Garage Workbenches

We had some work done on our house in late 2020, including remodelling of the garage to make it a more practical space. When the builders were finishing up I collected all of the left over wood (old roof trusses that were taken out, off-cuts from the new trusses, some short sections of floor joists, etc) with a view to reusing it for storage and a workbench in the corner of the garage.

The only materials bought for these workbenches was the MDF worktop and a few cheap pieces of edge molding, all of the core construction timber was scrap that was left over and destined for the skip. Storage shelf in the main workbench was left over loft boards from the newly extended garage roof, and paint and varnish was just old stuff we had left.

Total cost was therefore about £30 (just the MDF and the edge molding).

Starting to break down several of the old roof trusses and supports:

The corner where the workbenches will go

Starting to build up the basic frame

Basic structure virtually complete

Fitting left over loft panels for the raised storage area

MDF worktop fitted

Building the second workbench

This is how the workbenches will be set out

Paint was a left-over tin of B&Q 'Colours' that we bought for painting the skirting and wood panels in our TV lounge (I think it's called Elap or Erap or something… it's basically a sage green) and B&Q varnish ('oak' tinted, water-based) that I had left over after assembling the new office desk. So all essentially zero cost.

Starting by painted the main workbench:

Several coats of varnish applied and sanded back slightly between coats. This is the third coat of varnish drying:

Painted the smaller workbench and waiting for its second coat of varnish to dry:

I also had plenty of wood left over from several pallets that hardware and material had been delivered on, so rather than it going to waste, I salvaged the nicer pieces from it (some of it wasn't worth saving, but there were a couple of straight, decently finished planks), sanded them down and built some additional shelving above the workbench:

Here's the first of the shelving units I built, it's just fixed to standard twin-slot metal shelving hardware:

All three shelves installed and after their second coat of varnish: