With a few days off between Christmas and the New Year, it was time to get some much needed work done in the workshop. In this case, I needed to upgrade and expand on some of the overhead storage areas in the workshop. Since we moved in, we've been laying pieces of plywood across the existing 2x4 beams. The beams span about a 15'3" width, and are not load bearing, but limit the weight of storage it can hold. Additionally, being over 50 years old, some of the beams were cracking and not up to par for bearing any weight. Since I had a couple days off, I thought it would be a good opportunity to build new 2x6 beams at 16" O.C. for the first 8' of the garage. The only tricky, given the width of the span, the height of the ceiling, and the location of existing structure, it wasn't possible to cut a single 15-foot beam and get it into place. For that reason, I needed to take 2- 2x6's and overlap them approximately 9 inches, and bolt together with 3/8" lag bolts. I used joist straps and 2x6 blocking to tighten everything up and topped it off with OSB. The result was a workshop (which also acts as a gym) that feels like a new space. No more cramped space with barbells on top of the table saw. The workshop is clean, spacey and ready for 2012... looking forward to building some new and interesting creations, and wrapping up this pesky architecture degree.
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| Beam connections were thought about (and run by a structural engineer) prior to building. |
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| Existing framing/storage |
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| More existing |
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| Materials - the hurricane tie downs were used to connect the beams to the walls. |
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| Prince - ready for a long day in the shop. |
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| Since I was hanging the beams by myself, it was easier to build a template, then pre-drill the holes for one of the beams. |
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| The day I was hanging the beams, there were two shop managers looking over my shoulder to make sure it was done properly and everything was level. |
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| Closeup of bolted connection |
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| Finished product, from below |
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| Finished project, from above |
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[...] few weeks back, I wrote a blog post called Creating (Storage) Space, about the new storage I built in the top of my garage. In order to get some of the new structure [...]
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