Cabinets for the Garage (Garage Series)

So after I installed the slatwall, things were looking better. But yeah, things were still not as organized as they could be. Plus, I really wanted a workbench of some sort for small projects.  So again it was Alibaba to the rescue, and I was able to order a full set of garage cabinets directly from the Chinese factory, for a very low cost (a fraction if I bought from the USA, or any other country).  And again, similar to what I had encountered when researching slatwall, the closest I could get to garage cabinet sellers here in Japan were cabinets for clothing (locker room cabinets) or super industrial looking ones which were not only expensive (I am sure well made) but not in the color I wanted nor of the dimensions that would fit nicely in the garage.

So after placing my order, my garage looked like this:

But when the factory told me that the cabinets had arrived in Japan and were ready to be shipped out of customs and directly to me, I hustled and cleaned up the areas where I wanted to have the cabinets.

First was this area along the shorter wall:

As well as this area in front of my first floor office:

BEFORE

I figured this could work as a space for a bench. Maybe with some cabinets.

AFTER

So you can see I was already experimenting with the slatwall accessories (I eventually decided not to hang any bicycles here).

And then lo and behold, TWO 2-ton trucks arrived and unloaded a bunch of boxes. Here are photos of the ones they kindly placed INSIDE the garage....

And then luckily my buddy Dino came over to help me unwrap/unbox everything.  He actually enjoyed using my hammer to yank out countless nails as he dismantled the wooden framing. He said it was therapeutic!

Showing off his nail extraction technique

After we unpacked everything, the cabinets were preassembled, so it was all about lining it all up, then making small adjustments to make sure it all looked good.

Here I am wrapping the steel leg pieces with soft tape to prevent scratches on the floor...

After the main cabinets were set up, then it was time to set up the work bench. It has a nice back board plus overhead cabinets, which required some assembly.

I'm smaller so I of course squeezed back to screw the cabinets onto the frame. Dino is holding it all up with his fingers

And the final result of the workbench:

Later I got the lighting to work and added some items to the pegboard.

The tall cabinets lined up nicely along the shorter wall behind the door.

Still alot of work to be done, check out that mess on the right.

And then basically put all of my cleaning/detailing items into the cabinets... it's still a work in progress, but from left to right, it's 1) cleaning materials, 2) drying items, 3) polishing items, and 4) other stuff such as spare parts, lubricants, paints, etc.

With the smaller cabinets taking up space in the garage where I would normally park (and leaving my vehicles outside!), I decided to hurry up and finish adding slatwall on TOP of these tall cabinets, and then hauled up the smaller cabinets for even more storage space. Of course, I bolted them to the ALC walls and also used those anti-earthquake poles that fit between furniture and the ceiling. 

And the workbench now? Well as you can see I currently have several projects underway...

But indeed it's very nice having a bench and tool cabinets to store all of the small stuff one accumulates over the years, in a somewhat organized fashion.

And yes, this mess is anti-thema to my OCD, so it will get cleaned up... eventually! Anyone have any suggestions?

I DO still have other garage stuff planned for the future, but right now I'm happy with this set up.  I also have a lot of stuff to get rid of as well, because for far too long I've been accumulating various parts and materials so I'm gradually unloading them as we speak. Either trash or Yahoo Auctions or send to people who want/need it (maybe I should have a list somewhere?)

Next post - back to the car's interior! Stay tuned, post coming soon!