Looking through my old sketch book, I came across this garage workbench I designed for my old house in Arizona. This was my first time thinking about building a workbench. I wanted a workbench that didn't take away from parking the cars in the garage. This design was perfect and is the basis for the 3 workbench's I've built since then.

After finding the sketch book, I couldn't find any pictures so I went back to look at my old house on Zillow and found that they still had my garage shop and storage and they still looked awesome! This was my first attempt at a major project and I was pretty proud of my efforts. Below are some of the pics. I am an avid subscriber to the FamilyHandyman magazine and have been for well over a decade. What you see in the pictures were direct inspirations/instructions from their magazines at the time. I'm pretty sure I built these around 2006.

The Workbench

The Workbench was my favorite build. It was modified from a Family Handyman workbench. There are 2 work spaces that can be raised and locked in place with 2x4's and a track to keep wood straight while I use the miter saw. They must not have liked the roll out drawers I built to roll under the bench because I see those are gone. I took the roll out bench for the table saw with me (my table saw was still on it until it was recently replaced). The pull out screw organizer finished it off. I loved this workbench so much, I made a version of it again in both homes that I have lived in.

Cleat Wall System

The wall surrounding the peg board is a cleat system that I also had seen on Family Handyman. This was again modified from their original design. At the top of the wall is a couple of shelf brackets that I used to hold bigger scrap pieces of 2x4's, etc. up and out of the way. Lower down you can see a regular shelf using smaller shelf brackets. The mess on the bench is a variety of other hooks that were hanging on the cleat system holding up a bunch of that other junk laying around in the picture. The fold down table was about 4'x3'. You can also see the miter saw sitting lower down so that the top is parallel with the table.

Peg Board/Extension Table

I had always wanted a peg board. But I really hated it after a while. I didn't do one of those again. The flip up on this side of the miter saw was one of my favorite features. It provided a great small work area when I didn't need the big one on the other side. The table saw tucked in under the opening on the left. This set up was just wide enough to get the saws tucked and with the tables down, I could still get 2 cars in the garage.

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

Garage Cabinets

On the back wall was another proud build based off of a Family Handyman recipe. These were monster cabinets with sliding doors. I was extremely proud of these two major garage projects. I learned a lot from that project and have gotten better because of it.