Since the FTO has been off the road I've not had anything to tinker with and tbh I've not had the time and the weather this year has been awful...soooo me and a couple of mates are splitting a garage. We looked and looked for weeks and it seemed unlikely that we were going to find anything until we came across an unlikely but interesting candidate.
The garage is an old unused hay barn that was just a lean-to until the mechanic who owns the whole yard decided to convert it to a dry insulated storage unit and put in a concrete floor and some doors. The smaller part down the end was previously a milking shed I think.
The other two lads in on this came from another garage which was nearly destroyed by the snow last year so before it was completely killed off this year everyone wanted out. The old place was a disused mushroom growing factory which had 10 30M x 10M half-circle shaped "tents" which all had perfectly smooth concrete floors. A few years back a few lads who raced in the historics and Porsche Challenge needed a place to store their cars so they rented this place and it grew and grew until we left when there was nearly 20 cars and 15 lads.
We were allowed take the plugs, wiring, wood from the mezzanine, the mezzanine flooring and a lot of other bits and bobs to use in our garage.
It was quite rough around the edges so we started by putting nearly 45L of brilliant white on the bare concrete walls and the really old stonework walls that make up the smaller end. it took nearly 3 coats to get it white, bare walls absorb paint like I've never seen.
We then painted the floor with Ronseal FloorPaint which actually went on really easily and quickly. It dries very quickly and you can walk on it in a few hours and it can take light traffic after 24 hours. This was important because at this stage we had everything from the garage except the cars in the garage so we had to do the floor in thirds and manoeuvred the trailer with all the wood on it and some other bits around to get this done. Once the floor was painted we had moved in the three Minis, the Go-Kart and anything else we had brought from the other garage.
We knew we'd need to build a mezzanine to make use of the space best so we started designing. We needed 2 lengths of 4" x 4" angle to rest 14ft lengths of 9" x 2" wood on. We cut one length to 16ft and it was welded to the RSJs which hold up the garage. The other length was cut up into a few different length and was placed on-top of a protruding concrete wall and wall pinned into the concrete with 10mm concrete fixings. The steel was cut and welded to fit around the pillar you can see on the left in the first photo. The wood order was proving difficult so we had to wait a while for it to arrive.
Before that arrived we built a tyre rack to hold the seemingly growing number of tyres for the three cars. Some 2x4 and ad-hoc measuring using the actual tyres and we had a three tier rack that holds about 30 wheels and tyres.
In the mean time we built a workbench from 3 8ft scaffold boards and some 4x4 and 2x4 from the mezzanine uprights - sturdy table!!
One of the lads is an electrician/kitchen fitter/builder guy who took a used kitchen worktop from a job so we made a second bench from that and purchased a bench vice for the other worktop.
That's the view of the benches, our Belfast Sink we were given, a parts-washer and what was left of the wood.
Eventually the wood for the mezzanine arrived and in about 4 hours me and one of the guys measured, cut and fixed (with a 250 box of B&Qs finest 100mm wood screws which I recommend by the way. NOT the bagged type, the fancy looking boxed ones) all 12 lengths of the 9" x 2" up on the mezzanine. It spans about 13" across the garage and each length is bridged with 16" lengths of 6" x 2" cut from 16ft lengths used as lats in the other mezzanine. We topped it off with 6 8ft x 4ft 18mm ply and some free white wool carpet we got for free on dublinfreetrade.ie
We also put up the signs, posters and flags from the other garage on the workbench end wall.
One of the things we were gifted was a shelving unit that was communal in the garage but it's sturdy steel and can hold a lot of stuff. initially we had it on the ground, but it was moved up to the mezzanine when it was built.
About a week later we got to work building a proper stairs for the mezzanine. We used two lengths of 6" x 2" and using a router we cut perfect gaps to take the steps. It was all screwed together and then fixed to the mezzanine. We threw some of the leftover wood together and made a banister for the stairs and the side of the mezzanine.
I put in a dividing wall on the mezzanine to hide the shelves and the rest of the mezz is used as a relaxing area. We were given a nice 3 seater couch, i brought up my old dart board and we have a kettle and some drawers for a mini canteen.
I wired in about 6 double plugs and we've taken a feed from the mains into our own little breaker box to feed lighting and switches. Part of the deal from the other garage was taking some of the lights the lads put in so we have 2 lights hanging from the roof over the area without a mezz, 2 fixed under the mezz and 1 over the couch area.
To tell the truth we've played darts more than work on cars but building this garage has been the project I've needed for a long time!
