Die Garage der Schande

[RobFrost]

Thanks everyone for your words of encouragement.  I might as well get over and done with and show you the mess.  A word of warning - as you look at each picture, you may hear the soundtrack to the shower scene from Psycho running through your head…
 

So this is the entrance… so far so good.



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[RobFrost]

Stepping inside… ok, that’s a bit messy.  And there appears to be a 911 floor blocking the road.


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[RobFrost]

Turn around and… OMFG





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[RobFrost]

The biggest piece of clutter is a large quantity of hardwood left over from fitting out my daughters' Wendy House.



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[RobFrost]

It's remarkable how attached we become to the built environment.  When my daughters were about 4 and 6 I got rid of the only piece of real estate they ever owned - a plastic Little Tikes wendy house.  They loved making pretend cups of tea and mud pies in there, we would play peep-o through the windows and I would go round opening all the windows as they told me off like I was really naughty and closed them again from the inside.  But eventually it became infested with a plague of enormous wood lice and fell out of use.

 

One day I sold it on eBay, and when it was taken they were so upset to say goodbye, for of all our great memories, that they were very cross with me (only for like 5 years though).  I promised I'd build them a proper Wendy House, but I had a lot on at work and some health problems came along so it didn't happen quickly.

 

We had a dilapidated 50 year old shed at the bottom of the garden - I began to notice decorations appearing - nails in the door with hearts hung on.  The word "LOIS's shed" on the door.  My tools would make their way out there and wood shavings collected on the floor.  It turned out she was whittling Harry Potter style wands out there for her and her friends, out of my offcuts of mahogany and oak.  Only these wands would have been much more effective than any found at Hogwarts.  A gang of schoolchildren would have easily beaten Lord Voldemort to a pulp with these massive great clonking sticks - they were like rounders bats.

 

Anyway...  propelled by the guilt only a father of girls can feel, I did eventually build them the wendy house they pestered me for.  We actually call it The Wendy House - in reality it's probably more house than wendy. It's designed to serve them up until they leave home - and beyond.  I think they did okay out of it.



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[RobFrost]

So what's this got to do with the garage? Well the workenches pictured earlier are designed to sit one either side of a table saw.

And huge areas of the garage are taken up with a job lot of oak panelling and antique Cuban mahogany I picked up as a job lot to fit out the (now finished) wendy house. As it worked out, I purchased about 10x of wood, for a job that required x.

In fact the garage simply can't be used for welding until fully cleared because it needs thoroughly purging of sawdust and wood shavings in order to be fire safe.





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[RobFrost]

So the aforementioned shed has recently been demolished to make way for a larger one, which will be 16ft by 8ft - about double the old one. I was surprised how emotional it was to flatten it. The hope is I can move garden implements, woodworking tools and that all important hoard of hardwood up there to make room in the garage for a Porsche.

Here's the area cleared for the shed beyond The Wendy House.

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[Simon Rudge]

You have full sympathy and support from the forum.

I am a sinner, now in respite/remission. Garage now only has car, motorbike and 2 brooms in it (on show) Everything else is in cupboards with doors closed. Floor has been tiled, walls painted, new lights and a fancy electric door.

Now bored.

PS, 3 days after I tipped about 6 boxes of previously treasured assorted fittings, nuts and bolts etc. in the skip at work, I had to climb in it and root about looking for an old damaged fitting that I needed for a pattern. At least I knew where it was!

[gridgway]

I had a Caterham exhaust support bracket in my toolbox from when I last owned a caterham in about 2004 (spares needed on tour are exhaust support bracket, clutch and throttle cables). I cleared out my toolbox and chucked it out about 3 weeks before I accidently bought my current Caterham in a red-wine fuelled collecting cars incident on hols!

[911hillclimber]

Rob, that is all a terrible sin!
Get a plan in your head and set a time scale too.
Find some friends and buy some gloves for all and get stuck in.
A BIG skip is essential for fast progress.
And lots of beer and pizza to bribe enough souls.

[Ignatzcatz]

Yes Rob, definitely order the skip, a big one.

[gridgway]

I'm in the process, albeit really slowly of gathering 20 years worth of stuff to dump that we've accumulated being in the current house. One of the problems I have is that a good but now distant friend used to share my garage and I have a lot of his stuff left. Some is very useful (engine stand, compressor, press, tools). Some is just surplus like engine stand #2, lots of assorted Caterham parts (from the generation after mine) including a complete, but dismantled 1600 k-series (that went bang in some way iirc) and some is junk/excess from many previous projects of his. Definitely lots of inertia to sorting that lot out!

[RobFrost]

I'm in the process, albeit really slowly of gathering 20 years worth of stuff to dump that we've accumulated being in the current house. One of the problems I have is that a good but now distant friend used to share my garage and I have a lot of his stuff left. Some is very useful (engine stand, compressor, press, tools). Some is just surplus like engine stand #2, lots of assorted Caterham parts (from the generation after mine) including a complete, but dismantled 1600 k-series (that went bang in some way iirc) and some is junk/excess from many previous projects of his. Definitely lots of inertia to sorting that lot out!

I'll take the engine stand and presses. They might come in useful one day.

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[gridgway]

I'm in the process, albeit really slowly of gathering 20 years worth of stuff to dump that we've accumulated being in the current house. One of the problems I have is that a good but now distant friend used to share my garage and I have a lot of his stuff left. Some is very useful (engine stand, compressor, press, tools). Some is just surplus like engine stand #2, lots of assorted Caterham parts (from the generation after mine) including a complete, but dismantled 1600 k-series (that went bang in some way iirc) and some is junk/excess from many previous projects of his. Definitely lots of inertia to sorting that lot out!

I'll take the engine stand and presses. They might come in useful one day.

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I'm keeping the press Rob, and planning on selling the engine stand for £40, so you are very welcome to it if the price is ok?
Graham

[RobFrost]

I'm keeping the press Rob, and planning on selling the engine stand for £40, so you are very welcome to it if the price is ok?
Graham

The price is great. Part of me said "I want that useful stuff - it'll come in handy when I put those E cams in". Another part of me was just joking because I'm trying to clear out my clutter! Buying the engine stand only is a compromise I can work with!