I would put some wood screws into studs at least at the top of those cabinets.
Bottom cabinet fasteners see a big shear load, but the fasteners at the top have a big tension load. I wouldn't trust toggles and drywall only, especially if you think about how much weight you can put in a cabinet with parts and fluids.
Got more done today.
One down, lots more to go.
I assembled and hung the Homak cabinets I got off Craigslist, I got these before the other cabinets and thought I was getting a good deal at $150 for the three, they normally run $100 a piece at Lowes.
In my mock up I have this last white cabinet (the one sitting on the floor) cut down to match the depth of the other cabinets on this wall. I think though I'm going to move the brown cabinets over instead and place the white one on top of the other midsize white cabinet.
Worked pretty much all day in the garage yesterday and got almost all the grunt work done there.
Took about an hour but I finally got my workbench cleared off, all the tools put back up and miscellaneous items put in cabinets.
I was looking at the brown cabinets and decided they just weren't going to look right on the end beside the black cabinets, and after looking around I saw the cabinets over the washer and dryer looked more like they would be the right depth and fit in better. I took some measurements to make sure and they were about an inch shorter in depth, which is just what I needed. So those came down and got some bracing on the back side and hung back up. The brown cabinets went back up over the washer and dryer, which would please my wife since they are deeper and the jugs of laundry detergent fit better inside them and you can close the doors all the way now.
Another thing you can see in this shot is the middle area is now cleaned up, no more boxes laying around (well except the ones on the wall waiting to get recycled). I put the cabinets to work already and filled them up. I still have one empty cabinet and the ones I haven't put up over the work bench left.
I rearranged the cabinets like was suggested to keep the Craftsman stuff closer together, assembled the compressor and put it down on the end (again!). The stuff on the floor in the corner are the parts for the next project car. I need to go through them once I get the last of the cabinets up over the bench here.
So the next steps are to get some better lighting in here, I'm going to go with what I put in the old shop, three 8' T5HO fixtures. After that I'll have to find a good electrician to come out and give me a quote on replacing that old electric panel with a newer 40 circuit unit. Then I can run that extra power over to the bench, get some 220 over to the compressor and I'll be able to do some actual work in here.
I know Mongo will be happy to get some rest now, he's a little tired of the cleaning.
Okay guys, time for a giant update on the garage! I'm glad to say that at this point all the wiring I wanted to do is complete. I now have a working compressor again and i can see in here at night thanks to new light fixtures. So lets see where to start.
We'll start with the biggest change and that was swapping out the old 20 slot 200A breaker panel. Now I'm not an electrician so I had help from the guys over int he electrical sub-forum before I started this and watched plenty of youtube videos.
I bought a nice 40 slot 200A panel and all new circuit breakers to go with on Amazon. then it was just waiting for things to show up. Once I got all the stuff in, I also had to wait till the wife was out of the house as I was going to have the power shut off for about 4-5 hours and she really wasn't on board with me doing this myself, she was rambling something about electricians and licenses and expensive words like that, I wasn't really paying close attention.
Anyways, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Old panel is full and can't be expanded any further.
New panel about to go in, mocking up location and size comparison here, you can see I have the wires labeled for the correct amp circuit breaker.
Grabbed my welding gloves and pulled these guys out and capped them off. I may not have called the power company to turn off the electric, so I capped them with plastic caps and wrapped them up with electrical tape. It's only 110v coming from the street so I wasn't too worried about zapping myself, i just didn't want a short. :shocking:
Next all the old wires came out. Look at all that spaghetti.
I then mounted the new box and reconnected everything at this point and it was looking like this.
Wish I could say I was done at this point, but after having the guys over in the GJ electric sub-forum take a look, they pointed out several code violations, so even though the old panel had lots of cables going through big openings, that was not to code. Out they had to come and I had to move them so it was only 2 cables per clamp.
Here's the correct wiring.
I also took this time to wire in the new garage circuits I needed for the compressor, welder and a powerstrip at my workbench.
Here's the outlets for the welder and work bench.
and here's the compressor outlet done.
Next up was to tackle the extremely poor lighting in the garage.
This is what I had to contend with..
One measly 60 watt bulb. Well that just wasn't going to cut it for a full on workshop with actual stuff being done in it.
I went with the fixtures I had installed at my last place. 8' 54W T5 HO units. I figured 3 would suffice for this small garage. I did go back and forthwith how to arrange them though, eventually I want side to side, i wanted to get some light under the garage door this time. At my last garage if the door was up it cut off the light too much, so I wanted to avoid that here.
I wasn't sure how I was going to put the light under the door, then I found an old bedframe up in the attic left by the previous owners, I cut it down to length and welded it up into one long L channel. Then I screwed the fixture to it and mounted it to some 2x4's that I attached to the ceiling joists.
I need to trim these 2x4's down some.
I have about this [_] much space between the door pull and the fixture and I can still fit my 4x4 fullsize truck under them.
Also got the last set of cabinets hung up and a nice 12 outlet power strip installed above the workbench. I still need to get an LED light strip for under the cabinets.
That's pretty much it for now. The next steps will to clean the walls and get ready for paint. I also need to scrape the wonderful cottage cheese off the ceiling, and get it painted.
You've gotten a lot done and it's looking good!
These boxes are full of model cars I haven't built yet. I haven't decided if I'm hanging on to them or if they are headed to ebay.
Hi, I'm Javelin and I buy model kits. 
Also, fantastic thread!
Any progress on this?
I like the way you mounted the lights under the garage door. I could do that now that I have nothing tall to try and put in the garage.
Neat. Where in FL are you? Can you put the compressor in the attic?
after I nearly melted my house down just adding a sub panel I cannot believe you just pulled off the main three phase line... maybe only 110v but the amperage is more than ehough to kill you deader than crispy.
How much did the new panel cost?
Adrian_Thompson wrote: Any progress on this?
Not much. I mounted a 4 foot LED light under the cabinets over my workbench, definitely provides some much needed light in that area.
Petrolburner said: I like the way you mounted the lights under the garage door. I could do that now that I have nothing tall to try and put in the garage.
Well the good part is they only hang down about 6 inches from the door so even my 4x4 pickup fits under them.
Mad_Ratel said: after I nearly melted my house down just adding a sub panel I cannot believe you just pulled off the main three phase line... maybe only 110v but the amperage is more than enough to kill you deader than crispy.
I'm not sure that's correct. Amperage is a result of draw on the circuit. Circuit breakers don't reduce the amperage of a line, they just reduce the amount it can draw through it, so touching a wire at a light socket is pretty much the same as touching this huge wire in my panel. I may be wrong but that's how I see it. Besides I wore gloves, and capped the ends to be "safe" 
Enyar said: Neat. Where in FL are you? Can you put the compressor in the attic? How much did the new panel cost?
The compressor is a 7.5hp with an 80 gallon tank.. there's no getting this bish up there, and the heat wouldn't be good for it up there.
New copper bus panel cost me $130, breakers cost me about $100.
the max amperage available at that main connection is what the full power line carries minus some drop over your connection piece (owned by your power company)...
The panel you installed should have an amperage rating and that's when the panel itself will trip out (the main trip). when you were working before that trip you literally could have ground out and shut down your neighborhood (or wherever the next service breaker on the feed wires.) This is why you are required by law to ask the power company to come disconnect service before working on the panel... I can assure you that had you accidentally grounded out one of the three phase wires it would have melted instantly from the amperage draw and you would be seeing sparks if you were insulated from it and not dead..
the breakers will trip if a draw over their rating occurs. (i.e. when you ground out the line).
so if you had ground out one of the main lines coming in you could have seen the full voltage and amperage of the powerlines....
pretty pointless argument because I believe that over 1amp will stop your heart...and because you finished it already...
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