i’m building a garage, so let’s see your well appointed bike garages/man caves or what ever they’re called nowadays 😆

What needs to be fitted……what are the essentials

roof, or your bike will get wet 🙂

Fit an electric shower inside. No more trailing shit in the house. And you can parade around your man cave with your 3 piece suite hanging out….very manly…..

Cheap or 2nd hand fridge. (Fill with beer)
Something to blast out those tunes that the rest of the family hate. (eg: The Fall)
Cheapo work stand from Lidl (rarely used, but lets you pretend you’re good at wrenching)
Cupboard full of components & tools (which you only have the vaguest understanding of)
Aggressive gardening tools (eg petrol strimmers with the ninja-star attachments)
etc
Have fun!

Your own en suite toilet in the man cave. With added bike mag shelf, priceless.

a decent set of dead lock bolts. I fitted these bad boys last week to my roll-over garage door and am really pleased with them. A bargain at just £30 and only took an hour and a half to fit.

Cheap or 2nd hand fridge. (Fill with beer)
needed
Something to blast out those tunes that the rest of the family hate. (eg: The Fall)
full set of separates to go in
Cheapo work stand from Lidl (rarely used, but lets you pretend you’re good at wrenching)
expensive Park will moved out of living room
Cupboard full of components & tools (which you only have the vaguest understanding of)
spare room full of gear to go in
Aggressive gardening tools (eg petrol strimmers with the ninja-star attachments)
many powered dangerous things already owned 😆

Open roof cavity with rafters…

So useful for stashing stuff temporarily (kids garden stuff), and good for rigging up the tent to dry etc etc…

MTB-Idle – Member do those bad boys come as a pair please?

Electric

Proper burgular alarm

Concrete in some ground anchors when doing floor to chain bikes to

I have a quite a large garage which I guess 4 cars could fit in, my biggest regret is the preformed roof trusses, trussless roof would have made a far better attic

Lots decent shelving, I have IKEA stuff bolted to wall.

Good work bench with a vice attached

Depends what you want to use it for

+1 for trussed roof area as oppose flat roof. They suck . I have 2.

Id kill for room in roof to store stuff

I’m having a mono pitch, should be about 1.2 of height x 9.5 long for the never used crap.

bikes have a separate room.

need a bench but have a Record vice

will have power, water and alarm.

+2 for roof trusses keep an eye out for cheap/free planks to use as shelves up in the trusses allows you to keep small stuff up there thus free more space for important stuff(bikes,fridge,flat inner tubes etc 😉

Excessively good racking.

I have stuff rated to crazy weights, then put a few bike tools and parts on it. Justified because it looks better and fitted together really well 😳

I’ll be copying Stoner with one of these http://www.worldofcamping.co.uk/frontier-portable-camping-wood-burning-stove-104194?utm_source=google&utm_medium=merchant once mine is built.

Once I get it finished mine is going to have bike racking, work bench, storage and en suite climbing wall. It does mean we can’t use the main door, but it will be secure as the only other way in is through the dining room

I just went with a bombola for heating my garage .

Was goin begging and takes the chill off super quick. Im mostly only in it for a couple of hours and wouldt bother putting stove on . I recently had a stove going spare but decided against it !

Paint the floor, stops dust and if you paint it something light coloured, it’ll make finding all those dropped nuts & bolts easier.

I’m about to set off on a similar project.
So far I have cast a concrete base with the mother of all gound anchors in it (those of you into Landrovers will know what a NATO towing eye looks like)

Can’t decide wheather to go with concrete blocks or timber/corrugated steel.. Timber/steel I can build myself, if I use blocks I’ll need to get a man in…

Mine will end up aroud 11′ x 14′ and have a worktop with vice, fridge/freezer (old ones from indoors) good quality racking (heavy stuff from Costco) and lights/insulation/heating.
It’ll be good to get all the bike/camping crap out of the garage so I can convert that into man-cave MKII with my lathe/woodwork tools….

Nobody’s mentioned lights yet?

You will need much more than you think if you’re doing anything in the winter. That was the main thing in updating mine. Depending on size – a flouro tube in each corner and more in the middle is a good starting point.

Roof level fluros for general illumination and floor level halogen flood lights for when im working with a spot light shining down on ,my work bench.

Ground anchor only as good as cable used.

Beware having angle grinders lying beside cable…….

Double height at the back of the garage so got loads of storage

Get a good strong door, somebody broke in to my garage last night and nicked 3 boxes of caffeinated gels. I dont know how they sleep at night?

Tracey – are you incredibly short ?

The bottom of the crossmebers to the floor is 6′ 6″

Fully fitted carpet for me, and if it wasn’t stacked out with so much crap I might be able to see it 🙁

Fair enough , must just be the bikes making it look small for some reason.

My favorite and recent edition is an upgraded work bench. Its the old kitchen table and gives me the space I’ve always needed to work.
Good shelves, hooks, tidys, nooks, cupboards etc to make best use of space and storage.

My dream garage would have a wood burner, decent hi-fi, sofa and fridge. But at the moment I’d settle for a roof that didn’t widdle on me and my stuff.

My neighbour has a double garage with 2 lathes, band saw, pillar drills etc. It then goes through to a lobby with a utility room and then behind that is his man pad with plasma screen pc hi fi etc.

All very cool for a 78 year old. And damn handy when you need something machining

Hmm walls are nearly up – it’s quite big 😯

the neighbour has even said “it’s bigger than expected” 😆

this is one end of mine – work in progress im in the process of filing all the crap on the desk into drawers , boxes & bin to aid finding things in future. Was all just stored in a mishmash , and although i could lay my hand on anything i knew i had it was a nightmare to empty everything out to get what i wanted :D.

thats the joys of moving out of my old house in days notice.

the bikes are kept else where. AWAY from the power tools and power – thus allowing me to get the car/van/landrover inside to work on it when i wish.

Here’s mine

It’s a work in progress part of a whole garden re-model.

Needed to build a huge retaining wall first.

Can’t wait until it’s finished!

If I had the choice/opportunity…

On top of a work shop area and a small en-suite (toilet/sink/shower) enough room to park two cars and open the car doors to get out without struggling. Trussed roof for storage, couple of ground anchors in a polished & sealed concrete floor, automatic/electric garage door, side door, main lighting, work bench lighting, electrical sockets both sides of the main door and spaced around the garage, internal garden tap near main door, security lighting and alarm.

Then fit it out with boys toys, industrial shelving, secure storage for your cutting tools that could be used by un-desirable people who want to steal your possessions

Smashing thread.

We are (hopefully) moving to a house with a garage later this year. So I’ll finally be able to move all the bikes out of the tiny 6’6″ x 5ft shed and get to my tools as well.

It’s a late 70s single car garage, and I’m hoping to get bike storage, workshop and a boatbuilding area into it. The boat stuff I’ve done in the past in my parents’ garage – basically a big polythene tent for sanding, spraying and epoxying. 🙂

I’ve been told that one good option is to find someone having a new kitchen fitted, and ask to take away the old carcasses and cupboards for storage.

Any pics of garage set-ups gratefully received.

Work out how many lights and power points you’ll need….then double it.

It drives me crazy that there is just one double socket and one double tube light in my garage.

As already mentioned, good sturdy workbench with a good vice and strong shelving.

For full on geek, build yourself a shadow board for all your bike tools 😀

Mine currently has loads of furniture stored in it so the side door is half blocked and although there are 3 wardrobes in there, I cant put anything in any of them! I have a single 60W bulb which is nowhere near enough and 2 double plugs, but no running water. It is great space to have, but I cant wait to get it all set up so I can use the turbo in there, wieghts, get a punchbag hung from the rafters, get a fridge, get brewing my homebrew, use the dartboard that come with the garage, sweep the floor, get rid of some of the cobwebs. We are hopefully getting rid of the wardrobes in a couple of weeks (although that has been promised since we moved in in April…

definitely a vice and a work bench, its the cheapest \ bestest thing I did to my garage.

and hooks for the wall to hang bikes from. it saves less room than you think but it looks cool.

and no washing machines. I hate that the washing machine is in my garage. It always seems to be on a spin cycle when i am trying to work on stuff. try aligning a brake while listening to clothes going around at 1400 rpm

Man cave spec essentials;

At least 30 Sqm (maximum without planning consent)
Wash bay out front (still to be roofed) with with hot and cold with drain,
log shed ensuite (see below)
Wood burning stove
4 sets of twin fluorescent lights from er… NHS 😆
Solid bench
Big vice
loads of big tools and dangerous power tools for building, bending and making things
Sofa
Beer Fridge
CD player/stereo
Lap top
Loads of bikes to tinker with..

Sorted…

Still keep all the bling in the house though… 🙂

Ah! My Mum recently got a new kitchen fitted. I decided to recycle the old one. Behold, the man cave!

Im pretty proud of it tbh. Im getting a big old vice for my bench and a bar stool/ beer fridge/ heater/ tv…………

Its not finished yet!

Love seeing other folks Garages/Man caves.