I'm back

Hey all. I haven't been in here in forever. Kinda lost sight of several goals, but I'm back! I gotta finish up the garage before winter rolls in, at least get it clean. My goal is to try and get all the tools and what not me and my dad have between us into the garage so I can make an art studio in the basement as I'm majoring in graphic design but still want to woodwork. So, I've gotten back on track, starting to workout, starting to practice art, but still have very limited space since my dad has very bad organizational abilities and what not. (I'll have to organize all this paper's for him XD) So it's time to get back and finish fixing up this house! I'd like to be able to have a shop in the garage to encourage him to maybe want to build an old car and we can fix it up together or something. I don't know, he needs a hobby besides just reading. XD Anyways.....

I have a few questions though. Would it be cheaper to buy pre-made shelving, cabinets etc. as compared to wood that would put up with michigan's nasty winters?

and if anyone has some simplistic designs for cabinets that a novice such as myself could make, that'd be appreciated.

Welcome back Kris!

Welcome back, now get back out in that shop

Welcome back Kris...and like Steve said.....get out there and make some Wood chips!

As for shelving. A lot depends what you want to put on the shelves. If it is lumber storage or power tools, I would make them myself. If you are on a budget though, Wal-Mart has some VERY inexpensive shelving made out of PVC, although I would not trust putting any kind of weight on them.

As for cabinets and some sipmple designs, try searching on google sketchup

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/

There are a ton of good designs here in what Google calls their 3D warehouse.

Hope this helps

Welcome back Kris

If you looking to build some shop cabinets with draws you can do it with plywood and using Tom Clarks post on his cabinet design.

Its very very effective and efficient.

See it here


There is a bit of a teaser in doing the math to work out the size but its pretty basic and you can vary it if you like. The design is very material use efficient and plenty strong.

One recommendation i have after having built two units and used them is to make the draws shallower and add more that way. Otherwise things just seem to get piled on each other in the big draws. I actually plan sometime on retrofitting mine with some shallow draws and cutting out the big ones.

Best of luck. Oh and for what its worth home depot has a bunch of $99 kitchen cabinets at the moment but in my view they all mdf so you might wanna think about durability.

Thanks for the info guys. XD