My workspace evolution

[Tbird232ci 333]

A few years back, my girlfriend and I decided to make one of our spare bedrooms into a craft/hobby room. She is into sewing and I bought her a Cricut, so she needed space for that. For Christmas one year, she bought me a 3D printer. Since then, I had purchased another printer. Since she needed a lot of work space, we came up with setting her up in about a third of the room, leaving me a wall basically. It worked fine for a while.

Originally, my first printer was on the desk, and I was just using a laptop and no extra monitor. I put those shelves together so I had the option to enclose the printers in case I wanted to print with more difficult filaments.

In the meantime, all of my RC stuff was out in the garage. At the time I started with this endeavor, I had maybe 45 cars of varying scales. I would set up a folding table in the garage and work on my stuff out there, but it really motivate me to tinker and build. I started bringing the folding table in the house, but I would have to break it down after a little while and put everything away. That was also not very conducive to enjoying the hobby.

I decided that it was time to make my portion of the craft room into a workspace to do my 3D printing, scale models and RC work.

In February of 2020 (yes, I know, it's a long drawn out project) I purchased a larger workbench to replace the little desk. I was home with Covid at the time, so as I started to recover, I assembled the table and got it into position. Remember the Cricut I bought my girlfriend? I had her make me a decal to lay across the top.

I am a fox body Thunderbird enthusiast, specifically the 87-88 cars. It's where I got my username from. I had an 87 Thunderbird with a 3.8L. Anyways, once the decal was laid down, I bought a clear tabletop liner thing and laid it down. I also took the monitor I was going to use and mounted it on an arm so I could preserve precious work space.

After a while, both of my printers broke and they basically became a collector of crap. Along with that I purchased a bunch of used cars and had been piling them into the room. With more cars, I also bought more parts. My side of the room was spilling over onto my girlfriends side, and it was taking away her motivation to want to do anything in there as well. I had to do something to get this mess in order.

After a ton of brain storming, measuring and wishful thinking, we went to our local Target and got some of the cube storage shelves and a bunch of the fabric cubes to go with them. Those fabric cubes cost more than the shelves themselves! It was also comical seeing peoples reaction to me stuffing the boxes into the trunk of a Mustang.

These next pictures are as of the last weekend. I have the cubes in place, but you can still see the mess that I have to organize.

Here you can see the cool little computer mounted to the back of the monitor. It can so some really light gaming, and it's a compact unit. I got it on an accidental sale and got it for something like 130 dollars off. I had a computer build in progress, but a mid tower would take up too much space.

This shows the mess and chaos that I still need to get sorted out. The room looked far worse before I got started.

About a month ago, I went to the local Home Depot and bought a bunch of brackets and everything to put together some shelves. I was going to use shelves that are about two hotdogs deep. I'm American, we will use any form of measurement to avoid the metric system. Ok ok, jokes aside, the shelves I was going to use would be 12" (30cm) deep, and then I was going to use some stands thought would be maybe 25mm tall to get the cars off of their wheels and let me place them side by side. I ordered the boards as the shortest length I could get them in was 72" (about 183cm) and imagine fitting THOSE into a Mustang. Well, as luck would have it, UPS smashed them to bits and disposed of them. The beauty is, I work for UPS and I wasn't even remotely surprised to see it happen, and for them to give me a run-around.

In the meantime, I had the idea to use a 4" (10cm) board at the end of the shelf brackets, and support the center of the cars that way. With motivation, power tools and a stomach full of hot dogs, I set out. I hung the main bracket up top, hung the vertical brackets and grabbed a few random 1x4" boards that were nearly the exact length I needed. They were rough cut and warped, but served to allow me to test my idea.

Ha! The idea worked. There are varying cars of varying levels of completion on the top shelf, and they are all fairly well supported.

I grabbed a few more boards, and a few more cars to test the shelf spacing.

At this point, I'm very happy. My initial plan to use the 12" shelves and car stands would have resulted in me only being able to use four shelves. This setup will allow me to use five shelves. It will allow me to put 35 cars on this wall.

I have since pulled everything back down so I can remove all of the decals, and permanently mount the verticals to the wall. I also have a third to put in the center for additional support. The shelves will be MDF, and I don't trust its rigidity over the long term.

So that is where I currently am at. This weekend, I'm hoping to get a bunch of shelf boards and some more brackets for the fifth shelf. I also need to spend more time actually finding homes and organizing all of my 3d printer stuff.

Hopefully this isn't going to be long and boring. I decided to document this to help keep me motivated, and maybe give and/or get some ideas along the way.

Take care guys!

[Nikko85 3454]

Amazing. My work space is usually the carpet, like a child playing lego.

 

 

[SlideWRX 785]

4 hours ago, Tbird232ci said:

I am a fox body Thunderbird enthusiast, specifically the 87-88 cars. It's where I got my username from. I had an 87 Thunderbird with a 3.8L. Anyways, once the decal was laid down, I bought a clear tabletop liner thing and laid it down. I also took the monitor I was going to use and mounted it on an arm so I could preserve precious work space.

...

About a month ago, I went to the local Home Depot and bought a bunch of brackets and everything to put together some shelves. I was going to use shelves that are about two hotdogs deep. I'm American, we will use any form of measurement to avoid the metric system. 

That T-Bird logo is beautiful!!  Love it.

On that hot dog measurement though, as an engineer, I'm gonna need more info.  Regular or Jumbo?  All beef?  Natural casing?  I need to know which conversion table to use. 

[Willy iine 18806]

Looks great, @Tbird232ci!!   So how often do you come out of the cave once inside?  

[Tbird232ci 333]

21 hours ago, Nikko85 said:

Amazing. My work space is usually the carpet, like a child playing lego.

 

 

I did that for a long time. I just turned 37 and I'm hitting that stage of my life where my body is very unhappy doing that.

18 hours ago, SlideWRX said:

That T-Bird logo is beautiful!!  Love it.

On that hot dog measurement though, as an engineer, I'm gonna need more info.  Regular or Jumbo?  All beef?  Natural casing?  I need to know which conversion table to use. 

Ball Park, all beef, regular but not a natural casing. Keep in mind, Ball Parks plump when you cook them! We may need to introduce a control temperature.

 

17 hours ago, Willy iine said:

Looks great, @Tbird232ci!!   So how often do you come out of the cave once inside?  

Unfortunately, I haven't spent much time inside. Hopefully soon I will be able to enjoy my time in there.

 

[Tbird232ci 333]

Not much to update. I spent an hour or two peeling decals off of the shelf brackets and messing up some of the paint. I'll have to grab a can of paint while I'm out during the weekend.

The one little update that I found to be pretty neat is that I found some storage/display for some of my small scale cars. My girlfriend bought some of these clear plastic stack-able tote thingies for organizing our cabinets and re****erator. She had a few laying on the counter, so I snatched one and run out to the garage for some test fitting. pretty much anything 1/24 and smaller fits with no issues other than crawlers. I have a handful of random 1/24 scale off roaders, a few Sinohobby Mini-Qs, a Charisma GT24b and a bunch of Losi Micro's.

The fun part will be finding a home for these. I'm glad to have something to put them in. Now I need somewhere to put them.

 

[Willy iine 18806]

@Tbird232ci Nice clear totes!   Would you be able to do a floating shelf for those?   I have them in my RC shop and garage for displaying stuff.   Very convenient as there are no shelf legs to take up real estate.  

[markbt73 5316]

Nice! I have a small hobby room as well (all to myself; my wife has a room of her own), and I am familiar with the idea of "nowhere to go but up." I keep adding shelves in wherever they'll fit, usually made out of whatever scrap lumber I have handy. It works, but it leaves precious little wall space for posters or flyers or cut-out box tops..

[Tbird232ci 333]

On 4/22/2022 at 8:19 AM, Willy iine said:

@Tbird232ci Nice clear totes!   Would you be able to do a floating shelf for those?   I have them in my RC shop and garage for displaying stuff.   Very convenient as there are no shelf legs to take up real estate.  

I think that's going to be the route I take. I am considering making my own semi-floaters out of some angle and the same MDF boards I'm using for the shelves. I have a little bit of space over the window. I showed my girlfriend and she said "You're starting to encroach onto my side."

 

5 hours ago, markbt73 said:

Nice! I have a small hobby room as well (all to myself; my wife has a room of her own), and I am familiar with the idea of "nowhere to go but up." I keep adding shelves in wherever they'll fit, usually made out of whatever scrap lumber I have handy. It works, but it leaves precious little wall space for posters or flyers or cut-out box tops..

That is the disappointing part. I'd love to put a poster up of the first 100 or something of the sort, but I have no wall space for that. It is a small price to pay to be able to have the majority of my cars in one place.

 

This weekend didn't really bring much progress. The biggest thing I learned was that 8ft 1x4" boards will fit in a 2018 Mustang. I folded the seat down and slid them through. The boards were a few inches from the shifter. I grabbed 6 of them to put on the shelving system. I'll probably grab a few more to make a shelf to put up a bunch of the girlfriends Barbies and a handful of other shelves for more RC supplies. That will be an update for another day.

Part of my progress was thwarted but the GPU costs dropping, and going to get a new graphics card. I had to install it and test it out...for a few hours.

It does look pretty snazzy in there, and it is a HUGE improvement over the 5 year old, 2 generation old card I had in it.

As far as progress in the hobby room goes, I got the shelving rack thingies properly attached to the wall.

It's not much, but it was a big step as far as making it permanent. Drilling holes in the wall is super stressful. It was so stressful that I was up to two packs of cigarettes for the day.

This is going to be an overtime heavy week at work, so updates will come slower.

Take care folks!

[JeffSpicoli 1363]

Probably the nicest workspace I've seen on TC!   Very cool.

[Tbird232ci 333]

On 4/25/2022 at 12:29 PM, JeffSpicoli said:

Probably the nicest workspace I've seen on TC!   Very cool.

I appreciate the kind words. While I am grateful to be able to be putting together a decent workspace, there are a lot of people on TC that have setups that make mine look like rookie work.

This thread has a bunch of cool ones:

Today wasn't too good for progress. I did manage to get all of my shelves cut. It's a feat considering I'm a mechanic, and any sort of wood work is the complete opposite of my skill set. I got everything cut, and experimented with a smart LED light strip for auxiliary lighting and am fairly pleased with the look so far. I didn't get any pictures as I was holding lights and standing on a stool and trying to fumble with my phone all at once.

In the next day or two, I'll have real progress to report.

 

[Tbird232ci 333]

Now I have some actual progress to report.

Yesterday, I got most of the shelves mounted. I say most because I didn't have enough screws to mount the bottom two. It's an easy fix luckily. Once mounted, I ran out to the garage and other rooms in the house and gathered the majority of my 1/10 scale cars. I have a handful more cars out in the garage, but those are the bashers, 1/8, 1/6 and various oddball scale cars. I'll find a home for those later.

Today, I spent an hour or two working on organizing and figuring out some of the other things I need to do.

I'm very chuffed (is that the correct usage?) with how this came out. It's not the prettiest nor the best way to display a collection, but I feel it was probably my best way to use the space I have in here.

I'm probably going to make a small shelf or two to put below the car shelves for tools, supplies, maybe some motors and some of my camera gear.

Hopefully this weekend I can get my auxiliary light setup in progress.

[Badcrumble 4204]

Oh yes, chuffed indeed 

I would love a room like that. We are still to-ing and fro-ing about a house extension here. If it goes ahead it will involve tearing down the garage (where my cars are kept) but I think I might have a fight in my hands to replace it with a half decent workshop. 

[Tbird232ci 333]

On 4/28/2022 at 5:19 PM, Badcrumble said:

Oh yes, chuffed indeed 

I would love a room like that. We are still to-ing and fro-ing about a house extension here. If it goes ahead it will involve tearing down the garage (where my cars are kept) but I think I might have a fight in my hands to replace it with a half decent workshop. 

Do you think you could build on top of the garage? I'm used to houses over here in the states, and I'm picturing a second story being extended over the top of the garage. It could be a good compromise.

 

Progress wasn't too bad this weekend. My girlfriend and I have been buying TP Link smart products lately. He have a handful of smart outlets, and decided to use a smart LED strip for the area over my space. The strip is bright and does full RGB. It's also Google Home compatible.

I measured out the strip and decided to cut it at 50". I held the strip up and it just didn't look right. A wave of dismay came over me as I realized I wanted to cut it at 60". I was incredibly disappointed. I'm typically very anal about measuring things. My girlfriend laid claim to the shorter strip and we took to Amazon and ordered another. I also ordered a power cable extension, and once again, I mismeasured the barrel plug. I was quite miffed (more British words from this 'Merican).

With my disappointment in my pocket, I wasn't going to completely stop progress. I measured the LED channel multiple times before taking it out to the garage and cutting it. I painted the channel and let it sit overnight.

Once I started doing this wave of work to my work area, my girlfriend decided she wanted to do some updates as well. She ordered a new work table as she was using a folding table and it was incredible awkward to on. She laid claim to the short LED strip and I gave her an extra LED channel so she could mount it over her work table. Then, we broke down her side of the room to prepare for her table arriving.

All of that was Saturday. Today, we ran to the local Home Depot and got some random supplies for various house projects. The biggest thing was the pressure relief valve on the hot water heater. That wasn't a difficult task, but as a mechanic, it was thoroughly aggravating. Anyways, armed with the new LED strip, I measured 3-4 times before cutting. They were then stuck in the LED channel and mounted to the ceiling using 3M command strips. Once the power extensions and wire hiding channels arrive, I can finish that part of the project.

Now that you have read through all of my rambling, it's onto the results. I use a DSLR in full manual for most of pictures. The color of the white is a bit different than it is to the eye but the change of brightness is fairly accurate.

This is with just the ceiling fan light on in the room.

And with the LED strips on

The results are quite mega (that's one that I don't entirely understand the usage of).

It puts off a good amount of light and it isn't very noticeable until it's turned on. Well, once I get the wiring hidden anyways. In that picture, you can also see the clamp light that will get some modifications and be set up on a smart outlet.

I think after I tidy up and iron out a few more details, I'll turn to making better use of the shelving for my 3D printers next.

Thanks for tuning in!

[Tbird232ci 333]

I'm a little disappointed in my lack of updates. Work got a bit busy with being under staffed and some of the logistical decisions increasing the demand for productivity. Seems to be a common trend these days.

This week, I received a new keyboard and mouse. While it doesn't seem to be significant, it does free up some valuable space. The keyboard is a 60% keyboard that is wireless and uses mechanical switches. It was about 50 bucks and so far it has been worth every penny. It took a few minutes to get used to, but I'm really enjoying it so far. The mouse was a cheap, 15 dollar wireless mouse which uses a rechargeable battery. For the price; I'm not upset.

They're so tiny and adorable. I'll probably get a new mouse pad or something as I'm really not liking the current one.

The nice thing is that they tuck away nicely and reduce the distractions in photos and gives me more working space.

With them being wireless, it allowed me to tidy up the cables behind the computer as well. I also took my SD card reader and taped it to the back of the monitor where the card sticks up over the monitor. I can easily insert and remove the card when using my camera, or doing 3D print oriented stuff.

The overall workplace is still a mess. I did run the cable to my overhead LED strip tightly against the ceiling. This allows me to move the white cube storage unit and access a bin behind it full of my girlfriends stuffed animals. Down the wall, I used a channel setup to hide the cable. I will eventually mount and wire a work light and some LED's on the underside of my bottom shelf and the channel will help me easily hide the cables.

On my girlfriends side, her table came in and she had to get it setup ASAP. I work at night so we have a very short window of her getting home and me leaving for work to get it assembled. She is very happy with it. I have some extra pieces of MDF that I'm going to cut and stack so we can raise her sewing table to match the height of her new work bench.

Hopefully the updates will come a little quicker.

See you guys next time!

 

[Tbird232ci 333]

My updates have been slow and less significant lately. Being an adult has its pitfalls. I spent a bunch of time doing some overdue yard work and other various projects and tasks that demand my time even if I'm not very pleased with it.

This power strip has been one of my latest additions. It doesn't seem like much, but it really is a life changer. I have an outlet under the desk and behind the cube units. I mounted a 4ft power strip on the wall just under the desk for things like the computer, monitor, lights, soldering iron, etc. Those items will stay where there are and really don't need to be unplugged. For things like battery chargers, cell phone charging, charging my mouse/keyboard and general items that don't live on the desk, this little power strip is invaluable.

I know there aren't Americans in here, so the one thing about it that burns me up probably wouldn't be noticeable to most. The outlets are upside down! I was looking at disassembling the unit to correct it, but nothing is symmetrical so I couldn't just flip the unit on the bracket, or flip the casing.

While I don't have any pictures to really show, the workspace is a bit more tidy overall. The floor around my table was cluttered with boxes and random stuff that needed homes. The area under the window is still a mess as I haven't been able to get a two-cube unit. They have been sold out everywhere.

I appreciate those of you who have been sticking around and watching this long, boring journey of mine. If nothing else, this thread has been helping me keep motivated and encouraging me to keep the space a little more tidy.

 

[Willy iine 18806]

Also a good place to mount a power strip or two for me is under the work table.  I have several mounted to feed power where I don’t want cords bridging over the table surface.  Like one very close to my chair so that I can plug my heat gun or soldering iron right from below the table.   

Also having a work light to illuminate under the table is great too as I am clumsy and often times drop parts and hardware under the work table..   and I have poor vision.. 

[SlideWRX 785]

19 hours ago, Tbird232ci said:

I know there aren't Americans in here, so the one thing about it that burns me up probably wouldn't be noticeable to most. The outlets are upside down!

I actually had a friend install his outlets like this, 'upside down', because he had read somewhere that having the ground on top was important.  It was 20 years ago when he had to redo the outlets for a house from the 50's anyway (no ground on those).  Apparently some places do it to avoid arcing across the two slots if metal or something were to fall across a slightly exposed plug.  Obviously 99% of the nation doesn't worry about this too much.

[ImALlama 1370]

On 5/29/2022 at 11:04 AM, SlideWRX said:

I actually had a friend install his outlets like this, 'upside down', because he had read somewhere that having the ground on top was important.  It was 20 years ago when he had to redo the outlets for a house from the 50's anyway (no ground on those).  Apparently some places do it to avoid arcing across the two slots if metal or something were to fall across a slightly exposed plug.  Obviously 99% of the nation doesn't worry about this too much.

Thank you for posting this! makes sense and I can't believe I've never thought of that. I always wondered why people would put them upside down and could never find any info on why, and anytime I've asked an electrician they haven't been able to give me a reason. Most people have just told me "that's how they do it in Canada", ok well why does Canada have them like that? "don't know, that's just how they do it". Being a quick drive to Canada it makes sense to come across it frequently, but still it seemed no one could tell me why.