Detaiuling your workspace ....

[Don M]

I know I’ve said that my garage is too small to do any seriousdetailing in it (it is a 1.5 car garage), but I do upon occasion dolight “waxing” in there when the weather doesn’t allow doing it inthe driveway – or it’s so windy that dust blows all over the carwhile I’m trying to apply or remove a “wax.” I can position acar so that I can reach both sides (by hand), and get the rear of thecar (if the garage door is open), but not the front end, unless it’sbacked in. But then, I can’t fully open the doors and there is notenough light (even though I installed a new pair of LED shop lights)to work on an interior.

BTW, I did call a friend to do some repairs around the house, andrewiring the garage was one of those things, so I again have light &power inside the garage. I’m just not used to being on a fixedincome yet, so I ended up overspending this month because of that –DEFINITELY have to be careful not to do that again!

Back to the subject – Some years ago, I cleaned out the garage justenough, so I could park the Camaro inside (Took me two DAYS to cleanout all the ‘crap’ that had accumulated so the car would even fitinside). Little-known secret … I called off work sick those twodays, YES, I was at a point where I would rather clean out thegarage, than go to work

Not a whole lot of “cleaning” was involved, mainly just moving things around and throwing the actual trash away.

Yesterday however, I went the extra mile. I moved the car out of the garage, and went to town on the garage. I moved EVERYTHING away from the wallon the right side of the garage, then took my leaf blower (the job was took big for the air compressor), and blasted everything –leaves, dirt, cobwebs, etc. away from the walls and out the door.Then I took the shop vac and picked up what I couldn’t get with theleaf blower. Now that the right side of the garage was CLEAN, Isorted the ‘trash’ from the ‘keep’ things and put up pegs tohang some of the keep items along the walls, junked the rest, thenreorganized all the remaining stuff, so that it’s neat and tidy.Now nothing sticks out more that 3” from the wall and gives me justover a foot more space on that side, when the car is in the garage.

Just doing that, took me OVER 3 hours, and after taking the dogs for awalk and exercising my legs that day, my legs were DONE!

All in all, I ended up getting ¾ of the garage where it needs to be. I found tools and sockets, wrenches, ratchets – all sorts of things that had been missing so long, I had forgotten I’d lost them.

Next up is going to be the hard part, the last ¼ of the garage. Mainly because there is a lot of my wife’s stuff stored on that side …flower pots, a fertilizer spreader, etc. Things she hasn’t used oreven SEEN in years because her back won’t let her do much in theway of gardening/landscaping anymore. That, PLUS finding room for,and organizing all of my detailing stuff AND all the tools I foundwhile cleaning (after deciding what tools I don’t need and am goingto donate to our Church’s rummage sale).

I have also been doing continuous laundry since last night, after discovering the tote that I kept all of my older (not suitable forpolishing/waxing paint – but still serviceable) microfiber towels had been uncovered, and ALL the towels were coated in leaves, cobwebsand dirt (it it a BIG tote).

I guess the moral to this story is to make sure you keep your WORKSPACE, clean and organized. It’s SO much nicer and easier whenyou know where all your stuff is, and it’s CLEAN.

The included picture shows the “after” results of my work yesterday. If you look in the right-rear corner, you will see the cabinet is piled with boxes as is the table under the window. This is ALL tools and things I have to think really hard about what to do with.

When I do finally finish, I will either post a panoramic picture of theinterior, or a short video clip, panning around the inside of the garage.

 

[Eldorado2k]

That’s very awesome. It’s crazy how much time passes by before getting around to properly reseting work areas like this. It’s so satisfying once you’re done isn’t it?

Earlier this week I cleaned out my main cabinet because there was so much clutter and I couldn’t fit anything else in there. I wound up throwing a few things away including alot of nearly empty bottles and moved lesser used products to another spot where they can continue collecting dust.
Now I I’ve got so much more room again and it’s mainly stuff I actually use.

 

[Don M]

That’s very awesome. It’s crazy how much time passes by before getting around to properly reseting work areas like this. It’s so satisfying once you’re done isn’t it?

I'm NO WHERE near done yet, LOL. Although I did just clean out the left corner near the garage door tonight. I used a wall-mount garden hose holder to wrap up and hang my extention cord, and a screw-in hook to hang my air hose for the compressor. Both of them now are neatly stored. I also built a slip on holder for my ladder, that holds it securely to the wall, so it WILL NOT fall and it lays flat against the wall, as well as a bunch of sweeping with the shop vac to get the leaves & cobwebs, etc off the floors and the walls.

Here is a pic of what I did tonight and of "The Rest" of the garage, where the hardest work will be, as it includes figuring out what to do with a huge, honking 220v window A/C unit (and all HER "gardening" stuff, which she hasn't seen or used in a decade or so - she has a spine disorder, and just can't do it anymore). So I have to figure out how to neatly store the stuff, so it's out of the way (or give it away, or something) and 4 tires that I never really needed, but will probably have to find a place and pay them to take the tires.

 

[Eldorado2k]

Do you have to empty out that canister often? I’ve always looked at that vac and thought the canister was too small.

 

[Don M]

Do you have to empty out that canister often? I’ve always looked at that vac and thought the canister was too small.

It's a 4 gallon, 5.0 hp Ridgid vac and I mainly use it to sweep the floors in the house (hardwood floors - LOTS of dog hair). but I don't really have to empty it very often. I actually empty it more often NOW, since I got the compressor fixed, because I think it's really cool blowing out the filter with the compressor. The FIRST time I used the compressor on it, I could really FEEL the increase in suction from actually CLEANING the filter and not just brushing it off. AND I realized the filter is actually BLUE, not gray or white - which in the Ridgid World, is the indicator that it's designed to catch the ultra-fine dust particles.