I reckon that every man’s garage needs a decent workbench. It’s the hub of a man’s world out there, whether it’s being used on the latest project, propping up the man during a good chin wag, or holding the man’s beer, a proper garage is simply not complete without a workbench.
Since I didn’t have a workbench yet I was considering buying one from the hardware store or picking up a second hand on-line.
Buying a New Workbench
The cheapest new workbench that I could find was about $70 for an all wood basic workbench kit. The workbench came ready to assemble with the plans, hardware and timber that I would need to assemble it. The kit would probably suit my needs pretty well.
Buying a Used Workbench
Looking at used ones was a real mixed bag. There were not nearly as many listed as I would have liked, and most of those that were listed weren’t cheap. A lot of them were tradesman grade benches coming out of workshops, so they were upwards of about $300. The best priced one that I could find that might suit my purpose was for about $50.
After searching for quite some time I finally gave up on finding a decent used workbench for my garage.
Building a New Workbench
After my fairly fruitless search on-line for a workbench I starting to think that maybe I could build one, so I started another search to find the best way to do that.
After a bit of searching I came across an article entitled “Building a Low-Cost Sturdy Work Bench from 2×4’s and OSBâ€. After reading that I figured that I could probably build it and end up with something pretty usable. I ended up with the workbench in the photo below, and all it took was about 2-hours of building and only $22.00 in materials!
The workbench top and shelf were both off-cuts that I picked up for only $2.00 each from the hardware store. They were 24†x 48â€, so I based the rest the size of the workbench on that.
I then spent $10.00 on 5 x lengths of 2×4 and about $8.00 on a box of screws. Because I had the kids with me I reckon I spent nearly as long trying to buy the materials that I needed as I spent actually building it.
You can read the step by step instructions on how to build it here, but honestly, it’s super easy to build, and you end up a very sturdy and cheap workbench in the end.
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I can barely keep my garage in order much less build more furniture that needs to go into storage in there! I’d be better off if the storage bench had drawers and the like to give me more of a solution with regards to the clutter that’s going on haha!