My Little Garage

I always dreamed of having a maxed out, deluxe, huge wide open garage.

This isnt it.  

Reality set in, some fun cars left my life, the car and motorcycle life dwindled, priorities changed.  Then the best things in life started happening: I got married, we bought a house, we had a son and a second baby is on the way!

This is a pretty standard two car garage attached to a pretty normal house and a normal guy trying to make the most of it to fit  a car/family guys needs.

Hope you enjoy.

INTRO:

When we moved in the 2 car garage was in need of sprucing up.  One of the walls was painted purple, peeling a bit, and the walls were crying for a coat of paint.  The floors were just concrete and where the previous owner parked was a bit pitted from years of salt dripping off her car and sitting on the concrete.  There was a single light bulb and everything had a shadow.  That being said, it was a blank slate- there were no shelves , the walls were drywalled and finished, no damage.  This was where a bit fo my struggle started, I had all these ideas and didnt know where to begin so everything sat idle for a bit until I figured out a direction for the build.  I wanted to do it once and have it be perfect.  This is where I found a quote that followed me in many areas of life: "Perfection is the enemy of progress" (Winston Churchill) Things sat idle for a bit until I said enough is enough and got to work.

First thing I knew I wanted to do was repaint the garage and address the floors since it was empty-ish. 

The paint part was simple, move the stuff into the middle of the garage, prep walls and apply some brilliant white paint.  My Dad and brother in law came over and we knocked the whole thing out in a few hours and it made a huge difference.  

While everything was apart I cleaned up the stairs, repaired them and got them looking all spiffy. Not a huge thing but I think it helps create a cohesive look.

Finally, for this part of the build I wanted to address floors. This gave me the most headache.  Everyone has their BEST idea and which products to use and seems like a lot of DIY epoxy coatings have so-so long term results.  To hire a company to apply some fancy floor coating was out of the budget so I found on garage journal.com some guys were using Euclid Chemical products to give a nice concrete look.  So off I went to a local supply house and talked to the guy and he suggested a concrete densifier topped with Euco-Diamond Clear.  I prepped and prepped and prepped the floors and caulked all the seams and wiped, washed and scrubbed it to perfection.  I concrete cleaned it with a Zep product and let it dry.  Later on I applied the densifier and a few weeks later I applied the Diamond Clear. That stuff smells soooo strongly.  Like overwhelmingly strong.  It dried clear and had a nice sheen to it.

And then filled it up with our stuff and a car and the rest of the project was put on hold to focus on a stamped patio and porch refinishing. 

Summer went by and the yard tools kept making a mess and since a shed was not in the cards yet I took all the scrap wood i could find and made this rolling tool wall to keep things in one place and tidy.  Turned out well I think.

And then the best greatest most awesome thing happened in July 2020! Our little baby boy was born and my whole world changed once again!

Things were put on hold a few months.

I did buy another Harbor Freight 44" lower toolbox and ended up selling it a while later because it took up too much floor space. I instead purchased the upper box for it and it worked out pretty well.

I knew we needed more shelving to better organize the garage.  I was able to put a car inside and make repairs but that required lots of shuffling of stuff to make enough room.  We had very little vertical storage and that cluttered all the floor space and it was so annoying.  I started looking at shelf ideas but some were red neck, some were expensive prefab solutions and some were ugly.  I wanted it to have a certain cool look to it. I was falling into the perfection is the enemy of progress trap again.

I found a style I liked, made so so many measurements and sketches and went to work.

Marked out my heights and studs:

Added frames:

Back wall done!

You may notice that in some photos  I have the only light in the whole garage photographed. I added a two bulb adaptor and bright LED bulbs and that helped some but I had BIG plans for lighting upgrades in the near future.  One little socket was not cutting it and working on anything in poor lighting is frustrating.

Lighting was next.

I ordered the 8x Barrina LED light kit on Black Friday the year prior and they were just sitting and sitting waiting for me to make up my mind and make the perfect plan for where to put them and what orientation and pattern.

Here is a single tube in a dark garage.  I have my buddy helping me do scientific testing.

Well, enough, it was time to mount them.  My parents came over for dinner a few days later and while my wife and mom and baby were inside my Dad and I went to the garage to hang out and install some lights. It was nice to have extra hands to do the install but overall it was easy.  Just lots of ladder moving and up and down to get screws and align light tubes.

Lights mounted but not turned on:

Lights on!

The next evening I finished up the wiring and tidied things up.

I love these lights. I have now had them up for months and months (almost a year)and they make a world of difference.  I never realized how much difference good lighting made.  Its less stressful when you can see all the details on your work be it cars or cleaning a car or little odds and ends.

I have them wired so they are on a separate circuit--they have an on/off switch that that goes to a wall outlet.  I use these for when I am working on projects and the rest of the time we just use the Y adaptor LED that was in the garage already. That is plenty bright for day to day tasks.

Pics aren't working, we want to see the garage!

adam525i said:

Pics aren't working, we want to see the garage!

That's odd. Lemme look into it. 
It is not letting me upload live shots from my iPhone. I'll see if I can correct this after work today

Seems like the photo issue has been resolved. Learned more about photo file types in the last 24 hours than i anticipated.

The lighting really helps when the projects on the daily drivers get underway.  Our CRV needed A/C work, perfect, no problem.  Its nice to have a garage thats well lit and starting to be organzied so when things need to get done all the tools and supplies are in place.  

I cant stress how much having the garage organized has helped my confidence.  Before we moved in to this house we rented a place that had no garage or room to wrench.  Whenever something needed to be fixed we went over to my parents house.  My Dad was a professional ASE Master Tech and his home garage is setup in a way that no matter was was broken and no matter how sideways a repair got there was enough tools, extras and equipment to fix it and everything was nicely organized.

Truthfully, even when we moved in i found myself going to my parents house because at first none of my tools or "shop" stuff was setup.

By getting MY home garage setup I feel l can now tackle anything because i know where it is, and I know its all ready at my fingertips ready to go.  I dont know if all this makes sense but its been a dramatic change in my life.

In the photos aboe you may see some expanding foam in the ground. 

This was laid down around the outline of my wifes CRV so when she pulled into the garage any water or snow would not pool and flow towards a corner of the garage or toward the tool side.  When the garage was poured they did a horrible job getting the pitch right so until I came up with a better fix this did the job.  When she pull out of the garage just squeegee the water out the door. Simple and it works....

But it looks hillbilly.

So i scraped it up and cleaned the floor to prep it for my updated fix.  I ran beads of clear silicone  around the car profile and it does a better job because it stuck better and looks less noticeable.

I absolutely LOVE shop/garage stories!

I also love those Barrina lights. I bought some a few years ago. I cannot remember the deal but it was super cheap. I went from about 8 4' florescent to 12 LED in a 25x25 space. WOW!!! I still have 4 LEDs laying around and think I will put them up in the dim areas. So nice!

High shelves and a tire/wheel rack is very key.

Finally, this past Spring I added to the overhead shelf by finishing out the L shape I had wanted over the toolbox and eventual bench area.  This was the same 2x4, plywood, threaded rod install like before and i finihed it off with white paint to tie it into the original shelf.

The rolling yard tool wall and the clear RTV dam are clever ideas! And yes, berkeley shadows. The Barrina lights are game changers.

Direct-drive garage door opener will let you store more stuff up on the ceiling. Not cheap though, I think I paid $500 for LiftMaster 9500

Ive got 12 of those LED strips lighting a 30x50.  I'd imagine 8 in there is like operating room level bright and clear.    Looks like good work with the organization and storage.   I started my hobby in a garage so small I had to push my MG Midget outside to actually work on it.   Learning to work in small spaces helps you plan better.   Bigger spaces come in time but if you havent learned organizational lessons they get cluttered and are useless.