Monday, January 7, 2013

My Garage

 So, I'm in my garage working on my car and along comes the friendly neighborhood OSHA inspector. He walks right in and immediately trips on his own feet but claimed it was because of the pile of parts blocking access to my tools.

"Be Careful!" I tell him. But he says nothing for a minute or two as he looks around and writes some things down on a little note pad. "This place is a mess." he finally says. "Your work bench is cluttered, You can't get to your tools, your window is half blocked and you have a pile of crap in the middle of your work space."

"Can I see some I.D. Please." I ask the guy. He continues, "You have too many hardware bins with multiple items that need sorting, Your vise is in the wrong spot on the bench and for heavens sake put the bench grinder on a pedestal stand and gain some area on the bench."

"Who are you?", I ask.  "I'm afraid I need to fine you a 6 pack for all these infractions. You're lucky I'm willing to overlook your blatant misuse of pegboard. Simply awful."

So the guy rips off a page from his note pad, hands me a list of the infractions, picks up some beer and promptly leaves muttering something about being back for a re-inspection or more beer. I'm stunned, speechless really. I would have tried to stop him from leaving if I didn't know he was right. My garage work space was a mess. Well I did something about it! Check the photos below for the transformation.




Before - I can't easily get to all the tools in my box any my "Tower O' Hardware"  is half blocked by stuff. There's tool boxes, a  passenger side door, my air cleaner and other stuff down there.


Yeah, the bench needs to get cleared and I need to move the vise and the grinder. The pegboard really needs a sorting out.


I cleared the pile, moved the tool box and the hardware. I purged the pegboard of unnecessary stuff.


After! I built a cabinet for storage, cut back and organized the pegboard and built a pedestal for the grinder. There a much better work flow in the Garage now and a better vibe in general. 




Where the welder is now was a book shelf that was collecting, well.... lets say "Stuff". I sorted that out and what was kept is in the new cabinet on the wall over the bench.


Another shot. This wall didn't change, just the welder and the Mopar sign moved.


A panoramic shot of the garage.




4 comments:

DonC1965 said...

Looking good Roger. Having things organized inspires us to do a better job.

At work I have my area and tools organized using the 5S / Lean manufacturing concept.

Of course at home my garage is a mess. It's more of a storage facility than a work space.

We can only aspire to the pinnacle, that mythical place known as "cliff's garage"

RogerK said...

I don't think I'll ever get to the level of "Clif's Garage"! "Organized Chaos" is what I'm going for with my garage.

Gary Scalf said...

Great clean up. You'll be able to find stuff now... maybe

I really like the hood on your 'cuda! Where did you find it?

RogerK said...

Gary, I made it.

http://www.earlycuda.org/tech/cudahood.html