Build a dream garage
Everything you need to tinker
BUILDING A DREAM garage is an ambition for most of us. We’d all love a place to give our bikes the love and attention the deserve. But life isn’t that simple and there are always the excuses — the kids’ bikes get in the way, there’s too much stuff in there or just the classic one — lack of space.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way — we spoke serial bike restorer and club racer Angus Green, who transformed his single garage into an organised, attractive home for his bikes and projects. “I moved into this house in 1999 and it came with my first ‘proper’ garage,” Angus recalls. “Almost all of my garage is made from salvaged parts I’ve picked up very cheaply — you don’t need to spend a fortune to build your dream garage. A small space can feel much larger through careful use of storage while a big garage can feel tiny when cluttered and disorganised.” This is what he’s learned in 20 years…
1 Get things off the floor
“Putting things up on shelves means that they are easy to get to at eye level but not in the way. I’m lucky; I sourced some old stainless steel ex-kitchen shelves through my job but you can easily make your own out of wood. For bulky items such as spare tyres, which always get in the way, I just hung two lengths of wood from chains so they were high up and no longer clutter on the floor and I can also store big items such as a spare frame up there.”
2 Decent lighting makes all the difference
“If you are working on bikes, good lighting is essential. You can never have too many lights and I started with two fluorescent tube lights, then kept adding – I now have nine! Modern LED tube lights are excellent but I’ve not found the need to replace mine yet. When I do, I’ll go LED.”
3 Invest in your flooring
“I’m very proud of my garage floor, which is reclaimed oak. I laid a thin framework and then fitted the oak lengths over the top. This gives it a bit of ventilation underneath to stop the wood rotting. Some people use old carpet or vinyl flooring but wood is a fantastic material for a garage floor as it
absorbs fluid and is very hard wearing and non-slip while also not being cold on your knees like painted concrete. It was £200.”
4 Make your own workbenches
“Making your own workbenches is simple — and that way you can have them just as you want. I used some leftover wood to create the framework between larger fixed objects such as the lathe and then covered them with old kitchen worktops. You can buy sheets of stainless steel from metal merchants and it is easy to cut and fold to shape for the tops. Cost: £100”
5 Make good use of that dead space
“I added storage shelves underneath the benches to fit tubs on, as it was ‘dead space’ and did the same on the walls. A good tip is to put chipboard on the walls before your shelves as this is easy to nail or drill into for hanging tools up on.”
6 Keep it all clean
“My top tip here is to buy a vacuum cleaner, house it under the worktop out of the way and then run a long hose extension up the wall and over the rafters to the centre of your garage. A bit like a retractable airline (which are also brilliant investments) that means you can easily vacuum every corner of the garage without having to drag the vacuum around. The pipe was £50.”
7 If you can fit in a hydraulic bench, do it
“A hydraulic workbench is really handy, saves back ache and isn’t that expensive but they do get in the way, especially in a small space, and are heavy to move around. I know some people swear by the Abba Sky Lift when space is at a premium as they are more manoeuvrable but I always have a bike or something on my bench, so it isn’t wasted space.”
‘A wood floor is hard-wearing, non-slip and warmer than concrete’