Workshop Conversion - Front Area:

This area, shown below, took a long time to sort. It became the "overflow area" for the main workshop, and because I'm a hoarder, it was always swamped with junk. I needed to have a serious purge!

But here it is, all nice and tidy. I've managed to put up some simple shelves and build a half decent free standing bench from angle iron and MDF. You can see the back of the chipboard partition wall (in white) and the party wall between mine and the neighbours garage. It's made from concrete blocks that are almost impossible to drill, which is why I installed the sheet of MDF (painted Zingy yellow with some left-over paint).

You can see the cable trunking behind the shelves - it travels up to the roof space behind the shelves. The vertical trunking lid is in sections so you can access it without having to remove the shelves (!)

When it's tidy, it works really well. As you can see, the up-and-over door still opens, perfectly missing everything that's been installed. Since painting the garage door white, it's a comfortable working environment (instead of the oven that it was before!)

And finally this image shows the other half of the workshop. All that timber has been carefully arranged to not get in the way of either door, and looking carefully you might be able to see some shelf brackets - just above the garage door, there's a shelf that holds old paint tins. Its length cunningly matches the position of the garage door when open, thus stopping the long lengths of timber from getting in the way of the door. The white paint on the bricks is nothing to do with me!

Conclusion:

I'm really pleased with the end result, which is just as well, given the amount of time I spend out there! It is a good working environment, and I perhaps wouldn't change that much if I did it again. The dimensions work really well - if I'd made it larger (by not making 2 rooms) then everything wouldn't fall so easily to hand...

The insulation benefits of the partition wall is confirmed by taking temperature measurements. I bought some cheap indoor/outdoor thermonitors, the sort with an external sensor on a long piece of wire. One has been installed in the front workshop with it's 'external' sensor installed in the roof-space, while the other is in the main workshop with its sensor mounted outside. Before it was painted white, the up-and-over door attracted serious amounts of heat during the summer and it wasn't unusual for the temperature in front half to reach 30 degrees C while the main workshop stayed down in the low 20's. Likewise, during winter the temperature in the front stays cold while the main workshop is nice and warm... The convection heater is rarely used after the first 30 minutes.

During the warmer months, it's really nice to open the up-and-over door and extend the working area onto the drive. The neighbours are generally fascinated by the strange going-ons in there!