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I finally got my shop covered. Over 500sq ft. under tin. An 8X10 tool shed attached (with A/C) and a 4X10 store room. I have probably 20ft of work counter. Three 8ft bays. Yesterday, I built me a 3ft work bench (out of 2X6's), with holes cut out for putting vertical engines on. Bolt holes drilled so I can secure an engine to it. It has a battery box and a small bottle and gas lines with a fuel filter and a shut off valve attached. Now I can test engines before I install them.

Today, I'm gonna start working on a lift. I'm trying to figure out how to make it big enough to lift either just one end, or the entire rider.

It's sort of redneck-ish. Almost all the poles I have are cedar that I cut from my property. As well as the legs of my work benches.

Hopefully, someday I'll make enough to concrete the floors. Right now, I'm just using red mulch that I get from Lowes for like $2 per bag. I still need another 10 bags to completely cover the dirt.

As it stands now, I can fit about 6 or 7 riders. The wall mounts I have set up, can hold about 6 weed eaters. And the one store room shelf is big enough for 4 chainsaws.
The back wall, is the back of my wood privacy fence. The front way is a 12X24 heavy duty tarp. I have weed eater string ran from prefabbed holes in the tarp, ran through some bolt loops at the top and then onto a reel. When I want to raise the tarp, I just real the weed eater string until the tarp is as high as I want it.

It's coming along nicely.

Congrats on the shop. Sounds like a great beginning. For a lift you might look at the Harbor Freight motorcycle lifts but you will have to build 'wings' on the side to be able to use it for riders. I have a riding mower lift to lift up the front or rear of the mower one at a time. I have seen people lift one end of a rider, put jack stands under the frame then lift the other end. Some folks use a chain hoist/come along to lift mowers and then some folks just stand them up on the back end by hand. Have fun and remember to be safe. What part of Texas are in you in? I am around Lake Conroe area.
Tom

I now mainly use a yard crane , much like an engine crane with bigger wheels so it rolls over rough surfaces.
Been a dirt drive way mechanic all my life and now being mobile I am back working in the dirt.
I keep some old carpet squares that I slip under mowers when working on them in customers yards.
makes a big difference when you drop that main jet.
If you have a reasonably good solid earth floor, consider getting some old carpet from a charity shop or carpet layer.
Put in on your floor then run a plate ( wacker ) over the top of the carpet to ram the dirt hard.
Then you can use a second smaller piece under mowers.
When thy get grotty, toss them out & find another piece.
People usd to laugh when they saw the old carpet squares under my bikes & vans in the garage, but after a wile most realised it was not such a silly idea.

I'm looking at an atv wench with a remote. Connected to a 12 battery. Running the wench cable to 4 cables connected to each corner with hooks.
The 4 cables running through pulleys & guides to the one cable from the wench.

Love the carpet idea.

Those wenchs can do some amazing things! Ask the pirates.

I just need it to lift a riding mower. Those are less than what, 600lbs? Should be easy.

Thought to keep in mind. Electric fork lifts. When the batteries go bad and they find out the cost to replace them they go on sale cheap. They have thousands of pounds of lift and only need an electrical cord to work. One guy had a table top and lift platform for it. Slid on and slide off. It is a neet idea and if I had not hesatated I would own one righ now.

..............

Been using carpet for years. It works really well.

I have a concrete floor in my space, & at the work bench I have rubber backed carpet. Really helps on my feet, standing there..

And use cardboard to throw down so I can slider under whatever.. My creeper is too tall.

I guess I am really lucky since we have a Heftee 2000 lift and it really makes it a lot easier to work on mowers. Some genius before I started working there made a rolling work bench that you slide under the mower after you raise the lift and drop the deck right down on it. Sure beats rolling around on the floor. We could use a bigger one now since we are getting bigger zero turn mowers 72 and 74 inch cuts. These are really too wide for the lift but I can up them on and raise them up enough to put a jack that attaches to the lift arms and put under the frame on the outboard side and strap the other side to the main lift frame to make it safe to work on.