I’m going to pull the beetle apart after the holidays but first I have to clear out some space in the garage and get my work space organized.
I had considered rolling the beetle into my basement and doing all of the work down there but the area I was hoping to use is currently occupied by all of the worldly possessions of friends who went on a year long around the globe trip…they returned in September but have yet to get new jobs and settle in anywhere…so there their things remain.
So I started by burning tons of scrap wood from a few investment property renovations I did over the past couple of years…I always think ill find some use for all these random scraps and never do.
Then I hung some old cabinets from my parents kitchen renovation. I hung them on French cleats so I can reorganize a bit if need be at a later time.
I’m going to sand prime and paint the cabinets before final placement. Replace the hardware with something a little less domestcated. Then make a counter out of a few sheets of MDF.
next up will be separating the upper garage from the lower garage and enclosing a mud room area.
i’ll have to see. it would be nice to leave it open for ease of sweeping and they seemed to hold up well to leaning a good deal of my weight on them, but i could see over time the screws working their way out of the backs of the lower cabinets. the way they are hung now the weight is being transferred through the sides of the cabinets back to the wall, essentially like a bracket every couple of feet. i’m sure the cleat itself will hold the outward force of the cabinet at the top but i may just add some blocking on the back of the cabinet and some longer screws to combat the fasteners working their way out over time.
for the top cabinets they are essentially hung as they would in a typical situation just using the cleat instead of screws, so they shouldn’t be any problem.
it is nice. once i get all of the spare vinyl siding, lumber and insulation out of the way i’ll have room to have the body and pan sit next to one another with a 5’ area on all sides and still park my truck and ghia in there as well.
Your beetle is awesome. My daughter would love to have one like that. She just bought a brand new 2013 silver beetle with everything but nav on it. She loves it.
The NEW new beetles are a huge improvement over the old new beetles…but nothing with a radiator and a trunk in the back should be called a beetle to begin with
Got the cabinets painted…just have to do door and drawer fronts and find some hardware
I also did end up adding some reinforcing to the top of the lower cabinets. I removed the upper corner bracing and replaced it with 2x4s that I attached the sides and cleat to…really stiffened up the whole assembly
Also tonight there is this old filing cabinet that the previous owner left behind. It was locked and I’ve never found the keys over the past 3 years and was considering scraping it…but tonight I figured I’d just see if I could drill out the lock. I was successful.
It appeared to just have a bunch of old folders and marketing materials in it. I thought it would be cool if there was an envelope of money in it…then just like that, there was. Manila envelope stuffed into the back of the drawer. Had some rolled up change and a couple smaller envelopes. Opened it up and there was a $100 on the outside of a roll of bills…to my disappointment the rest of the bills were 20s 10s 5s and 1s…amounting to $282.
