My First Garage

So I’ve been sharing some of my garage ideas, and now it is time to tell a little bit of the back story:

This is where I do most of my stuff - but it doesn't look like this anymore

A bit about me. I’m the son of a hardware store owner. I’m an ex-biochemist, turned wedding photographer – I know, quite a career change. Someday I might explain all that, but as we all know, it’s a different story (and best told over some cold beers). Growing up, I spent a lot of time in my Dad’s detached 2-car garage in Northern California. He had a True Value store back in the ’70′s , and went out of business in the early ’80s when the big box stores began to come around. I can still remember the smell of that place – a combination of cigarettes (you could smoke in there), chain saw oil, and old paper is how I remember it.

Weekends were spent in the 2-car garage. There was never any room for cars inside. It was full of tools, house projects, and extra wood. There was a big chest freezer that doubled as a workbench, and as a place I could fold my newspapers before delivery every afternoon. Me and my friends made forts, go-carts, fixed bikes, and even made a nail gun that could put a 4-inch spike in the wooden garage door across the street.

It was a true tinkerer’s garage, in every respect of the word.

When I moved out when I was 18, it was 22 long years before I would have a garage of my own. Along the way, I collected canvas bags of sockets, plastic bins of power tools, and tackle boxes full of wrenches. I never took the time to invest much in ‘real tools’ because my wife and I were always moving in and out of apartments. We all know what a pain it is to move tools, right?

Fast forward to 2 years ago. We bought a 4-bed, 2-bath 1970′s fixer in Austin, with an attached 2-car garage. Over the past couple of years we have been redoing the inside, and I’ve been both collecting tools to do the jobs I always wanted to do, and neglecting the best room of the house.

Left side of Garage with my '74 BMW 2002 in her usual spot.

Right side of garage - with the door that leads to the Laundry room

As you can see from the pics above, the space is nothing fancy. Room for a couple of cars, and a workbench in the back. But I see there are so many other opportunities for things to do here, to make the space really my own.

I should probably mention one more little item. I have a thing for early ‘70s european cars – while I can’t quite afford the machines I want right now, I do have a ’74 BMW 2002 which runs, but needs both a top-end, and bottom-end rebuild (and a paint job), and most recently I collected my very first car from my in-laws house in California, but that’s the next post…