Minimalism is the key

The lack of space will utlimately drive your cabilities. Embrace this core limiting factor now and you'll be able to unlock more creative solutions. Primarily this means no parts storage, and just in time tool use.

This guide is written by a professional software engineer. Not a mechanic or automotive technician. You're going to see a lot of compromises that lean towards weekend work and living with the vehicle for months, as opposed to getting it in and out of the shop as fast as possible.

Wear The Goggles. Every Time.

Just wear the goggles every time. Every time you enter the garage. They aren't for when you know it's dangerous. They are for when you get suprised. They aren't for when you're 'just fixing the glove box'. They are for when some random spring pops out while you're moving an piece of carpet and ruins your actual career by scratching your cornea.

Protect the hands.

There's a couple of approaches here: 1 - build up stronger hands, and protect the skin surface from prolonged chemical exposure with thin latex or nitrile gloves. 2 - use heavier gloves that prevent abrasions, fatigue and some chemical exposure. For ultra-soft programmer hands like mine, the second approach is the best. These Milwaukee cut level 2 gloves are fantastic. I've tried a wide variety of cheaper cut level 2 gloves, but these are clearly superior.

Cover the clothing.

Get a lab coat or an ESD coat or a fire-resistant technicians coat. Now when you walk into the garage you throw that on over your existing suburban clothes and you're good to go. Pull the glasses out of the pocket, pull the gloves out of the other pocket and you're geared up. Not changing into and out of 'work clothes' drastically reduces the friction around starting and stopping work.

Buy Everything You Need

The author grew up in a resource constrained environment. This led to a lifetime of decisions that made do with what was availalble until you absolutely needed something. When beginning to work on cars the author tried a different approach: buy all the tools first. This is a vastly superior approach. You may think it's prohibitively expensive, but for about the same cost as one salvage title car, you can have all the tools you need. It's ridiculously fun as well.

After wearing the safety gear every time, this is the biggest positive step you can make towards having a good experience. Simply being able to walk to the toolbox to get what you need instead of dropping what you are doing, going to the store, then the other store, then coming back is a huge win. You get in the flow much, much easier.

Mount the safety gear next to the wall where you will actually use it.

Get a hook for your lab coats. Add a fire extinguisher. Get an eye wash station.

Do not get a chair or a table.

You know what happens - you'll sit down and end up on your phone. You'll put parts on the table. Don't do it. Get a nice mat to stand on and use improvised benches out of your toolchest or the engine bay. As soon as you get a table, it will be stacked with parts and comopnents 'just in case'. Practice just-in-time tool use and parts acquisition and installation.

Get a medium size waste bin with no lid

This is at home, so other people will use your waste bin. If it has a no lid you'll be able to see when it's full and empty it before it gets nasty. Put the roll of trash bags in the bottom of the bin, and then put a bag covering them.

Put everything you can on wheels

This is a suburban garage, so you'll be moving a lot of stuff around. Everything you buy should be portable.

Build your toolset around the battery system

For all their flaws, Milwaukee M12 system is fantastic for battery powered tools. With 6 of these, you can work for years with no issues. Perhaps Dewalt, Bosch, etc. will work just as well, but the author has experience with Milwaukee M12 only. The only place it has proved limiting is with high-amp requirements like a heat gun.

Don't weld, don't paint

The setup and tear down of these activities are prohibitive for a suburban garage. You'll spend much time managing cords, waste, fumes and preventing overspray. Commit to just bolting on parts, and riveting if you must.

Tool systems actually do help.

Milwaukee hand tools are fine. The breadth of selection and easy availability and clearly designed modularaity makes them overall a better buy than one-off sets. On the other hand, if I could do it all again I'd probably switch to Craftsman. These have a much better return policy. Yes, Milwaukee advertises a lifetime warranty, but you have to ship the ratchet back to their return center and wait to see if they decide to fix it or send it back to you. What do you have to do while you wait? Go out and buy another ratchet anyways. So you end up just throwing the old one out as it's not worth the hassle for a consumer grade repair. Craftsman lets you just swap it out at Lowes.

Their toolchests and cabinets look good, but there is no real substantive difference between those and the craftsman ones, or even the harbor freight ones. It is still probably worth it overall, as the modularity and system compatibility of the storage units all the way down to the smallest hand tools is noticeable.

Get everything off the floor

Hang things on the wall if you must. This makes cleanup much easier and allows you to visualize what and where things are.

Get a portable lift, floor jack and jack stands.

The quickjack 7000lb version is more than enough. Each unit weighs about 100lbs each, which is too much. If I could do it again I'd get a 4-5000lb version just for ease of moving around. Mount the hydraulic control system in a central location on a wall, then rewire the control button to a electrical reel. This makes it so you can get much better visibility of the jack points during the lift.

The floor jack is critical for supporting heavy or awkward components while you lower them or put them in place. The floor jacks are cheap insurance to prevent injury. When working on a broken vehicle, you'll find that it's off balance or the jack points are not accessible to the quickjack. Having a secondary jack stand platform makes it possible to position the vehicle safely.

Get the quickjack wall anchors so you can mount the lifts on the wall when not in use.

Mount the toolchest and the cabinet to the wall.

Use E-track and some nylon straps and brackets to mount the toolchest to the wall. These things are crazy heavy and if you open all too many of the drawers at once they will tip over. Directly on you.

What's in the toolchest?

Critically important at this stage is tool organization within the toolchest. Use shadowboards if it's a shared toolchest especially with the untrained. Take the time to do foam cut outs and you'll be assured of knowing what and where your tools are. This is what the author did at first. After a year or so, it became obvious that it was not a shared toolchest. Space was at a previous so I replaced the foam cutouts with plastic and magnetic dividers. This made a huge positive difference in the flexibility and total amount of storage within the toolchest. Couple that with identifying your primary tools and putting them in the two most accessible drawers (3/8" and the Thick Bottom drawer below), and you'll have a great setup. A detailed breakdown in coming soon with pitures and layouts. Here's the overview from memory:

Top cabinet:

• Top shelf: Leave empty for job work, manuals, etc.
• Left drawer #1: Trim tools, gauges, marking tools, screwdrivers
• Right drawer #1: Safety glasses, gloves.
• Left drawer #2: 1/4" drive ratchets, 1/4" drive sockets, 1/4" drive extensions, 1/4" drive bits. 1/4 metric and 1/4 SAE socket set from milwaukee. Various head and length ratchets. Hex sockets, E-sockets, Torx sockets. Palm ratchet, flex head ratchets.
• Right drawer #2: hex shank bits, crows feet 3/8" adapters.
• Left drawer #3: 3/8" drive ratchets, 3/8" drive sockets, 3/8" drive extensions, 3/8" drive bits. 3/8 metric and 3/8 SAE socket set from milwaukee. Various head and length ratchets. Hex sockets, E-sockets, Torx sockets. Palm ratchet, flex head ratchets. Torque wrench.
• Right drawer #3: 3/8" E-sockets, wobble sockets.
• Left drawer #4: 1/2" drive ratchets, 1/2" drive sockets, 1/2" drive extensions, 1/2" drive bits. 1/2 metric and 1/2 SAE socket set from milwaukee. Various head and length ratchets. Hex sockets, E-sockets, Torx sockets. Palm ratchet, flex head ratchets.
• Right drawer #4: Electrical tools and connectors, M12 soldering iron, voltmeter, butt connectors, solder, fuse testers.

Bottom cabinet:

What's in the Cabinet?

This cabinet is for outsized things that don't fit well in the toolchest. Make sure you get it on wheels as it's incredibly useful to reposition your entire tool area as needed. Shelf #1: Reused plastic storage bins with random bolts, screws, wires, microfiber towels, etc. Shelf #2: Jumper cables, vaccum acessories, extra boxes of lights, safety glasses. Shelf #3: M12 vaccum, househould toolbox. Shelf 4: Smoke machine, service manuals for tools, t-slot assembly kit. Shelf #5: Jacking pads, chain, tie down straps, bunees. Funnels, In the door: Cleaning solutions, solvents, sprays, etc.

What's on the walls and ceiling?

High mounted above the doors: Huge 6500 CFM Fan. This will turn over all the air in the garage quickly.

Aforementioned quickjack wall mounts, quickjack hydraulic. Foldable electric lawnmower, leaf blower, trimmer.

Extension cord reel. Extension cord reel converted to quick jack switch control. Power washer with drain bucket and quick attach fittings. Ladder. Portable AC/Heat unit with external vent hose. T-slot mounted to the wall with a right angle extension over the main standing area with a light and fan. On the ceiling: 8 1200LM adjustable LED light modules, all daisy chained to each other and to a single RF controlled outlet plugged into the ceiling mounted outlets for the garage door openers. Also the aformentioned safety systems mounted to the wall.

How to stay warm in your garage

This assumes you have a mid-latitude climate, non-sealed garage. Here's some detailed tips on how to stay warm during the winter. Central NC can be hot and uncomfortably humid. The author has tried everything from on-body cooling to portable AC. Here's the rundown of what works and what doesn't.