"New" garage organization technique

 First, I didn't reorganize the garage because the stocks kept rising. I hope they stop so I can cash in to get brush nickel finish steel cabinets all around the garage walls.

Then I hope the stocks rise again so I have the money to reorganize the garage properly.

Next I am not sure if I still want the house so it was fruitless to revamp the garage.

Finally, I learned to work with what I have, including the wooden shelves and on-wall planks that the previous owner or his tenants built many years ago. I also have many things brought over the years but never put them on, including two pegboards.

I never use the pegboards much. Say if I took five tools out for the weekend, I wouldn't have remembered where and how to put them back in the same place. I know the usual technique is to draw an outline of the tool on the pegboard but that's too inflexible. I fix sprinklers, do oil change and customize curtains. I need to be able to organize as I go along.

My garage is in a mess because without a plan, I am afraid if I put something out of sight, I would not be able to recall where it is.

In the end, I think I nailed it with the help of computers. Computerization is one big possible solution since the 60's, but the difference is, nowadays it's so easy to take pictures. You have the phone all the time and it's linked to the cloud. The cheapest smart phone will give you enough resolution for documents without scanning, just what spies do.

It's not just building a database. It's like unifying the paradigms, virtually and in real life.

So my pegboard isn't just pegboard, but pegboard with icons! I bet nobody posted those pictures yet. Each icon has a pinched hole for hanging on the pegs. No glue and totally flexible.

For power tools, they are on a horizontal "pegboard". I borrowed the idea elsewhere that is like a long box with partitions. Since I have wall shelves, I immediately got the top and bottom of the box without doing anything. I don't need no partition as they are just for the cords.

I was thinking of many ways to fix the tools in position. Metal brackets are too expensive at over $2 a piece. Can use PVC but I need one PVC plug and coupling for each vertical fat peg. I don't do woodwork since I do not have the space to put up with a table saw. Then it dawned on me that I can simply use long nails! In the picture you can see 4 nails for each tool driving into the wooden shelf board at an angle. The icons have punch holes that hangs on the nails.

It is surprisingly flexible. If I want to change position, I can just pull out the nails. Come to think of it, why we need pegboards in the 1st place? Can we use nails instead of pegs?

Crius cross, Crius square

See what I've done? For PVC structures the Tee is the expensive part and the most restrictive part. Now I can get rid of it in many circumstances.

Say if you want to pack a lot of pipes close together to form a raft like structure. It's not possible with Tee's because of the minimum distance between two pipes. Now you can pack two pipes side by side close to about two PVC pipe wall thickness.

Say if you build a pet cage out of pure PVC pipes. Now you just need a outer frame with rigid Tee's. The "walls" of the cage can be lined with pipes secured by Crius crosses.

Unlike Tee's, now it is not limited to PVC. You can use EMT or PEX for environmental friendliness. And since they are designed to be incompatible with different diameters, so for us there's always something to clip it secure.

Sometimes one clip is not secure enough for the pipe diameter, especially using the Crius cross. You can use concentric Crius clips - the Crius square.

By varying the arc length, it can be very hard to take off the clip unless slipping it sideways. On the other hand, using two clips side by side make it harder to slip sideways.

And if you apply some glue, it's not possible to take them out in many cases.

The problem with professionals writing DIY articles

Looking professional

The article looks good, professional, and the article is written by a different professional writers too. As a result, mostly likely it doesn't accept comments. Any comments would make the article seems unworkable, too difficult for DIYers. So here I am writing this to response to all those who don't accept comments.

Instead of taking time to explain to inexperienced DIYers that have a job to do, these articles have to look professional with a fluent flow of words. Who cares? Under the disguise of plain everyday English, these are concise well written instructions suitable for technical journals and trade magazines. Who cares when I just brought a few dollars of screws and want the job done yesterday?

Too often, the final writer doesn't understand a word what the professional is saying, and sacrifice the content to give the article a professional look - that's how they make money. This is true about all the instruction manuals in the world. The Europeans got rid of words in manuals. The Chinese use their kids to write something that no one will understand anyway, since you ask for it.

Jargons

How many knows what is a door jamb? Do I have to look at the dictionary or Wikipedia or Google every time I came across a term? I know you have a term for everything. But that comes with experience. Since I don't have the money to hire you, can I skip the experience? Is the word jamb necessary? Do I have to learn every part of the door to fix it?

Unnecessary jargons should be avoided. Also a standalone diagram will be great. Some articles seem to be written on the dawn of the internet. They try to save bandwidth by not having diagrams to explain simple things. A pic worth a thousand words. And they may point you to some encyclopedia for the diagrams that's good if you want to get into the trade. I don't.

Two-dimensional thinking

Come on, it's a three-dimensional world. You may have a preferred plane of reference in your trade. But to us mere mortals the world is 3D. What is the center? Of what?

Thinking inside a box

All articles of fixing a sagging door seems to come from the same source. It recommends replacing short screws with 3" ones. It's impossible to screw it in without a pilot hole, I tried. But then you can't find a 3" drill for screws that size. Not in the chain hardware stores. What a waste of time!

That's all for now ...