ImprezaDrvr

Wifey and I are looking into a move in the next 6 months or so and we'd be moving into a place that we'll be renovating and updating. We're gonna build a detached oversized 2-car garage to make up for a lack of storage in the house itself, and we're putting a bike shop on the garage as well. I've pretty much got a clean slate, short of having a third garage bay. Would love to include storage for bikes in the shop as well, but the garage will probably be big enough to store most of our bikes.

So, with a clean slate, what would you do? Scale? Layout? I wanna hear as many suggestions and potential pitfalls as I can.

Avalanche325

I would go to some LBSs and look at how they are set up as far as their wrenching areas go. You will probably see some "must haves" and some "what not to do" ideas.

aadhils

You can start with a table and truing stand...

toomanybikes

An area approximately the size of a single car garage will give you lots of room.

HAve it built with 10 foot ceilings so that you can store your bikes up high, hang them from the roof where they will be completely out of the way, they can not get scratched or damaged. A 10 foot ceiling gives you full 7 foot head room under the bikes where they are hanging.

You can put in your trainer, a workbench, tool boxes etc and you have lots of room.

I am a big fan of storing the bikes UP high where they are out of the way.

San Rensho 

I would start with a a work bench at a comfortable height for sitting on a stool, my knees hurt if I stand too long (flat feet), as well as standing up. I would use a white plastic top on the bench for visibility, and put a 3/4- 1 inch beveled edging all around to prevent little parts from falling into the black holes that lurk just past the edges of work tables.

The only tool I would mount on the bench would be a vise, I would have a separate wheel truing station, parts washing station and separate grinder/polisher.

I would put a pegboard on the wall for specialty bike tools and "most used tools" e.g. 3 way 8/9/10 socket, 3 way allen, screwdriver, pliers etc. I would try to keep it as simple as possible, putting out the tools that I know I will always be using. That whitworth tap for Sturmey Archer axle hubs would not be one of them.

I wrench on cars also and have gotten used to tool boxes with dedicated drawers, e.g., one drawer for different types of pliers, one for hand wrenches, one for sockets etc., so I would put the tool box on a movable cart near the bench. I only color code 10 and 13 mm wrenches and sockets. Mine are always (alright, usually) in order so I just count up or down for the one I need.

A sink would be nice and of course, a killer sound system and a mini fridge are absolutely necessary.

Have fun, I envy you!

bostontrevor

On the pegboard, outline the tool profiles when hanging so that you can tell at a glance which tools have not been put away and find them. You'll see many shops are setup this way. I think that's probably the best advice, go see how the mechanics bay at a bike shop is setup and do something like that.

Avalanche325

Make sure you seal the floor. A bare concrete floor can be swept a million times and you will still fill a dust pan. There are some nice floor paint systems out there.

The white top for the workbench is a good idea for cleanliness and seeing small parts. I would also have a hardwood area for heaver work. Like if you need to use the old 2lb calibration tool. That is also a good spot for the vice and maybe a drill press. For occasional use, Harbor Freight has some very inexpensive ones. Replacable benchtops would be an idea for long term if you are picky.

mrbertfixy

my local lbs has 2'x2' ridged rubber mats on thier workbench so that small screws/bearings don't roll all over the place.

Rev.Chuck

Lights, Lights, Lights. Seriously, get some lights, lots of lights. Flourescents are best for the amount of heat they put out, the amount of light, and the current draw, but I would have a few incandescents as well. I use a bunch of the cheap commercial flor. fixtures and a track with a couple of directable spots. The next thing is outlets. There never seems to be one near where you are working. So get them all around.
Next, build a nice big table, solid as you can and put the biggest vice you can afford on it. Put shelves above the table but not attached to them or they will shake when you use the vice or rock the bench. Set up some good storage shelving as well. Get a roll around table or cart. They are real handy when you have a bunch going on or are not near the big bench. For a stnd if you can swing it get a one arm shop stand(The kind you see in a shop, with the big steel floor plate. If you need the room get a pro style fold up stand. I would not get the bench mount unless you like having limited access to the bike you are working on. The bench mounts alos tend to be to low for a lot of stuff and they need to be bolted to a heavy, heavy table if you do any frame alignment. There are many little things, that I can not think of right now, but I will put them up if i think of them. Oh yeah, 220 outlet because you never know when you will need one.

DCCommuter

How much are you really going to be working on bikes? A lot of these ideas seem like overkill for a home shop. I "support" a stable of eight bikes for myself, my wife, and the kids, and I do pretty well with a table, a workstand, a shelf for lubricants and cleaners, a box for spare parts, and a 2'x4' sheet of plywood nailed to the wall with my tools hung on it. My toolset is based on a "complete" kit I got from Nashbar for about $50, plus assorted things I picked up along the way.

Two things that make a much nicer work area: 1. Good lighting. I go crazy trying to work in poor light. 2. A clean floor. There's nothing more annoying than dropping a small part and then having to clean it again because it picked up a pound of junk off the floor. It's also a lot easier to find things when you drop them if the floor is clean. I guess this also goes for the table and anywhere else you're working.

A lot of bike maintenance is cleaning, and I generally do that in the driveway to avoid dirtying the garage.

roadfix

Yes, I agree with the good lighting bit. That's next on my 'improve' list. Many times, I find myself waiting til daylight and opening up my garage door just so I can see what I'm working on.

Old Hammer Boy

My reply doesn't deal with the tools or workbenches, etc. you'll need, but I will tell you about some things I did when we built our house. I can honestly say there is nothing I would change about the space.

I don't know how large (small) your budget is, but my shop is right off from a room with a scrub sink where I often wash myself or some part, etc., check for innertube leaks, etc. It's also nice to have a toilet close by. I have heat and an evaporative "swamp" cooler, all of which makes for a great work environment whether it's hot or cold. We also have an intercom out there so my wife can call me for chow.

I painted the floor with two coates of gray epoxy and really am glad I did. It makes for such easy clean up. I also keep some rubber mats under my work areas, so if a part drops, it is less likely to break or roll away. You can purchase this mat material at Lowes by the foot. I made cabinets with doors so everything stays nice and clean no matter how dusty things get. I also do woodworking. My next chore is to finish sand the sheetrock seams and paint all wall and ceiling surfaces. It's a 3-car garage with another dedicated, partially walled-off shop bay, so it equals a 4-car size. It will be a lot of work to prep and paint all of those surfaces. I also have running water in the garage and a floor drain so I can wash my bikes any time of the year. Sometimes I come into the house...

dedhed

I've found with any garage/shop figure out how much space you think you need...then double it.

Brian

A sink/parts washer would be high on my list. I like clean parts, and I like to go into the house with clean hands. Now, I have to stop at our laundry room on the way in. Music is good too.

Number one shop tool? A big magnet. Disc brake shims and the small screws from shifters always seem to get lost on my floor. A big magnet would help a lot.

That's my 2 cents.

jimmythefly

Set up your workbench opposite your bike repair stand, so you stand between them when working on a bike. I've moved my bench and stand around alot trying to get it right, and this definitely works the best (surprise! this is how the LBS is set up too).

I second the motion for a small rolling cart or tool chest, maybe the height of a stool, that you can position near your stand for small parts, holding old baking pans to catch fork oil, etc.

Your workbench top shouldn't be too deep, otherwise reaching for hanging tools can get annoying (if you use tool drawers, this is not really a consideration). Make sure you can get to the backside of any bike in your stand easily.

Leave a clear path from your stand to the door, and from your bike storage to the door, otherwise you'll end up being annoyed every time you want to take a bike out to ride. Sink, outlets, lights, phone, radio are all good things.

MattP.

Yes on all of those. I wish I had a sink in my garage I also wish I had some real speakers... And YES on the big magent. I think they are called "cow magents" there quite big, but not to big. Perfect for getting all of the ball bearings out of a hub

Brian

On the plus side, our laundry is right near the garage, and it's got a big double stainless sink. My wife is used to seeing all sorts of bike parts in there.

seely

Best setup I've had so far is some old vanity cabinets I rescued from the trash mated to a peice of scrap formica countertop I got at Home Depot for $50 which they even cut down to size for me. Built a frame behind the vanity and put a good sized peice of pegboard over the frame to hang all the wrenches and tools. Bolted a vice and a truing stand to the countertop on opposite sides and voila, all-in-one self-contained shop that rivals the setup I have had at any shop I've worked at. For lights I have overhead incadescents and then a two-light stand.

ImprezaDrvr

Plumbing is one that's going to depend on cost. I have no idea how much it will add given that the garage/shop is going up in the backyard where there's not plumbing already.

Someone asked how much I'll really be using it. Well, given that I don't have a perpetual honeydo list, I spend a lot of evenings putzing around on bikes. It's rare for me not to have some kind of project going with one of mine or Wifey's bikes. So, I need the space. Plus, it's going to be a multipurpose shop as time goes on. Hub for car maintenance and the like, plus home to pretty much anything else I find myself doing involving tools. And owning a home lends itself to such projects. So I'll spend a decent amount of time there.

I've got a good Craftsman toolchest on wheels. Right now, all tools are in it, but a pegboard will go up in the new shop and open up a lot of room in the chest for better organization. I've got spare parts in the lowest two drawers and they're a little tight. I like the idea of having some shelving somewhere for stuff like that.

Looking at LBS and trying to scale it for a home shop is tough, hence my query here to folks with home shops.

It's also gonna be the home base for car projects and maintenance. The garage itself needs good lighting, and certainly the shop does. Hadn't thought of that in exact terms.

What I have in my head is a 12' by 12'-ish space with a bench on one side and a stand (probably folding, maybe anchored) on the other with bikes on a wall between. How high I can go depends on the aesthetics of the roofline. I don't need to get all of the bikes in the shop, but I'd like to get 2-4 on a wall or up high. If that won't work, then the oversized garage gets more. I'll have a pegboard up above a work bench, where I'll anchor a table vice. Hadn't thought about keeping the depth so that I can reach the pegboard. Good call there. LBS I worked in outlined their tool positions on the pegboard, makes sense. Separate wheel station seems like a good idea as well, given that the workbench isn't going to be gargantuan. I need to draw it out, but I'm seeing a standing workbench and a sitting workbench along one wall. The standing will have the vice and be separate from the sitting, which will basically be the truing and wheelbuild station. Pegboard all along the side. Toolchest on the opposite wall, protable stand there or in the center. Probably a sink at either end of the bench but again that depends on the cost of running plumbing in. Bathroom sounds nice, but we don't have the space in the yard to make this thing big enough for that. It's a really deep yard, but we want to have some of it left after this goes in. Eventually, my goal's to put a very small flat panel in it somewhere (not 2", but small nonetheless). If we redo our entertainment system in the next couple of years I'll take the bookshelf speakers, receiver and CD changer that we have now and put them in the shop. In the meantime, a boombox will be fine. It doesn't have to be perfect from the start, especially in terms of accessories like electronics.

Thanks for the suggestions, keep 'em coming.

Picshooter

It's cool to have choices, to make it your special place. I built a 12 x 20.Full drywalled and insulated. I was given 18' of kitchen cabinets from a remodel. The top is a double layer of 3/4 plywood. I put masonite on top of that. The cabinets allow a lot of storage. I prefer my tools in a rollaround. I also have a smaller 3 drawer box on the bench for bike specific tools. Personally I do not like pegboard. It stems from my years as an auto and marine tech.I have a small parts washer on a rolling cart. Compressor too. Another wall has two closets that store home tools. Saws, routers etc. in one and lubes and misc in the other. I built a nice rolling workbench for other projects.
I use a folding workstand. Although a bench mounted Park could show up someday. Good lights, stereo.
Being in Florida a AC is a necessity. Along with sturdy locks

ollo_ollo

When I built our house I included a 28' x 28' attached garage set up to hold 2 cars with the rest of the space for workshop & stationary power tools. It is well lit,fully insulated, sheetrocked & heated. You probably don't need heat in AZ but air conditioning & good ventilation will make your shop more useable.

ImprezaDrvr

Heat's necessary in this part of AZ, it's not all like Phoenix (thank God), but the shop's going in Oklahoma. I've got a small space heater and I figure a window a/c unit off of a back window of the shop should do just fine in the summer. Thing I'm struggling with is the size. I'd like to avoid a full third car size if possible. With a relatively shallow workbench with pegboard over it I'll have more room for the workstand in the middle. I'm going to rescue cabinets from the kitchen, which we're gutting. Right now we've got one four bike floor rack that puts two on either side. It takes up a decent amount of space against a wall, as it needs to be far enough out to allow for getting the bikes off of the back. We'll have two of those. I'll also have a workbench in the garage for when I'm wrenching on a car. I'm envisioning the bike workbench against a short wall with a window over it and pegboard around the window. Put a wheel station at the end of the workbench, lower so I can sit on a stool and build a wheel. Cabinets along one long wall, probably over counter for most of the length and undercounter for half of it or so. May end up putting an air compressor at one end of the cabinets, probably the end closest to the workbench. Back wall will have window a/c. I might put an old TV out there with some rabbit ears, but a stereo is virtually a must. Stereo could easily go behind me, but TV would need to be nearer the front. Maybe on a cabinet that's running along the long wall. Might offset the door between the shop and garage and put bike storage along that longer wall. I'll have plenty of space even if that works out.

Just brainstorming again. Contract goes to the architect today and the garage is the first thing going in, so I want to have at least the dimensions ready to go.

neil0502

I'm actually glad that this thread got/gets resurrected.

My wife and I are headed out next Wednesday to finalize our decision about a new home in Northern Colorado. Mountains, smaller community, (much) lower cost of living, did I say mountains? I'll also finally be able to talk intelligently about studded mtb tires without people laughing

For the first time in my adult life, I'll have a garage and a basement -- 1,000sf, unfinished. It's gonna' be fun. If I can pull it off, I'll work with a local charity to fix up the bikes for needy kids. The ideas on this forum/this thread have given me lots to work with.

Brian

Neil, we're heading to Utah in a bit over a month. Same deal. Mountains, lake, garage and basement. This time next year we can swap tire suggestions.

fmw

Roger that. My shop is in the basement and I keep a flashlight on the bench all the time because I need it!