Garage Workbench - Sypsie.com

And we’re back! Life has been a bit crazy lately with work and wedding planning, but I’m so excited to get back to what we love and share a little how-to on our 8′ workbench from last fall’s (holy time flies) One Room Challenge!

To go back to the beginning, when we moved into the house we were left with this 8′ shell of a workbench that ended up getting used and abused by all of our “things” that of course I always think we need to save, miscellaneous car products, gardening tools, paint, and you get the picture 🙂 (Do you see what I did there?)

Gorgeous, right? Most glamorous picture to ever be posted to a blog. Don’t worry I promise the after is slightly better 🙂

We wanted to keep as much of the original shell that we could in order to make the project as cost friendly as possible, but some of the wood, including the top and a few of the 2×4’s, needed to be replaced.

We made quick work of the demo with a hammer and pry bar, and started reinforcing the front frame.

Since we wanted to add doors, we created a basic frame by beefing up the top to align with the sides using two 1×5’s, cut 1×4’s for the sides, and then had to get creative with the bottom piece. Because our garage floor is sloped and the workbench sits right on top of the slab, we had to match the angle of the floor with our bottom piece in order to make a square frame. There was a bit of trial and error, but once we had a piece that fit we used pocket hole screws to put the frame together, and screwed it right into the workbench, adding a few scrap pieces on the bottom to keep everything stable.

Next up was replacing the top! We have a second pre-made workbench that sits next to this one so we wanted to match the heights to make one long work surface. In order to do that, we added a 1/2″ piece of particle board (cheaper than plywood) and a 1/2″ piece of MDF on top of that. The original “backsplash” pieces were also replaced with a scrap piece of 1×4 on the side, and 2×4 on the back.

Since we now had a few unsightly edges on the top and bottom ledge, we covered them up with a simple lattice trim and iron on wood veneer.

One night of ironing in my garage and a tube of caulk later we were set with the frame! I avoid ironing at all costs when I’m inside, so this was new for me 🙂

Adding the doors was the last and easiest part of the entire project. We used the other half of the 1/2″ piece of MDF from the top to create 4 equal sized doors. Ours measured out at 23″ wide by 24″ tall. The shaker style was added using 1/4″ lattice trim that was glued and clamped down until it dried. My original inspiration for the workbench was this pin, but because we thought doors would be much more utilized in the space, we added the trim to create the illusion that there were drawers!

We added two 1×4 supports within the frame to attach the two middle doors to, fun hardware, and hung them using simple cabinet door hinges.

The entire base then got two coats of Rustoleum’s Gloss White paint (very easy to use and wipe down), and the top got 4 coats of Rustoleum’s Chalkboard paint. The chalkboard surface has already come in handy more times than I can count! I love being able to mark down measurements anytime, anywhere, and it helps me to get onto “paper” what’s in my head, because it turns out M can’t read minds and some of the projects I dream up don’t quite come out right with words : )

And just like that, we had a finished workbench! The project has such a fun impact on the space, and I love all of the room we have within it to store tools from air compressors all the way down to extra hardware.

And that wraps up our workbench project! The final dimensions ended up at roughly 8’1″ x 24″ x 37″ and is easily the most used spot in our entire garage (the rest of the space can be found here!) I’m so glad we decided to tackle this normally forgotten about “room” in the house and finally got organized. Now that I can finally find my hammer and anything else we may need, no wall in this house is safe 🙂

Thanks so much for stopping by – We’ll be back soon with more kitchen updates!