain slope
EVERYTHING is on wheels. I can roll all handmade shelving, table saw, miter saw bench, sander, grinder, planar, work bench, tool cabinets etc around. Use them inside or outside.
Built and use a high volume air filter system when wood working.
Large 240V dust collector that sits outside when being used.
Shop vac for general vacuuming and when I need a low volume dust collector
Ceiling lighting. 4 banks (1 switch per bank) front to back on the sides and down the middle. 4 lights on each back. Each light 12,000 lumen LED, dimmable.
Ceiling air lines run

Bay 1 is for car storage. G500 sits there
Bay 2 is for the lift. Single post asymmetric.
Bay 3 is shop

 

Thats a good idea. Most of the time I would move the cars outside but having a curtain would definitely help.


Can you post a couple pics? Would like to see how you have it configured.

 

You touched a nerve. It should be federal law that all new detached homes be built with 3-car garages equipped with 220 VAC single-phase power (at least). 440 3-phase power would be better but is generally unavailable in residential areas.

I have had a woodshop in my garage across 8 homes (one at a time) scattered across the country, and I write magazine articles for both woodworking and sports car magazines. I have a few suggestions:

1. Dead serious about a three-car garage. Over 50 years I have operated out of a single-car garage (car is permanently parked outside) to three-car garages, with 5 of the last six had three-car garages as a condition of selecting and buying the home. (My wife is a saint!) Since we built three of these from the ground up, I was able to spec and locate the 220 VAC circuits as well as the original lighting and necessary power locations. With a two-car garage, you would be restricted to parking only one car under cover unless you also get a lift (see above posts).

2. Assume you will be taking all your vehicles out to do the woodworking, both for the safety of your car(s) and to make room for safe machine operations. This can be a "gumption getter" when the weather is bad, especially if you have just cleaned, waxed, polished, and vacuumed any of your vehicles, but it is simply the compromise you must make. Note: I am assuming the use of common power equipment like a table saw, cut-off saw, band saw, joiner, lathe, or orbital sanders. If you are, say, making violins or guitars using hand tools only on a basic bench, ignore this suggestion.

3. Almost every square foot will have to serve double duty, so with a two-car structure you should seriously consider putting in a lift *if* you have the ceiling height and *if* it is necessary to park two cars under roof. Also, put *every* piece of equipment, your work bench, toolbox, etc. on wheels so you can compact your entire wood shop very tightly when not in use, and *quickly* set it up for action after moving your cars out. I can set up my shop quicker than the time it takes to move out two Porsches. I designed a handy combination table saw outfeed table/small equipment and clamp storage/small equipment bench on wheels which you can steal from my article in Fine Woodworking Magazine #314, pp. 30-37.

4. Consider a dust collection system as a *requirement*. This will make the workspace much more comfortable, but it also greatly speeds up clean-up, reducing the "gumption getter" factor and keeping the cars cleaner when you put them back. An additional air cleaner slung from the ceiling is even better, because fine sawdust otherwise tends to stay suspended for 2-3 hours or longer.

5. The compressor will probably be a permanent installation, so make sure it is simultaneously in a position where it won't get run into, but convenient. I use a retracting hose reel with a very long hose mounted to the wall beside my compressor so I can do most of my sanding outside (as well as top off tires or blow out filters).

6. Likewise, I have a centralized retracting reel for the main extension cord mounted from the ceiling (and with a long cord). Not only can I operate hand-held equipment anywhere (from a belt sander, orbital sander, and most of my rolling equipment), but also my orbital buffer/waxer for the cars. I use this same retracting cord for my battery maintainers when I go out of town.

7. It is a bad idea to also use any of this space as a paint spray booth. The air flow is seriously wrong and the prep and clean-up efforts are way, way too onerous. If you must spray paint, consider one of those inflatable units outside the garage instead. They can be rolled up and stored somewhere out of the way, say in a crawl space, etc.

8. Install great lighting so you have good visibility anywhere in your space. This is not only useful for woodworking (e.g., checking surfaces after sanding) but also for paint correction and polishing wax. It's worth every penny you put into it.

9. If you have a typical roll-up garage door, it will block your lighting whenever the door is open. However, you can take advantage of the space over the opened door with a large, suspended storage shelf. I have two 4' x 8' shelves, one suspended over each garage door. I use one for lumber storage, the other for car parts and accessories. It is a good idea to have a cover over any storage (except the lumber) to help keep the sawdust off of it.

10. I'm sure I've forgotten something, but you may want to check out the Tool & Shops issues of Fine Woodworking Magazine for the last several years for other ideas specific to the woodworking side. I know the current issue (just released) has an article about the layout and operation of a pretty impressive (dedicated) one car garage.

It's good to know there is some overlap with cars and woodworking shops: lighting, power, compressed air, (rolling) toolbox, etc., but there is the cost of converting back and forth. My solution is to concentrate on one type for a while (e.g., until a woodworking project is completed), then maybe switch to the other type (e.g., detailing cars, installing my latest upgrade, etc.) to minimize the overhead of switching and recleaning.

Good luck!

 

I have operated out of 1-car, 2-car, 2-car tandem and 3-car garages for my woodshop. I also work on my cars. The suggestions above are all learned from necessity. All of my wood tools are on rolling bases except the workbench and drill press. All other power tools are portable to one extent or another. I have the shop and tools all in the 1-car stall and park 2 cars on the 2-car side and I make it work. I have a quick jack and use that on the 2-car side after backing out parked cars so I can work on one with room on both sides of the lift for safety. I have a wall of pegboard above my workbench where all frequently used tools are stored. I also have a 5-shelf heavy duty rack that sits between the 1-car and 2-car sides where all my wood, and liquids are kept along with some tools that are portable but heavy like my lathe and 12" sliding chop saw. That shelf is set to lifting off the heavy stuff is easier on my back. That is also where I plan to install a heavy curtain to block the dust, which brings me to the next point.

All of this said, dust is still an annoying issue even with dust collection, not only for the cars, but for EVERYTHING else in the garage! I regularly blow out the space with an electric blower. It's really barely tenable. I have plans to build a formal woodshop in the next 5 years dedicated to my hobby, but until then this situation will have to suffice.

Good luck!

 

Things always look different after putting stuff into them. You didn't mention ceiling height, but your footprint is small. My garage is roughly 22 by 23 and the attached pictures will give you an idea of how cramped it is. But in the plus side, with a bit of organization and experimentation, anything you need is within a couple of steps.

I started by modeling everything that would ever enter the garage in SolidWorks. I got through a dozen lifts before I found one that would work. The 9 foot ceilings were a trick and the posts needed to be positioned so that I could lift the center beam between joists to set it into the side posts. But the lift needed to be far enough from the front and back to allow space to walk around a lifted car. And the geometry of the lift arms relative to the jack pads on the various cars I wanted to lift also came into play.

Some layouts have interference problems opening up to box drawers. And that was with a few more feet that what you have.

A lot of good advice has already been offered. Good luck moving forward.