My Garage and Wood Storage System in Houston

Article By Shorty


My Beloved Garage
I spent so many years in apartments without a garage. I had to build in the breezeway between apartments, or toss an extension cord out the window and build stuff in the parking lot. What a pain. Now that I have one, I keep it clean and organized, because I enjoy working on projects, and don't want to trip over a bunch of junk of my own demise.

The main exension cord is a self rewinding one suspended from the ceiling. That way when not in use, it rolls up out of the way.

Wood Organiztion System
Growing up in my dad's shop, he had a big cardboard box on the floor where all the scraps of wood get tossed. When needing a board for something, a cursory look thru the cardboard box was made, then some fresh board would supply the new material. The box would become full, and then another would fill up, soon we had several of these boxes full of scrap wood.

The problem seemed to be that it was a pain to bend over and search thru the box. So I came up with this way to organize my wood. The long boards go cross wise thru all the shelves and are supported by mini-shelves. Below them are the scraps, categorized by type of wood. One shelf has scrap plywood, one has sticks, one has 1x and 2x material, and the far end is all of the dowels & round material.

In a photo above you can see my stack of plywood, it stands vertical next to the washing machine. I keep about 10 sheets of plywood (of varying thicknesses) at all times - never want to be out of that! I also try to keep a few of the 1x4x14' boards that are for concrete forms. Can get them for $2.50 each, great for lots of projects.

Can You Believe This !?!?!
Who in the world, that actually owned such a sacred space as a garage, could let it go this bad !?!?! Good friend of mine who shall remain nameless.... :)

Love building projects with him, but have almost died several times trying to get stuff from the back of the garage. Maybe that is why I get to work on stuff with him, he is afraid to venture back there....