Grass cuttings on the Garage Floor - Buy a small shed for the mower?

[Amethyst]

I don't have a lawn mower. But if I did, I'd have one with a port where I could use a garden hose to clean the deck before bringing in the mower.

But, the blower or the mat won’t help with the smell of decaying grass that’s stuck to the underside of the mower deck. Maybe not a big deal, but I definitely notice it.

 

[brucethebroker]

Get a shed. Then you can fill that up too! Sheds are also great places for wasp nests and snakes. But those are just minor challenges.

And mice!

 

[Bamaman]

As time has gone on, we've inherited more and more fine furniture of the 40's. And we swap out our decent furniture for the better stuff.

I've had a double car garage since 1974. I had a sports car for 15 years, and that has been the only car in my garage out of 48 years. Right now, I have a triple car garage and I cannot even walk in it for all the unused furniture and cabinet shop tools.

And I've had enough. I'm going 1/4 mile away and rent a storage unit because I'm tired of tripping over all this "stuff." Maybe I can build a 12 x 16 shed in the Fall. My time's taken until then.

 

[pb4uski]

I've already filled up the walls with hanging tools and shelves.

Now that our daughter (the only user) has moved out, I do have a treadmill in the garage to get rid of. But that only makes room for one item.

So you can store the mower where the treadmill was and when necessary store the wheelbarrow outside. We have two wheelbarrows and the both stay outside.

 

[old medic]

We bought a 12X32 portable garage building, floor will support a car. Was a repo and paid $6200, delivered and set up. We can sell it, move it and best is its not taxed....

 

[Out of Steam]

My annoyance at bits of grass in the garage seems pretty well shared. I don't have a spot for anything too big as far as a shed, but have a good spot for something like this.

https://www.amishbackyardstructures.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/vinyl-lean-to-shed-1024x731.jpg

After using my corded blower to clean up yesterday, I'm definitely shopping for a battery powered one that would use the same Ryobi batteries as my string trimmer.

 

[Gumby]

A shed is the best bet. A well built shed on a slab with a rat wall is the best. Our city will not allow a shed on anything else.

....

We have a 120 sqft. custom built shed on a poured concrete slab. It is so sturdy that if a hurricane blows the house away, the shed will still be there. I really like having a separate storage area for all my lawn and garden stuff. It also makes the garage fully useable; two of my three cars are parked inside at all times. The third lives outdoors because we only have two bays in the garage.

 

[Sunset]

As time has gone on, we've inherited more and more fine furniture of the 40's. And we swap out our decent furniture for the better stuff.

I've had a double car garage since 1974. I had a sports car for 15 years, and that has been the only car in my garage out of 48 years. Right now, I have a triple car garage and I cannot even walk in it for all the unused furniture and cabinet shop tools.

And I've had enough. I'm going 1/4 mile away and rent a storage unit because I'm tired of tripping over all this "stuff." Maybe I can build a 12 x 16 shed in the Fall. My time's taken until then.

I've seen many times, people rent these storage units, and then because of
"out of sight out of mind", keep paying for storage for years.
Nobody intends or plans to rent a unit for years to hold the old couch, but it happens often.
It would be cheaper to throw out most stuff in the garbage.

Around here, people are giving away free on nextdoor.com: pianos, dining tables with chairs, couches, china cabinets of all sorts, lamps, tv stands, bedroom sets, etc...
Basically the stuff is not desired, too many baby boomers downsizing!

 

[Jerry1]

It would be cheaper to throw out most stuff in the garbage.

Basic math of a storage unit. Example. Storage unit cost $100/month. Keep unit for a year and you pay $1200. Stuff in the storage unit is worth X. If X is less than $1200, then it’s cheaper to throw the stuff away (or give it away) and repurchase it later if you need it. Be careful how and for what you use a storage unit.

 

[pb4uski]

....
Nobody intends or plans to rent a unit for years to hold the old couch, but it happens often.

It would be cheaper to throw out most stuff in the garbage. ...

+1 When DD first started dating DSIL, he was living with his parents after having moved out of an apartment that he shared with a few other guys about a year earlier and had put some furniture in a storage unit. At some point they stopped by the storage unit and she realized that he had already paid much more for a year of storage than what all the stuff being stored was worth.

 

[RetiredAt55.5]

Basic math of a storage unit. Example. Storage unit cost $100/month. Keep unit for a year and you pay $1200. Stuff in the storage unit is worth X. If X is less than $1200, then it’s cheaper to throw the stuff away (or give it away) and repurchase it later if you need it. Be careful how and for what you use a storage unit.

It's funny how some people think. They spend $30-$60k (or more) on a nice car, and leave it out in the elements year round for the paint to get fadded and etched. But, they fill their garage with near worthless stuff.

 

[Tetto]

As I get further into retirement, I'm starting to get picky about the condition of our detached two car garage, which I use mainly as a project space. While we don't put cars into it on a daily basis, I want to keep enough room to use it at any time to protect our cars from a storm. Right now, I can only put one car inside without about a half-hour of work, including putting the walk-behind mower and wheelbarrow on the screened patio.

I'd also like to keep dirt and grass clippings off the floor, or be able to clean it more easily. I suppose a battery-powered leaf blower to push clippings out the door would help, though the rough concrete floor with a crack at one corner makes that harder. Getting it repaired and refinished is on my to-do list.

The thought of buying a plastic shed to get the mess-making mower, wheelbarrow, and digging tools out of the garage comes to mind.

Am I simply nuts? Too much time on my hands?

I’ve got a 60volt Dewalt blower that works fantastic. It blows everything out of my garage. I’m not a freak about cleanliness, but it’s very easy to blow it out with this thing. Great tool.

 

[jazz4cash]

A shed is the best bet. A well built shed on a slab with a rat wall is the best.

What is a rat wall?

 

[Jerry1]

What is a rat wall?

Concrete that goes around the perimeter of the slab down about 2 feet to keep rats from nesting under the slab. They can also be made of other things like wire mesh.


https://www.creaturecontrol.net/blog/what-is-a-rat-wall/

 

[mountainsoft]

I prefer to keep rakes, shovels, mowers, tillers, etc. out in a separate shed. That keeps the dirt and gas smell out of the garage, and keeps my woodworking dust off the lawn tools. It also frees up space in the garage to do woodworking, work on cars, etc.

I built an 8'x12' shed back in 1990 to store our lawn tools. I actually used it as a tiny workshop for several years before we built our garage. It's nothing fancy, just 2x4 stud walls with textured plywood siding, home built roof trusses, and a concrete slab. Still, it's certainly stronger than the prefab sheds you find at the box stores. I'm not sure what the situation is today, but at the time it was cheaper to pour a concrete slab than framing a floor with 2x6's and 3/4" plywood. It also has the benefit of being waterproof if yard tools drip water or something. And it keeps wood framing off the ground to minimize rot, ants, etc.

In 2005 I unbolted it from the slab and moved it to a new location behind our new house. We jacked it up again and poured a new slab underneath.
https://www.watsondiy.com/20050309-shed-move.php

In 2015 I cleaned it all out, added new electrical wiring and lights, and sheathed the interior with OSB. That allowed me to hang tools or shelves wherever I wanted.
https://www.watsondiy.com/20150607-shed.php

Since then I have replaced most of my gas tools with EGO battery powered tools. The only gas machines I have left is a snowblower and a tiller. That let me reduce from 3 gas cans (different oil/fuel mixtures) down to just one. So there is very little gas smell in the shed anymore.

My little shed is over 30 years old now and still going strong.

 

[Cobra59]

My garage is automotive related only, including good cars and project vehicles (I can put 7 vehicles in the garage in storage mode or 5 vehicles if one of them is a project vehicle under restoration/construction). We have a separate shed (10' by 14') for my wife's lawn tractor, garden tools like shovels and rakes, standup paddle boards, etc.

 

[pb4uski]

No humble brag there. [emoji16]

 

[Old Microbiologist]

I' am lucky as we have two houses on a single property one with 3 separate garages. One is devoted to lawn equipment, one for our car, and the third for ladders, scaffolds, and miscellaneous storage. We don't live in that house and it stays vacant except for 2 weeks a year or when we are hosting Ukrainian refugees. The single car garage in our actual house is only for storage. All that said, we have a large lawn tractor, a large mower, a powered leaf vacuum, a branch chipper, a powered dethatcher, and a powered roto-tiller. Then there are a lot of assorted things like a chain saw, battery-powered hedge clippers, power washers, trimmers, etc. So, it is a lot to store, keep clean, and arrange. We always wash each piece of equipment after use by hosing them off. I built a smallish shed to house our water well and in that are stored all rakes, etc., plus a wifi router for that part of our 3-hectare garden. It is a lot of stuff to manage and keeping it clean and tidy is always a challenge. Our full-time gardener is not an ordinarily well-organized guy so training him has been a challenge but now he gets it (it only took 12 years). For some reason, I can't get him to understand composting as we have 6 large composting bins arranged in sequence (3 are self-composting top to bottom but 3 are sequential all ending up in a very large pit of 10 sq. meters that is currently full. It is a lot to manage but together we do a great job and cleanliness is always a big issue. In any house and garden, the Law of Entropy is always a real force to be reckoned with.

 

[JoeWras]

At our previous house we had one of the Amish-built sheds, similar in appearance to many of the ones sold by Lowes and Home Depot, but better quality. But the big box ones are not bad and if we didn't have the built-on shed here that we do we'd have opted for one of those. Every house in this development has at least a one car garage but we're amazed at how many people don't put their cars in there and fill the garages with junk.

Home Depot, Lowes, and other big box stores sell all sizes of sheds. You will want to at a minimum have the spot leveled. Next best is a gravel base on that and best of course is a paved pad. If you keep it painted and the roof intact it should last nearly as long as the house.

I have not been impressed with the plastic sheds I've seen. In a very few years they all seem to have fading colors and the straight lines, like the roof lines, start to noticeably bend like a 100-year-old barn.

Or sheet metal sheds. I literally harvested a skin graft off the top of my bald head on a friend's shed. It was disgusting to my DW because I saved the 2"x1" sheet of skin I found hanging on the door frame top and showed it to her. (Guys, don't do this.) I kind of laughed it off. It healed fine. Besides being skin harvesting machines, these metal sheds don't stand up to anything. The smallest branch or strong wind will take them out. And they also look terrible after a few years.

As for the wood versions from Big Box, be careful of the quality. Some are built to mobile home standards, i.e. the studs are 1x3 and the siding is thin. You just have to check what you are buying.

 

[Walt34]

Or sheet metal sheds.

....The smallest branch or strong wind will take them out. And they also look terrible after a few years.

In some places they are banned for that reason, shades of "The Wizard of OZ". DW's father lived in Frederick County, MD and when he wanted a shed he had his son build one of brick. He lived in an elevated location and they got some serious winds there. A metal shed wouldn't have lasted a month.

 

[MC Rider]

Or sheet metal sheds. I literally harvested a skin graft off the top of my bald head on a friend's shed. It was disgusting to my DW because I saved the 2"x1" sheet of skin I found hanging on the door frame top and showed it to her. (Guys, don't do this.) I kind of laughed it off. It healed fine. Besides being skin harvesting machines, these metal sheds don't stand up to anything. The smallest branch or strong wind will take them out. And they also look terrible after a few years.

As for the wood versions from Big Box, be careful of the quality. Some are built to mobile home standards, i.e. the studs are 1x3 and the siding is thin. You just have to check what you are buying.

Kind of LMAO imagining her response. What were you thinking?

 

[JoeWras]

Kind of LMAO imagining her response. What were you thinking?

I wasn't.

I actually put the slice between 2 dollar bills in my wallet to save it, and when I got home I showed it to her. This was 30 years ago and I was young. I think I still had a bit of boyishness in me and wanted to show off my new cool injury.

 

[Bamaman]

In some places they are banned for that reason, shades of "The Wizard of OZ". DW's father lived in Frederick County, MD and when he wanted a shed he had his son build one of brick. He lived in an elevated location and they got some serious winds there. A metal shed wouldn't have lasted a month.

We had a metal building at our lake house. My father didn't adequately connect it to the slab as it was assembled. After a big storm, we found our metal building had sailed over our 2 story house and it was in the front yard.