I live in Kansas, where it's hot and muggy in summer and cold and damp in winter, so my luxury has been the addition of heat/A/C......complete gamechanger in terms of comfort, and keeping the humididity out is something both I and my tools appreciate!
If you have the room - a shed. Getting all of the yard-work equipment out of the garage (as well as bulky spares like engines and transmissions) is a welcome luxury when working in a small garage/shop.
Good lighting is a game changer
I just bought a RivNut tool and I'm loving it. No more fiddling around getting a flag nut, or a nut taped to a wrench, or a friend on the backside of a panel
Upgrading from an HF welding hood to a Hobart was worth the $70 difference in price, but I assume not many people here running a $30 hood at this point.
A good fan or portable ac is a definitely a good luxury to have especially in the hot / dry states. This may not be necessarily a tool but large area or work space is a luxury we can all appreciate!
I built a 12X16 shed this past summer, I needed a place to park the ZTR, and to get all of the yard stuff out of the shop. Money well spent......
I would add that good lighting is a must, especially when you get older. i bought a bunch of LED shop lights from HF that were on closeout - they all work perfectly and at 5K they are really bright. I don't think you can have too much light in your shop.
One other small addition, HF has these round magnetic rechargeable puck LEDs, which are the handiest thing! They're completely adjustable so you can out the light anywhere, and on the highest setting last about three hours.
A sink. My FIL suggested we install a shop sink in my garage, way more useful than I thought it would be.
Lots of light and a Bluetooth speaker.
gixxeropa said:Just bought a portable air conditioner for the shed I do my composites stuff in. Leaving it on for an hour before I start working brings it from the high 90s down to about 80, which is much more tolerable. Definitely a nice little luxury
i have thought about this a few times... My garage doesn't have a window that I can throw a window unit into so I might look into something in the future...
The two small luxuries for me are
1. an electric pressure washer, washing cars /w the pressure washer and a foam cannon is very satisfying, it is also great for other clean up tasks like cleaning mysterious sticky residue off the SWMBO's floor mats.
2. quick jack, more than the limit but fits under the car taking up no space can put a car in the air in less than 10 minutes and its rock solid.
In addition to the obvious tools, shelving, storage, lighting, etc, good organization saves a lot of time. I found this storage shelf with organizers locally and then paid my son probably close to 100 bucks to go thru my bucket of bolts and separate into small/large nuts, bolts, washers, etc. which was money well spent because after 20 years of collecting them, it was abvious that i wasnt going to do it myself! Now I can actually find bolts that i can use without digging in a huge bucket of hard to find items. Also is nice the bolt sizer I found on Amazon just like the one Home Depot has in the store -> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071HTKL2T/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I keep a set out in the shop, they're cheap enough that if they break or get scratched (they do), I just get some more. No more squinting while trying to read something, can even inspect spark plugs again.
Others: HD flat screen TV - it's old, was the main TV in the house, then bedroom TV, now sits in the corner of the shop and with an Amazon Firestick plugged in, lets me watch racing, DIY videos on YouTYube, football in season, racing year round, tons of music anytime. 25K BTU window A/C - (actually just cut a hole in the wall) - not really a "luxury", this is Central Texas, A/C is more like Life Support than a luxury here.
We upgraded our old TV and even older audio system when we moved into our house, so the shop got the old stuff as hand-me-downs. I have the TV setup as a computer display, and sound goes through the old surround sound setup. I can stream music, racing, or whatever; display online shop manual stuff or you tube how-tos. It's actually turned out to be a little more useful than I thought it would be. I still need to run speaker wire to the four corners of the shop...
I guess two. (1) Like above a TV. I got a free TV off a facebook group and added a Roku stick. Now I have streaming Youtube in the garage. (2) a 240v heater. It's effing cold in the winter here. A garage heater is a must.
Living in Florida where it can go from sunny, to pouring, to sunny again within an hour, the garage could turn into a sauna real quick. It made it unbearable to work sometimes. My saving grace? A dehumidifier and a little window air conditioner.
Just been adding wheels to everything. Put wheels in my shop press today, so much nicer to move around
Carver CM-1090 integrated amp and some Boston Acoustics bookshelf speakers and a powered sub. Listening to an old boombox while working would piss me off.
Best money I spent was around $1000 for a 60K BTU Modine Hot Dawg heater. Love working in my garage in shorts and flip flops in the dead of winter. Of course the insulation, drywall, and windows hit a bit more than $1k......
One of the best small-money spends was a SWAG Offroad portaband bandsaw table. Sure beats cutting stuff with a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder.
My benchtop mini lathe came in handy this weekend when I needed a bushing for my Super Beetle. That might be stretching "smallish" to the limit but I am really happy I bought it. Its come in handy more than once since I have owned it.
got myself an air hose reel, and a pegboard so i could hang my hammers up and free up a drawer on my toolbox. Another big one if you're a tire hoarder like me, I built a big tire rack out of about $20 of 2x4s and its freed up a good bit of floor space
gixxeropa said:got myself an air hose reel, and a pegboard so i could hang my hammers up and free up a drawer on my toolbox. Another big one if you're a tire hoarder like me, I built a big tire rack out of about $20 of 2x4s and its freed up a good bit of floor space
Can you share pictures of this tire rack you built out of one 2x4?
In reply to 93gsxturbo :
Good grief, where are you buying your lumber? Eight foot 2x4s are cheap. Local to you:
Edit to add that I also have a stick built wheel/tire rack on the wall. Highly recommended.
You'll need to log in to post.
