It’s time for one last effort.
One final attempt to nail this 540 before we tear these freaking ramps out of the garage.
You can call me a quitter, this is not how I’m going down.
There are just too many way to get hurt on Berm Peak to spend another moment on this.
So we’re moving forward.
The garage ramps, if I’m being honest, are a relic from 6 months ago when this was more
space than I ever dreamed of.
As most of you predicted the novelty wore off quick, and we ended up using the storage
under these ramps more than the ramps themselves.
But luckily, they consist of large, flat pieces of wood that are very easy to reuse.
So when all is said and done, we’ll have quite a bit of lumber for today’s project,
along with a surplus of fasteners.
Of course I didn’t go all the way to the floor with the wood panels—that would have
taken an extra 10 minutes.
But after giving this space a good healthy stare, I’m thinking it won’t matter.
As we build a backyard bike park, this shop expansion will need to address the shortcomings
of our bike repair area.
We built this section primarily for bike repair, and it works great for that.
But many of my larger tools have been left without a home, and for woodworking projects
we’ve been using the driveway.
So today’s shop expansion will need to address woodworking, general tinkering, and tool storage.
That part is easy.
Looking back on it, I kind of regret buying these extra toolboxes—said no one ever.
That takes care of tool storage, and some extra workspace, but we can’t buy our way
out of the rest of this project.
We’re going to make the workbench a little deeper because why not?
But to get it to line up perfectly with the old bench is something I have no prayer of
doing by measuring.
So, I’m tacking the backside of the new bench-top to the existing structure, getting
it level, and then scribing new legs for it.
This eliminates guesswork, and ensures that this new structure won’t look like the add-on
that it is.
But you’re probably thinking this bench looks a little short, and that’s actually
by design.
We’re going to build a little shelf on the end sized perfectly for this portable job
site table saw.
By making the table saw flush with the bench, we’ve effectively created a workshop sized
table saw for only $200.
Well not exactly, but we will have a larger area to stabilize wood coming off the backside
of the saw.
I’m also cobbling together an adapter for this vacuum hose, so that it fits on the dust
port of the table saw.
The other end fits any 1-7/8” shop vac, which both of mine are.
I’m also doing this for the miter saw.
This reduces the sawdust by about 75%, which is fine for one or two cuts.
But I’ll still need to open the doors for those high production days.
Before we work on the finishing touches, the Diamondback banner needs to go in the bike
area where it belongs.
I’m liking the symmetry of this new wall layout.
With the overall structure of our shop complete, it’s time to get organized.
One of the great things about all these tool boxes is that we’re gonna end up with a
lot of empty drawers.
That means we have room to grow.
In the future, entire new categories of tools can live here.
And, our miscellaneous hardware is not so miscellaneous anymore, thanks to this organizer
I got at my local hardware store.
We also bought a new tool, a drill press!
Even this inexpensive drill press will greatly increase the precision with which we can drill
holes in stuff.
I already have a few projects in mind.
Because of the sawdust, I’ve positioned our sander right next to the door, and hooked
up a hose for good measure.
And now that we have all our tools set up, we can use them to continue working on the
shop.
When the ramps used to be here, we had an easy way to load and unload bikes from the
overhead rack.
So we need a new way to get up and down the bench.
Since there’s a table saw up here, I’d like to avoid ramps since Drama couldn’t
resist the old one.
Even at my last house I probably climbed on to my workbench at least a few times per week
to reach something up high or set up a camera, so these stairs will have more uses than just
reaching bikes.
But with the loss of our ramps, we need to ride down the stairs to unload bikes.
Not a big deal, but we also lost the ability to ride—back up the ramps.
Well, we definitely lost the ability attempt 540’s, which is probably for the best.
Behold, our new garage workshop, one of my favorite home improvement projects
to date.
I’m gonna assume that very few of you are sad to see the ramps go, since we rarely use
them.
And now we have a fully functioning wood shop just steps away from the forest road.
And with Spring only a month away, that’s gonna come in handy.
If you’re considering a garage reboot this weekend, I left links to a few of the items
we used today.
If you found this entertaining, check out my new channel, Berm Peak Express, where we
take deep dives into more specific topics.
I’m not gonna promise you’ll learn anything though.
Anyway, thanks for riding with me today and I’ll see you next time.