The Mews Cottage Workshop

[felixgogo]

Although I started my workshop / garage build some years ago, and documented it on the US Garage Journal forum, I thought it would be of interest to post a quick overview here, amongst other mainly UK workshops.

This was the garage and workshop as found when I first purchased the property. It had been divided into two rooms, as the start of an extension into this space for the kitchen I think:





So firstly that wall had to come down, and a new subfloor was cast. The ceiling had to be stripped, woodworm treated and a new double layer of plasterboard fitted:

 

[felixgogo]

Then all the contents were pushed to the centre and the walls spray painted:





The washing machine and dryer were too big for the kitchen and the hallway / conservatory, so they had to be housed in here as well:

 

[felixgogo]

Then a Eco-tile floor was fitted, over a weed suppression fabric:





A Elfa shelving system was fitted, to house my collection of varied tool boxes and bags:



About this time, I decided to standardise on storage, and chose the Sortimo / Bosch L-Boxx system:

 

[felixgogo]

As the organiser boxes in the L-Boxx range were to expensive for the amount I wanted, small parts were placed in the Screwfix and Stanley organisers:



I also built a tool board over the washing machine area:





I enclosed the Clarke workbench I had purchased years ago, and created an organiser rack, and another tool board. I also put up a few of my antique telephony test gear:

 

[felixgogo]

Enclosing the workbench:





I fitted a GarageVac, which did sterling service as a power tool extractor, but filled the bag up at an alarming rate:

 

[TrimTheKing]

Very cool mate, looks like a good space to work.

That first picture, the walls look damp, did you have to do anything with them or is it just a trick of the photography?

 

[felixgogo]

I added more L-boxxes as they came up on discount:



As this process has taken a few years - the pictures do jump around a bit, but the next job was to do something about the garage door, it had blwon into my car on more than one occasion, luckily hitted the rubber of the tyre, but this luck could not persist, so i decided to go with an insulated roller door from Hormann:

 

[felixgogo]

It was a little damp, but once aired and dried out, it has been fine. These older houses need to breathe, and the PO had just kept the workshop shut up as storage.

Recently I have had a radiator plumbed into the central heating circuit, with the old door it wasn't worth it, but now the new door is insulated and actually touches the floor the heating has made the workshop a pleasure to be in.

I built a Kreg Pocket hole shelf unit for the cleaning supplies:

 

[Rod]

Nice setup but I’m relieved that you said it took a few years [emoji3]

Do you still House your lovely car in there as they are notorious for bringing wetness and therefore rust

Rod

 

[felixgogo]

This summer I added a Bosch GAS 35L to the workshop, replacing a stack of L-boxxes at the end of the workbench:



This took the pressure off the Garagevac, which can now return to car and general workshop floor duties.

As the new GAS had displaced a few L-boxxes, I made a few soffit storage shelves, again using the brilliant Elfa shelving. This is a track version of the Spur brackets, you screw a single track to the wall, and then hang your uprights and brackets from this. This allows you to reconfigure the storage as you wish:

 

[felixgogo]

Hi Rod, Yes the cars live in there, but I try not to use these in really bad weather, so they tend not to be wet when I put them away.





I did briefly have a Carcoon, but frankly now the garage is heated, it is fine in there, the cars stay way above the dew point, and with the Evohome heating system, the garage / workshop has its own heating schedule and temperature setting.

 

[RogerS]

Cracking job, that man. Intrigued by the telephone exchange.

 

[felixgogo]

A quick look around the workshop / garage as it is now:

 

[felixgogo]

Thanks! it's been a few years to get it to this stage, and now I'm doing small jobs to improve.

The Meridian One Option 11 telephone exchange provides me with dial tone and ringing to test my collection of GPO bakelite telephones. I collect mainly 1920's to 1950's, and here is the incoming queue of phones awaiting restoration:



The testers are those used in local telephone exchanges, all working and usable in the workshop.

 

[Malc2098]

Nice job.

My dad was a GPO Telephone engineer. I recognise some stuff.

When I was small, he'd bring me some those tall cylindrical bell batteries and buzzers to play with.

We were the first people in our street to have a 706L.

And would I have seen a pendulum clock like that in a police station I would have worked in, or would they be used somewhere else. I recognise it from somewhere.

 

[felixgogo]

OK, so that's the space, and as this is WoodHaven, I ought to focus on any woodwork I do in there. Now I'm the first to admit, I'm a wood mangler, mainly building stage scenery, which only has to look good from about 25 feet away, so this makes anything I do for home a bit of a stretch quality wise.

A few weeks ago I built a new set of shelf that fitted into a doorway of the closet, the workbench in the workshop was too close to the cars for the size of timber I was handling, and the Bosch PWB 600 workbench in the yard was fine for drilling pocket holes, but handling the construction was tricky, with final assembly happening in the kitchen as the only large enough space with a roughly flat floor:





This really hammered home that the workshop was OK for small items, tweaking and so on, but construction was not really possible in there unless I take the cars out.

So I started to look at workbench options that were bigger than the Bosch workbench, and could be quickly set up in the yard. I looked at Festool MFT, Kreg Cut table, Wolfcraft 2500, Ron Paulk, etc. As I had got into the Sortimo L-Boxx system, I was aware of their Workmo system, which is similar to the Festool MFC, but based on L-Boxx rather than Systainers.

A trawl around the internet and I found an ex-display Advanced model, so this joined the team:





When not is use, the worktop lives in the downstairs toilet on a wall bracket, and the base lives next to the telephone exchange:



It's been very handy - pictured above reconfiguring an old wardrobe into a bathroom cabinet, using the Kreg pocket hole system:



If the weather is not good, I can always pull the car outside and set up inside. However, as-is, I have multiple work bench options.

 

[felixgogo]

Malcolm, The clock is a Gents of Leicester master clock. It would have been fitted into factories, Police Stations, Hospitals, etc. It would have run a number of slave clocks from it around the building.

I have a GPO master clock in the house that would have provided timing to a telephone exchange.

They are nice to collect - and all work, but are a bit too noisy in the house.

 

[Malc2098]

Thanks, I'm pleased I wasn't going round the twist and wasn't making it up.

I'm pretty sure it was in one of the rooms in the Police Station at Slough when I started in 1970 and I recall there being slaves wired to it, clocks that is, not people!

 

[StevieB]

Nice pictures - my Dad was a GPO engineer too, still remember having a portable radio with a big square battery from a road lamp taped to it for power!

Love the lotus 7 :eusa-drool:

 

[edward.visser]

Fabulous job!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[AndyP]

Nice workshop. Did you build the 7 from a kit?

 

[MY63]

Nice workshop and nice cars.
How useful do you find the Kreg jig is it the K4? I have a desk and shelving unit to build for my sons room.
I have one of the smaller jigs and was thinking of upgrading.

 

[RogerS]

Nice workshop and nice cars.
How useful do you find the Kreg jig is it the K4? I have a desk and shelving unit to build for my sons room.
I have one of the smaller jigs and was thinking of upgrading.

It's the difference between chalk and cheese

 

[felixgogo]

The K4 is excellent - I've got one here in HK and one at home in the UK, it's that good. I actually think the K4 is better than the K5, I won't be swapping the K4 out. I' think the clamp on the K4 is more robust.

Adding the base board and the material stops has made it easier to use, as I can now support a board easier, and the board can be clamped to the table with 2 clamps away from the K4 itself.

I find myself using pocket holes for nearly all my construction. Go for it!

 

[felixgogo]

And - no I got the Caterham already built - working abroad so much means I didn't have time for a self build.

Perhaps when I'm home I'll have a new kit one - that's keep me busy.