Architecting where I’m Architecting.

This week has been a bit of a depature form the norm for me, as I’ve been engaged in a different sort of project. You see, August 13th, we opened up our garage as part of the Annual Bernal Heights Hillwide Garage Sale. The sale is always a lot of fun, as the neighborhood is mobbed with crap hounds and treasure hunters alike. But this year we managed to clear out some old furniture which left my garage all but empty…

This wall used to have some shelves and other various junk.

What am I to do with this newfound space? Well, it also happens that my 45th birthday was last Friday and I got it in my head that the absolute best thing that I could do on such an auspicious occasion was to log off, and get to work filling my newly empty space!

My garage has long been held captive by my family, who is constantly conspiring against me to fill it up with crap. I don’t know what happens. I empty it out and somehow it fills up again. I organize it then a bomb goes off (sometimes in the form of all the kids in the neighborhood) and it becomes a mess. So whenever I find myself trying to set up a workbench to for tools and projects and things, that space inevitably becomes a clean, flat place for a new round of garage detritus to colonize.

But not this time! No no… I have you licked this time, gods of garage entropy. The secret: a disappearing workbench that folds out from the wall! Try covering that with crap! There’s nothing to cover! And best of all, if we need to park the car in the garage, just fold the workbench up into the wall. Here’s the blow by blow of how I accomplished this feat.

Mount an 8 foot long 2x12 on heavy L-brackets, drilled into the studs in the wall. On that, some 3 foot tall 2x12 uprights.

One of the crazy things about this project was the amount of stuff I had just laying around in junk boxes, including these heavy duty L-brackets that can hold all kinds of weight. I had to go to the Lowe’s down the street to buy the 2x12’s (and some other stuff), but all the other screws and small L-brackets I just had accumulate over the years.

Another 8 foot long 2x12 across the top.

I mounted an old lamp fixture we had for in the top 2x12 for extra light. This thing was a floor lamp before, but somehow the base (which was full of concrete to make it heavy) had been shattered, likely in the fog of war that is our play room. But the adjustable fixtures on the top were just too cool to throw away, so I hung on to the whole assembly in anticipation of this day.

The actual bench is hinged like a door to the 2x12 frame, and has legs, also on hinges that swing down when the table is closed.

The actual workspace is 2 2x4 foot pieces of plywood mounted on a frame of 2x4’s. There are 3 legs that provide really stable support for the table when it’s opened. Both the table top and the legs are attached with hinges, thus allowing the top to be folded up, at which point the legs will swing down out of the way.

The bench, folded up. The legs are attached with hinges so they swing down.

But I think that my favorite part of this whole thing is that my lovely wife got me those metal peg boards that you can see on the wall, so that I could organize my favorite tools in the 2x12 frame.

The finished product, complete with tools, light, and laptop.

And, it turns out that this space is so nice that I spend my work days down here too! The table top is high so that I can stand at it and type or sit on one of the old, beat up Ikea stools that we have in our garage and work very comfortably. Our old bulky stereo fits nicely on top of the frame, so the Spotify tunes are flowing.

Will this new workspace, with all of its fresh air, light, tunes, and proper tools improve my software architecting? It’s hard to say. But if I find myself in need of a staple gun in a pinch I’ll know just where to find it!