When I bought my home in Florida in 2014, my first project was to get my workbench set up. Unfortunately, the in-progress pictures have been lost in time, but here is the finished product. It is similar to both benches I had in my other homes and was based off of the original from Family Handyman. Those electrical strips have survived for close to 20 years now.

This was a brand new house, so the garage was spotless and we had the epoxy floors done when the house was built (something I had never had and always wanted). The rules every time I have built a workbench like this was that we still need to be able to park the cars in the garage. The space where the wall juts out is about 14 inches so that is what I had to work with. Mind you that the garage door to the wall is only 9 inches. One important thing to note in the picture above is the pitiful excuse I have had for dust collection over the years. That is another relic that is about 15 years old and is all I have ever used for dust collection. That will be changing soon...

The Workbench

I incorporated the same flip up bench style that I have had in my other workshops. It stays up with a french cleat on the bottom and the 2x4's just slide out when I flip it down. The top is made up of (2) 3/4 inch plywood sheets. This is a pic to the left is from when it was new. It looks very used now after 8 years (as seen below). This go around, I had to give up the built in Miter Saw stand. Just not enough room. Something I plan on remedying in my planned renovation. Getting it down from the cabinet and clamping to the top just doesn't cut it anymore.

Garage Cabinets

Then I built some cabinets above the bench for some spare storage. These were loosely done based off of a Family Handyman set of plans. The larger set was done off of those same plans. Having these sit higher up allows for the cars to get in and still have room for other stuff beneath them. These Florida garages are very small relative to other places I've lived. I also installed the stairs to the attic when all was said and done (that was a real pain in the a...

Hidden Garbage Pails

But as with any project that is done a second or third time, I made some improvements. First was the garbage space. We always hated seeing the pails sitting out so I built a couple of doors with a flip up top that can be used for a work surface as necessary. This, of course, comes complete with a bottle opener on the underside for grabbing a beer out of the garage beer fridge when I'm done for the day!

References

I want to give credit where its due. Here are the links to the Family Handyman projects that were the basis for this garage makeover.

Giant DIY Garage Cabinets

Garage Storage System