An Introduction; Post #1

It's an easy misconception, that when you see a company, you feel like they have it all together, large shop with ample warehouse space.  The fact is, many small businesses, this one included, operate basically out of a home garage.  Working with small spaces is pretty new to me, but I figured it would be fun to start a blog outlining some of the challenges I have faced, some of the ideas I've come up with to deal with them, and possibly create some interaction between the readers and myself, where I'd be happy to try out some of these different ideas or techniques. 

To start out, I need to introduce the space, and give a little background.  Walter Racecraft is operated out of my home.  I have an office/inventory space, single car garage, 2 car carport, and an enclosed racecar trailer.  Everything I do happens out of this space.  We bought the house in September 2018, and the garage is very small compared to the over-sized 2 car garage  I had at our last home. 

This space was discouraging at first, but I decided I wanted to look at it as a challenge.  The garage is roughly 11'7" wide by 25' deep.  

Right away I knew I'd need a work bench that utilized the space well, without getting into "work area" or "garage area".  I also knew that I wanted to eventually get a 44" Harbor Freight lower box. (like you can find here: https://www.harborfreight.com/tool-storage-organization/tool-storage/44-in-x-22-in-double-bank-red-roller-cabinet-64281.html ) I built the workbench to accommodate that. Here is an early picture of the bench. 

As you can see, I already felt cramped and knew the only way to rectify that was to start using wall space.  I dropped the old lower box off it's casters and was able to squeeze it under the work bench.  I grabbed some peg board from the hardware store and put my bolt bins and tool cabinet in there as well.  This is a space I can finally start to use!

That's all for now.  I'll post more soon to bring the timeline up to more current, as well as show off some of the projects in the shop!