Who else is suffering as I am?
 

Anyone else have a stockpile of tools they can't use?
Big sob story, wah wah wah, but here we go.
We bought a rental house 12-14 years ago and I converted the garage into a wood-working shop ( I already had a pretty significant stockpile of mechanics tools to boot ).
I bought thousands upon thousands of dollars of gear. Table saw with a sweet 52" fence, router table, compound mitre saw, drill press, built a disc sander, installed custom central vac system with ports at every location, built a bunch of jigs and such. A 16' continous table from drill press through mitre saw and past router. Single phase heaters, 12 outlets and 20 x single 4' fluorescent lights in a 16' x 21' footprint. I even found a donator fridge for food and drinks, brought in a cheapo quad speaker stereo, installed an alarm, window bars, insulation including the roll-up door, ceiling, walls, 100A sub-panel. It was a cosy place to roll into after work and play for awhile until the wife was finished her afternoon shift.
We ( the wife and I ) built some oak, beech, and birch furniture for our house, some for gifts, some just for fun, whatever ....
Then, about a year into it, she buys her dad's '69 Camaro RS/SS and it goes in MY garage. I can't complain much as he bought it new and it only had 69K miles on it. It's been there ever since. ( it still only has 70K miles on it today :mrgreen: ).
So here I am trying to build this 75g system. I'm drilling in the basement over a garbage can so I don't have to vacuum.
I'm sawing in the laundry tub. I'm using a jigsaw on my hands and knees 'cause it's too cold to break out the plastic saw horses and go outdoors.
I'm using the jigsaw 'cause I don't have a stable enough surface to use my $250 circular saw. I'm pulling my graying hair out as I cut inferior lines in whatever I do, and am trying to love it as I can't afford to build a garage in our backyard.
And the 3 or 4 times every summer ( due to weather and schedules )that we take the Camaro out are not doing much for me at the moment.
Sigh, I can't be the only one suffering from lack of shop space.
And don't rub it in Grizz, I've seen your shop in pics.

Solution -

Move to Red Deer, dont fret the use of the garage and go over to greg's shop with a case of beer and a pack of cigars and a free frag and use his shop for tank builds :lol:

My General table saw has been sitting in storage for 3 years. I've never even used it because I don't have a garage to set it up in. Sorry no sympathy here.

But I have all the tools here in town ... I just can't use them AACCKKK. And I can't see the wife giving up her life-long city job :wink:
Oh, and when the new owners moved our shop 28 miles out of town it put the kibosh on my ability to paint at work. That and the fact that they wouldn't let us use the shop for personal things as they already had 40+ employees and don't like to share.
That job didn't keep me long I'll tell ya.

Not looking for sympathy, just empathy from others in the same situation. You haven't used your saw for 3 years .... I haven't used mine since the millenium !!!!!!

And BTW nice saw :razz:

Actually I've never used it period. It was a birthday gift thats still at my fathers place. But I do appreciate a good shop and it sounds like you've got a really nice one. Some day I'll get there and then I'll be able to properly set up my ancient Rockwell bandsaw too. But it will be a motorcycle taking up a little bit of space and not a sports car consuming it all.

You can't call a '69 Camaro RS/SS a sports car :lol:
And as for my shop ... it's not like it's Valhalla, but it was my space. I could run over there and build whatever whenever, ya know?
I just looked at some pics of it and can't believe we fit the car in there with all the tools :surprise:

That Rockwell should be good for some nice scrolling if you get a slim enough blade. If not, it's still a skookum saw for almost anything. I had an old full-sized Craftsman that went away to make room for the car, and I never had a chance to use it :sad:

i do feel your pain i had a nice garage with shop in it and moved to a home with a single car garage that i have to keep my company vehichle inn as well as stock for my buisness(home based) i have packed everything in there and only have a 4 foot by 6 foot space for "projects" but garage is unheated and winter is a no go fr working out there. my tank build is being done in a guest room but thats limited as well due to inlaws coming to visit for a month at the end of this month.

so i am trying to do as much as i can until then. and prep stuff for when they leave. on the upside i will have help moving my 90g at the end of april. im so nervous of it but it has to be done

Do you at least get to use some power tools in the guest room? I don't even have the space here anymore.
Our master suite is still a suite, but as for the rest of our house, we can only blame ourselves. The master ensuite is my RO room. The middle bedroom is the wife's 'change room' as we lined the whole thing with shelves and cabinets ( clothes horse for a wife ), the front bedroom became my office ( thank god for my little bit of space, I even had to fight for the closet for my guitar gear ), the recroom became a work-out room that I have to constantly clear to use .... god forbid I'd like a work-out .... recycling, empty boxes, know what I mean? It piles up fast when you turn your back.
But, there still isn't anywhere to use serious power tools without making a bad mess on some kind of carpet :rolleyes:

Anyway, I hope you make out well with your sealing.
As for me, the upside is I have AC in my office, so I'm currently using it's fresh-air feature to blow away the stink of the fresh silly-cone.

You do realize I'm gonna need some pics of the Camaro. I have a 68 in my garage, I get ****ed every time I have to do some wood work and get sawdust all over it.

Camaros
 

Just do what we did with our pair of '69 camaros; Find a car storage facility like the one in Dewinton (small town south of Calgary) to store them. When you want to take one out you call them and they take it off the lift, detach the tenders, and have it ready to roll for when you arrive. Or just sell it to my brother, he's looking for a '69.

I second the car storage facility. Well worth your sanity.

We've got an entire shop In our garage too. But put the cars in as well. When we work the cars go outside.

Although my mom does have green general paint marks on her white car

Sell me the Camaro, problem solved! I feel your pain, back in October I spent a pretty big chunk of change on a co2 laser, only had the opportunity to play with it for about an hour, my shop is currently storing furniture from my mother inlaw.

um, why don't you just buy a 100 buck car cover for the camaro and drive it out of the garage while you need the space.

I had this problem in the old house, add a long table jointer, second router table, and a few others, and had to re-organize the garage everytime I wanted to do something.

when I moved to kamloops we bought a house with a double garage attached and a 30' x 40' shop in the back yard. although I still can't do anything in there as I am still sorting and culling junk from the move :mrgreen:

after that I have to insulate, do a bit more wiring, install the heating system and then drywall. then I will have my shop.

Steve

You're going to have to post pics of the car you know.

Yeah I can relate. But I do have the luxury of parking outside if I need to work on a project.

Paying for storage just wouldn't be worth it. Not being able to take it out on a minute's notice is no fun.
Pulling it out and setting up the equipment turned out to be a pain.
Selling it is NOT going to happen, no matter how much it gets in the way. If the wife ever considered that, I would have her commited :mrgreen:

I don't have any decent shots of her. I gotta take some this summer with my new camera. These are older shots when we first took possession.
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ild/1-Left.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/P1010014.jpg

And when I got tired of fixing the wife's 20 year old Olds, I talked her into buying this 2010 RS. We ended up keeping the Olds anyway.

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...d/DSC00303.jpg

Nice

Thank you.
I'm not a huge fan of the Green, but it's the only one we've ever seen.
I love the Red Jewel Tint. Much nicer than the Yellow or Red they came out with.

Oh it's beautiful! You can store it in my garage for a few years if you need to!:mrgreen:

:lol:

Send me your tools, I will babysit them free of charge :twised: or just suck it up and build a small car port & tarp the car.

I'm just going to have to live with it. The car is in a monitored, secure, heated garage and hasn't seen bad weather since the late 80's. No way am I putting it outside anywhere except when it's in our driveway overnight during the summer. And when it is, my alarmed truck is parked behind it.
I may build a shed out back for a shop. That can be connected to our house alarm as a second zone. Only issue would be the tech cable length. Probably looking at about 75'

Can't you just add onto the existing garage enough room for the car to sit in and leave the tools where they are?

First world problems :lol:

You want to see my toy car? Here's a picture of it:




















































..... At least the nice thing is that it's pretty easy to store an imaginary car. I guess. So there. Nyah nyah.

i live vicariuosly through my company vans complete with fake spinners that someone stole

http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/a...rookie/van.jpg

I fail to see any complainable issue.

Unfortunately, the garage sits right on the alley and the yard beside it is already quite small. Being a rental, I wouldn't want to take the tennants' yard space away.
In a perfect world, I'd have a 4-car in my back yard. Problem solved. Gotta get past the City bylaws and find some cash.

Nice ride Tony. At least it's cheap to run.

I suffer from the car in the garage as well. But being a finshing & cabinet contractor, I have no desire to work in my own garage as well as the every day. I've posted my car for sale for the last 2 years....but I think the ask is high because I still like taking it out those 5-6 times a year. It's a 2001 convertible GT Mustang, with a few goodies in,under, & on. Like wise, since getting it in 04 when it had 69k, I've added very few clicks. It now has 83k, & it's not allowed to go in the rain. Having a car in the garage makes storing tools & kayaks & bikes makes it hard. But man is it shiny.:twised:

I sctually don't suffer from my car being in my garage as I posted earlier. Plenty of space in there (26 X 30) and I'm much more of a mechanic than a wood worker anyway. Don't kid yourself on the color of you car Gregzz4. That green is sweet.

I suffer from toosmallgarageitus as well; two cars, a truck, four motorcycles and both woodworking and metalworking/mechanics tools and equipment requires all of the space I have and then some. My truck has never seen the inside of the garage and I'm tired of sweeping snow and scraping ice and frost.

I have a pending remedy that will partially ease the pain, I'll be adding a third 12'x20' parking bay onto my 24'x32' existing garage. I wanted to go bigger, but that was the maximum I could convince the development appeals board to allow me. Plan is to make the interior ceiling height as high as allowable to accomodate a parking lift. That way when my 79 mustang is finally off the rotisserrie, it can be parked on the lift and raised up to allow my wifes car to park below. Then the space that the mustang currently occupies will become available for workshop space.

Please tell me that's a typo, who in the world does a rotisserie restoration on a 79 mustang?

Every good classic car restorer puts all there cars on a rotisserie to make it easier to restore. My brother in law has 2 and uses them even to paint the bodies.

I agree, but a 79 mustang?

Still considered a classic car and could have some kind of sentimental value to owners.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What this doesn't do it for you?

http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/1979-19...-mustang-1.jpg

That was my very first car that wasnt a POS, loved it!!:biggrin: