Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

A "She Shed" she said, Part Two.

Here's where w decided the second shed will go.

Right now I'm sitting on the couch writing this post while I'm waiting for the contractor to arrive to construct our second shed. Yes, there is a lot of stuff that still has to be moved out of the garage.

While this post follows last week's entry, almost ten months have passed since the first shed was completed. I had only painted it in the last few weeks. It quickly became apparent that one shed was not going to be enough. So the decision was made to have another one constructed.

But it had to be done. Having a garage available for my automotive hobby really forms the basis for my retirement "dreams." Some guys want to move out to "the country." I have spent years listening to many of my co workers telling me how they plan to move out of California. To Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, even Atlanta Georgia. Atlanta?  Somewhere that they could afford to buy a nice house on some land. It's a common dream. My Brother actually moved out to Wyoming to give it a go.

When discussing all of this with the Wife her question is always, "What are you looking for?"

That's a good question. It's not that I don't like my house and neighborhood, even my city. I'm semi retired so I don't have to go to work every day. I only have to deal with heavy commuter traffic occasionally.

My house is not very big, but it's big enough now that I have only one kid living at home. I have my den, which is a triumph and a joy. I don't care how much bigger our house could be, I've got a special space right now. Even if my house was a McMansion, I don't need it.

photo source" McMansion Hell
Not my house!

What I've really wanted for a long time is a garage that I can really use as a shop. The dream of having a big property that I could build a dedicated shop on, is a good dream, but not really necessary. How many cars do I really need anyway? ( A question to ask yourself, you know what your Wife's answer is going to be!)

I know a guy that built a barn on his brother's country property. He had fifteen cars, mostly Mopar muscle cars,  Well only twelve were intact and complete. Six were actually "finished" usable running cars. Three or four were "projects" and the rest were parts cars. His barn was located about an hour from his house. Not quite the best set up. Still he made it work.

Until a divorce put an end to most of his collection. Haven't spoken to him much since.

So the question came up "Why not work with what you have?"

Years ago I used to keep my cars and motorcycles in the garage. Of course we only had two cars at the time.

Somehow if left unattended, the garage will fill up any available space with "stuff."

Once my Wife set up her studio in the house she was happy to help me find a solution to my problem.

I came to the conclusion that if I cut down on the size of my potential car collection I could make do with a two car garage. If Jack Olsen could do it, why not me?

I'll be trying to make maximum use of the space that I have. The goal is to have a flexible and usable space.

It's done. What color will I paint it?

Now that the second shed is built, it sure is filling up quickly!

My plan is to be able to park two cars in the garage on a regular basis. When I have a big job in progress I can park the car in the middle to allow more work space on the sides.

I will detail my garage set up in following posts.