Between 265 & 485 SQ/FT My simple two car garage

[dislexiclawyer]

Such a nice organized space you have created. I'd love to see an alloy RD FF floor in there, too. Definitely worth the $$$. But, it's a good chunk of change so take your time with the decision.

Judging by how good your floor and other RD floors look, I think it would really help bring the space together. It would also be nice to keep the winter and rainy mess out of the garage (or at least under our feet) since we live off a short gravel road. I think a painted finish is out of the question as well. Hot tire pickup is a real concern for us, between my patrol car and the wife's over an hour average commute. Maybe I should get on a few paid overtime projects?

The garage looks great! The paint went a loooooong way.

Nice truck, too.

Thanks. I wish I could have had some better lighting for the night shot. I love the pyrite paint color on that truck, and the picture doesn't do it justice.

Great garage! A word of caution about the plastic wreath boxes, they can over time slide off the shelf and land on your vehicle due to vibrations from the garage door. I had a 32 qt. Sterilite bin slide off a metal wire shelf and ended up on top of my wife's Honda. The shelf is positioned like your shelf is next to the garage door track.

Thanks for the heads up. This had been a slight concern of mine. I was thinking about putting some bolts or hooks in the ceiling to attach bungie cords to, but honestly right now, I don't know if it is needed. I had also thought about putting some skateboard grip tape material along the front edge to keep stuff from sliding.

 

[dislexiclawyer]

It has been a while since my last update so I felt like I needed to post something. Nothing big, but I feel I may be on the cusp of something big. We have made the final decision on RaceDeck for the floor. It will be a field of alloy with a graphite border around the parking area. The alloy should help reflect light and still keep with the colors I have going on, as well as camouflage the debris I bring into the garage. I have been going back and forth between graphite or black borders in fear that the graphite will blend too closely with the alloy. After looking at dubber's floor and other pictures around the net, I think the graphite will work just fine. I am hoping to find some time here soon that I can get it ordered and installed that works with the weather.

I have been making some preparations for the new floor too. I have begun to paint the exposed wood on the stem wall. I still have more than half of the garage left though. The entire back wall needs to be done, but I am holding off so I don't have to move the benches and cabinets more than once.

I need to paint the remaining exposed wood, paint and install baseboard, and trim and install the floor. I will also need to shorten my stairs into the house to account for the height difference once the floor is down. I will be running it under the stairs instead of trimming around for a cleaner look. I have a feeling I may just have to order the baseboard and RaceDeck, move my cabinets into the center of the floor, pull the truck out, and get to work.

I also got a few goodies over the weekend to make better use of the space. The extension cord reel is either a 30 or 40 footer from Menards (I forget which). Menards is also running a sale on their Performax tool box drawer liner for $4.50 a roll. It was slightly frustrating to cut since it wasn't exactly square, but for the money it's hard to complain. 3 rolls was enough to do 8 drawers, with one of them being 35" wide, and I still have a bit left over. Now my stuff stays put when I shut the drawers!

I only took 1 picture of the drawer.


After the flooring is taken care of I have plans to add more light. I am thinking 5 more fixtures like the ones I already have installed. 2 at the front of the garage above the door, and 3 along the back for more light on the benches. The plug-in light will be replaced by one of the new hardwired lights.

 

[Power Sedan]

Your garage is coming along nicely, great color scheme!

 

[dubber]

Looking forward to seeing that RaceDeck.

 

[dislexiclawyer]

I am starting to get to exciting updates. I have spent the past couple of days before work preparing the garage for baseboards. I ended up moving all of the furniture away from the back wall so I could get back there to clean it up and paint the exposed stem wall.

My brother ended up coming over yesterday to help out, and I am glad he did or it would have turned into a 2 day project. We got all of the base moulding installed, with a 5/8" gap between the floor on the wall with the man door for floor tiles to slide underneath. The trim is .75" wide, so I should be able to maintain the proper expansion gap, and have a very clean look on that wall. We also got all of the trim caulked and painted. I think it really finishes off the space. You also never REALLY know how bad the drywall work is until you put up baseboards. I can tell the drywall was hung on a Friday at 3:30.

We also trimmed out the attic opening. I am a little less than thrilled about the result, but it is no longer a jagged drywall opening. We ran into some issues with things not being square about halfway through which ruined our plans for mitered corners with the amount of wood we had left. If I had it to do over again I would do it differently. Maybe I can buy another stick of trim and fix it later. I'll post a picture in my next update since I forgot to take one last night. I also went around the garage and did some touch-up on the walls since everything was pulled out.

Laying the first piece.


The finished product. The garage isn't put back together yet though. I am leaving it in a somewhat unfinished state because the brown truck of happiness is delivering 396 pounds of Racedeck on Monday. The weather next week is supposed to be a bit inconsistent, but I think I can find a few nice days to get the floor down.



I picked up the table saw in this picture for $89 before tax. It is a simple no-frills unit from Ryobi, but it worked perfectly for ripping the trim along the right wall. It sure did make a mess though. Next time I am taking it to the end of the driveway. I will be cleaning sawdust out of the garage for weeks. It is also small enough to store on top of the cabinets with the legs removed.



You may also notice how nice and close my wiring and shelf brackets are to the base trim. It's like I planned it or something It's nice when a plan comes together.

 

[dislexiclawyer]

Time for a flooring update!

First though, is another attempt to keep stuff off the floor. In some of my previous pictures I am sure you will notice a 5 gallon Lowe's bucket filled with random long items (roll of carpet, screen material, dowel rods, etc.). It was my only storage option at the time, and usually got **** in a corner somewhere. Recently I was at the hardware store looking at the fast track accessories, and I got an idea. I was looking at the tubular ball holder and thought it might do the trick, with some modifications. Reading the reviews online left me somewhat skeptical as the elastic bands it comes with have been known to be brittle, and often need to be replaced. I will cross that bridge when I come to it, but I think it will be fine since I wont be filling it with balls.

I traced the bottom of the rack onto a scrap of kydex I had laying around from a holster build and cut it out to make a solid bottom for the rack. Not a perfect circle, but it will do.


I then made some notches for the elastic band mounts, and drilled some holes for the vertical pieces of the rack. I was thinking of attaching some zip-ties, but it isn't going anywhere like this.


And the finished product! It works pretty well to store all of my oblong items. I did add a small bungee cord across the front to prevent items from falling forward and hitting the truck.


Now on to the part everyone cares about, the floor. Justin with Garage Flooring LLC had a sale in February on his TrueLock HD ribbed tiles that was just too good to pass up. If anyone is looking for flooring products I would give him a call or PM. I made a slight math error on my order and ended up with too few graphite tiles. I was short the entire back row of the parking border. Needless to say, Justin took care of me and got out a rush order so I could finish the floor. Great customer service from these guys.

I placed an order for 512 tiles, which ended up arriving in 11 boxes on a pallet at almost 400 pounds UPS dropped it right in the garage for me. I took the picture after tearing off the shrink wrap.


The brown truck came early so I got started on the floor before work. I started in an "L" shape to the border, then filled in the center.


I ended up making it to the back of the garage when I realized my math error. I wasn't going to finish before work after all.


Over the next couple of days I trimmed out the right side of the floor while the new tiles were in the mail.


My growing pile of scrap. The table saw made quick work of the tiles. It did leave somewhat of a rough edge, but I expected that. They cleaned up easily.


Some of my trimmed in corners.



Finally getting to start the back row after more tiles arrived.


And the finished product.

I am really happy with the final result. I am looking forward to see how the floor performs in the rain, and we may have 1 more snow storm this year too. Having the floor space visually delineated really makes the space feel bigger. It seems like there is more space along the walls too. Maybe it is just easier to park in the right spots now?













How about a before and after? There is about a year difference between the two.

 

[sean Buick 76]

Hi there, just saw your thread today and wanted to say hello and good work on the garage! Nice taste in vehicles and keep us posted!

 

[HemiRamOn22s]

Garage is looking good!

 

[Garage Flooring]

Time for a flooring update!

First though, is another attempt to keep stuff off the floor. In some of my previous pictures I am sure you will notice a 5 gallon Lowe's bucket filled with random long items (roll of carpet, screen material, dowel rods, etc.). It was my only storage option at the time, and usually got **** in a corner somewhere. Recently I was at the hardware store looking at the fast track accessories, and I got an idea. I was looking at the tubular ball holder and thought it might do the trick, with some modifications. Reading the reviews online left me somewhat skeptical as the elastic bands it comes with have been known to be brittle, and often need to be replaced. I will cross that bridge when I come to it, but I think it will be fine since I wont be filling it with balls.

I cut traced the bottom of the rack onto a scrap of kydex I had laying around from a holster build and cut it out to make a solid bottom for the rack. Not a perfect circle, but it will do.

I then made some notches for the elastic band mounts, and drilled some holes for the vertical pieces of the rack. I was thinking of attaching some zip-ties, but it isn't going anywhere like this.

And the finished product! It works pretty well to store all of my oblong items. I did add a small bungee cord across the front to prevent items from falling forward and hitting the truck.

Now on to the part everyone cares about, the floor. Justin with Garage Flooring LLC had a sale in February on his TrueLock HD ribbed tiles that was just too good to pass up. If anyone is looking for flooring products I would give him a call or PM. I made a slight math error on my order and ended up with too few graphite tiles. I was short the entire back row of the parking border. Needless to say, Justin took care of me and got out a rush order so I could finish the floor. Great customer service from these guys.

I placed an order for 512 tiles, which ended up arriving in 11 boxes on a pallet at almost 400 pounds UPS dropped it right in the garage for me. I took the picture after tearing off the shrink wrap.

The brown truck came early so I got started on the floor before work. I started in an "L" shape to the border, then filled in the center.

I ended up making it to the back of the garage when I realized my math error. I wasn't going to finish before work after all.

Over the next couple of days I trimmed out the right side of the floor while the new tiles were in the mail.

My growing pile of scrap. The table saw made quick work of the tiles. It did leave somewhat of a rough edge, but I expected that. They cleaned up easily.

Some of my trimmed in corners.

Finally getting to start the back row after more tiles arrived.

And the finished product.

I am really happy with the final result. I am looking forward to see how the floor performs in the rain, and we may have 1 more snow storm this year too. Having the floor space visually delineated really makes the space feel bigger. It seems like there is more space along the walls too. Maybe it is just easier to park in the right spots now?

How about a before and after? There is about a year difference between the two.

WOW! You did an awesome job on that!!!! I am really glad it worked out for you!

 

[guspech750]

Looks amazing!


Sent from The White House on taxpayers dimes.

 

[5.0vert]

Great Job!!

 

[taumac]

Wow, what a difference. Looks great.

 

[Salim]

The transformation is amazing! You have a great looking space!

What are the differences between the RD Free Flow and the HD Truelock that you got? I see the boxes still say RD. Would appreciate any info. Thanks!

 

[Garage Flooring]

I would be happy to send you samples of both but you simply cannot tell the difference. Plus GJ members have a special sale on this product when they CALL the office (800)956-4301


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[dislexiclawyer]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

This will unfortunately be a stopping point for me for a while. It's time to just enjoy the space. Plus, other areas of the house need to be tended to as well. About the only other upgrades I would like to make are a few more lighting fixtures and of course more tools.

The transformation is amazing! You have a great looking space!

What are the differences between the RD Free Flow and the HD Truelock that you got? I see the boxes still say RD. Would appreciate any info. Thanks!

Salim, I would give Justin a call if you have specific questions about the tiles. You have a PM inbound from me.

 

[bry@n]

Looks great. Good luck.

 

[CombatNinja]

[/QUOTE]

The Money Shot! Your garage now looks truly 'finished', though we all know that you will continue to refine it anyway. Flooring is that final piece to the puzzle that really ties a space together and makes it look done. Congrats!

 

[stg454]

Great job on the garage. I really like it.

 

[63ragtop]

Really nice execution. Love the wall color. White trim along the baseboards... Nice job. Time to enjoy it now.

 

[Greg_STL]

Wow. That is one really clean garage. Great job!

 

[AndrewP]

The floor looks great, ties in with the wall colour very nicely too.

 

[maxchevy]

Very well done!

 

[Gixxerboy63]

The Money Shot! Your garage now looks truly 'finished', though we all know that you will continue to refine it anyway. Flooring is that final piece to the puzzle that really ties a space together and makes it look done. Congrats![/QUOTE]

Excellent!
Can't wait to get my floor done.

 

[dislexiclawyer]

I knew it had been a while since I had posted anything, but I didn't realize it had been a year. Not much has really changed in the garage, I have just gotten a lot of projects done in my nice clean space.

I did add new lighting early this year. I added two 4' T8 2 bulb fixtures to the front and back of the garage, for a total of 6 fixtures. Much brighter. I also replaced the bulbs in my garage door opener with some high output LED bulbs that match the color temp of the fluorescent fixtures. I will need to get an updated shot at night now.






In lieu of working on the garage over the past year, I have been working on the rest of the house. I wish I had taken a before picture of the back of the house, but I added a deck last fall. The screened in portion was already there, we just built around it.




Then I used all of the cast-off materials from the deck to build a new ramp for the shed. I finally got a light installed on it too. I do need to add a dusk to dawn sensor though. It is wired to a constant on circuit. This spring the shed will be getting a new coat of paint, and some new trim around the base. I already have the green, just need to narrow down the blue/gray color.






And finally, last weekend I finished the deck with a set of wraparound stairs. If anyone has any suggestions on better ways to route my gutter downspout I am all ears. That flex pipe is functional, but a bit of an eye sore. I also have a bit of spare lumber I will be building a planter box with. It will go in the space between the deck and the side of the house. We are planning on filling it with some bushes that will grow to about 4' tall for a bit of privacy.






My next projects will be finding a new grill and a set of table and chairs for the deck, and getting the yard back in order this summer. Between our dog and the moles, our yard got destroyed over the winter.

 

[JohnnieMo]

I've been following you for a while but I see I've never posted anything! I really like your garage. Clean and classy. I'm glad you went the Racedeck route. It really completes the space.

I'm also planning a Swisstrax floor and I am grappling with whether or not to **** the tiles up against a baseboard, or to slip the tiles underneath the baseboard. The latter would be cleaner, but would make them a bit harder to remove for cleaning. It also means I can't water proof the union (water can get under the baseboard and potentially creep up the wall)

As for your drainage issue on the back deck - I see you are just running the drain beside the house. That sorta defeats the purpose. You want to get the water away from your foundation. How about doing what you did on the middle downspout? Go through the deck and run it out and away. It can all drain underneath the deck, maybe 5 feet away from the foundation.

 

[dislexiclawyer]

I've been following you for a while but I see I've never posted anything! I really like your garage. Clean and classy. I'm glad you went the Racedeck route. It really completes the space.

I'm also planning a Swisstrax floor and I am grappling with whether or not to **** the tiles up against a baseboard, or to slip the tiles underneath the baseboard. The latter would be cleaner, but would make them a bit harder to remove for cleaning. It also means I can't water proof the union (water can get under the baseboard and potentially creep up the wall)

As for your drainage issue on the back deck - I see you are just running the drain beside the house. That sorta defeats the purpose. You want to get the water away from your foundation. How about doing what you did on the middle downspout? Go through the deck and run it out and away. It can all drain underneath the deck, maybe 5 feet away from the foundation.

Thanks man.

Due to the design of my garage I had to both but the floor up to the wall (with expansion gap), and slide it under baseboards. I am a big fan of the clean look of running under the baseboard, plus the expansion gap is hidden. When I eventually pull out my floor to clean it I was only planning on removing the portion inside the border on the floor where most of the road grime settles.

I had planned on running the gutter under the deck when I was building it, but scrubbed the idea to save time. Looks like I should have just done it then and been done with it. Much happier with the results. Turns out I didn't have any jigsaw blades long enough to cut all the way through the deck board too, so that was fun.

 

[dislexiclawyer]

Another progress update. I never seem to post as I do stuff to the garage/ house since it is usually in small increments.

The un-evenness (it's a word) of my workbenches has been bothering me lately, and it got really bad when I was doing a rifle build using the vice and I started pulling up the work surface of the old Kobalt bench. I worked some overtime and convinced the wife to let me make one more addition to the garage . I was able to get in on a sale at Sears and get another workbench, a 6' pegboard back wall, another drawer module, and a shelving module with a door. It took about a month and a half for all of my stuff to come in (my Sears hometown store is not very good), so I have building everything in stages. I had to move my cabinets just about as close to the water heater as they can get, but everything fits, and I can still store oblong stuff beside the cabinet (like the tonneau cover for my truck when it is off).

I can fit so much more stuff on the pegboard now. Almost all of my commonly used stuff is at an arms reach, and I now have a dedicated spot for the drill press I got at the beginning of the year.



I also spent the morning taking care of yard and house stuff, and I pulled out the floor and power washed it. We had a decent amount of road grime that had settled in, even after vacuuming multiple times last year.




All clean

I have also gotten a bit of grass seed spread this Spring, although we still need to do more, and take care of our Mole problem. We recently picked out some patio furniture too, and I finally got around to adding the planter box at the end of the deck. The Dogwoods, and whatever else it was we got, should get around 4' tall and provide some good privacy.





I have a few more projects to take care of outside before the summer. We are having a baby in September, so continuing the storage shelf above the windows will be done soon. I also added some new trim to the shed, and will be re-painting it soon. Then I will be diverting my attention to the nursery, and re-modeling our fireplace.

 

[HSpencer]

DL

Your garage looks absolutely fantastic. So well organized and usable. The deck is a super addition to your already beautiful home. I am liking everything you have done. Great Job and I know your very proud of all you have there. Good to have you posting!!

Best Regards
Herb

 

[Terranova]

Yeah man, that looks great. And to have it "done enough" to go do the deck. Nice

 

[dislexiclawyer]

Well, unfortunately Photobucket now wants me to pay a billion dollars to have 3rd party hosting, so I closed my account. Now all of my links are dead, and I don't think I have the time to go back through and re-link everything. I have moved everything to a new hosting site I will link to though.

Link: https://dislexiclawyer.imgur.com/

In preparation for our baby (who is coming any day now) I have been finishing up storage in the garage, and a few projects around the house. I have added around 30 feet of additional shelving extending from the north-east corner of the garage. I also have everything possible in the same size tote boxes for ease of storage and uniformity.

I also finally got around to re-finishing our fireplace. My wife has wanted this done ever since we moved in around 3 years ago. I think it came together well.

I can't find the before pictures, but I think you can still how tell how big of a transformation it was. Starting the demo.

Tile off. They had all been glued to the drywall with liquid nails.

Mantle removed, edges cleaned up, and sample tiles.

Hardi-backer put up, mantle refinished and hung (at a reasonable height this time), box for TV components recessed into the wall and power run.

TV test fit and built-ins being made.

Tiling begins!

Tile done and bookshelves filled.

Finished! (with bad lighting)

Painted the brass accents and cleaned the glass.

I have also repainted our shed in the backyard and added base trim, which looks much better. I also installed a dusk to dawn sensor on the light fixture so it doesn't stay on all day. I apparently don't have any pictures so I'll have to remember to take some the next time I mow or something.

 

[dislexiclawyer]

I haven't updated in a while because there hasn't really been a lot to update. I have done a few things here and there to update the space, but the setup seems to work well, so why change it? I have done some spring cleaning recently, so I thought an update was in order. We had a mild winter last year. That coupled with the fact that my parents are borrowing my power washer means I didn't pull out the floor to clean it. I just treated some of the dirtier spots with window cleaner, and ran a steam mop over the floor, and it's as good as new. Well it would be cleaner with a power washer, but this works fine.




I did add some more pegboard behind my center workbench. As I use that side of the bench more, I am finding I may want to start hanging more of my common use items. I wanted to get another Craftsman unit for uniformity, and for the extra work light, but it is a discontinued item. I did find some cool panels on Amazon from a company called Wall Control, and they had a bunch of neat pegboard accessories. These were attached straight to the wall behind the bench.






The most exciting update, or possible update comes in the back yard. I have been talking with the people who own the property next to mine, and it seems they will be looking to sell soon. It's a 40x50x16 shop on 1.2 acres. It would be a very nice addition to my property, and a great place to start some projects. More on that when it develops.

 

[15til3]

Our garages are fairly similar. Nice to see how clean and orgainzed you managed to get yours.

I also plan on doing high shelves for storage and those rubber maid tracks

 

[danyo492]

Fireplace looks awesome, good job!

 

[nicholam77]

Wow, your space turned out great! Super clean and organized. The deck turned out nicely, too.

 

[dislexiclawyer]

It is hard to believe it has been a year since I have last posted in this thread. It was a cool spring day so I did some cleaning and picture taking. Not a lot has changed in the space in a year. I have tried to clean out unnecessary stuff to find the most efficient use of space. I have acquired a few new tools too, some of which can probably be seen on the pegboard.

I don't know if I mentioned in earlier posts, but the new section of pegboard mounted to the wall is from Wall Control. It is a nice product and comes with some cool accessories. If I could do it over again I would probably do that behind both workbenches and figure out another lighting solution for the benches.

I have also fully extended the ceiling shelves to run wall-to-wall on the north and east wall. Storage is at a premium at our house. Our daughter will be 2 this summer, and we have another one on the way, so I am trying to get storage solutions in place before we are overflowing with stuff. We have some free space now, and when the new baby comes we will hopefully slowly start working through the totes of old vacuum sealed baby clothes to make more.

I will probably post some yard updates at the end of spring since that is what I have been focused on lately. We upgraded mowers this year too. Traded in our Ariens lawn tractor for a nice Gravely zero turn. The learning curve has been steep, but it has cut down mow time by around 40%. We may end up with a new driveway as well. I am in the process of getting estimates. After 25 years, our current concrete has settled a lot. It is cracking and spalling where it contacts the house. Plus it will be nice to add some extra parking to the side of the driveway.

 

[driftpin]

Since you didn't mention it, you didn't buy the adjoining property?

A good job on the garage. I have the Craftsman 8 ft workbench, under-which fits-nicely their roll-around drawer or double-door storage units. Three of these fit perfectly under the workbench. I was able to pick the workbench up on sale, the frame was all I needed, as I made my own top (a 3/4" X 4' X 8' ripped lengthwise, glued & screwed to make a 1-1/2" X 2' X 8' wood top), and covered it with 3/16" X 2 ft X 8 ft steel. Instead of the Craftsman pegboard and pight, I used Geartrack for wall storage above the workbench, it's kind-of like a french cleat. The Whirlpool Corp. Gladiator hooks also fit the Sears Geartrack, and the Gladiator track is similar to the Sears Geartrack. I actually prefer the Sears hooks as they have a small cam at the bottom, to lock into-place the bracket on the track. I made a couple of brackets to mount my cordless chargers onto the Geartrack, to get them off the workbench top. It's very easy to pull-off the wall a charged battery, and to insert one for charging.

I'm not-sure why, but one year in December, I was in the Ft. Lauderdale Sears store, and they had that 8 ft. Craftsman workbench frame on-sale for about 1/3 of retail, and the drawer or double-door roll-around storage units on-sale for 25% of retail. I was only going to buy a couple. They normally are >$400 apiece. When the clerk rang them up, and I saw the price (they were in the closeout area without pricetags), my heart started pounding. I asked him, "how-many of these do you have in-stock?" I took them all.

Yes, the workbench is full. I have a Handy-Lift motorcycle lift in-front of the workbench, if a bike isn't on it, I use it as a workbench for projects.

 

[Purist]

It is hard to believe it has been a year since I have last posted in this thread. It was a cool spring day so I did some cleaning and picture taking. Not a lot has changed in the space in a year. I have tried to clean out unnecessary stuff to find the most efficient use of space. I have acquired a few new tools too, some of which can probably be seen on the pegboard.

I don't know if I mentioned in earlier posts, but the new section of pegboard mounted to the wall is from Wall Control. It is a nice product and comes with some cool accessories. If I could do it over again I would probably do that behind both workbenches and figure out another lighting solution for the benches.

I have also fully extended the ceiling shelves to run wall-to-wall on the north and east wall. Storage is at a premium at our house. Our daughter will be 2 this summer, and we have another one on the way, so I am trying to get storage solutions in place before we are overflowing with stuff. We have some free space now, and when the new baby comes we will hopefully slowly start working through the totes of old vacuum sealed baby clothes to make more.

I will probably post some yard updates at the end of spring since that is what I have been focused on lately. We upgraded mowers this year too. Traded in our Ariens lawn tractor for a nice Gravely zero turn. The learning curve has been steep, but it has cut down mow time by around 40%. We may end up with a new driveway as well. I am in the process of getting estimates. After 25 years, our current concrete has settled a lot. It is cracking and spalling where it contacts the house. Plus it will be nice to add some extra parking to the side of the driveway.

Garage looks absolutely fantastic!! Love the flooring. Are you an OG member, by any chance?

 

[dislexiclawyer]

Since you didn't mention it, you didn't buy the adjoining property?

No I didn't. Someone beat me with a cash offer, which I don't blame the previous owner for taking. I have gotten to know the new owner though, and he is a good guy. It will be a relatively short term property for him, and he has let me know I will have the first chance at buying it when he is ready to sell. He has been doing a lot of good work to the place too. I have some big plans for when I can get a hold of that space.

It is a blessing in disguise not buying it. For one, we have been so busy with our lives, work, and work on the house. Also, having the cash free that we would have used for a down payment is letting us make some improvements to the house. We had the roof replaced last summer after a hail storm, which would have been a nice hit to the savings. If we get a decent quote on concrete we will replace the driveway too, which we have wanted to do since we moved in 5 years ago.

Garage looks absolutely fantastic!! Love the flooring. Are you an OG member, by any chance?

Thanks! I am not, I didn't know he had a forum or anything. I have watched a lot of his YouTube videos though. Some of his stuff is a bit high priced for me, but I have been able to incorporate a lot of his concepts and ideas into my space. I have been getting more into detailing, but I am still very much a novice.

 

[Unruh]

Great garage! I had used colors that were left over after our remodeling and after seeing your place, wish I went a different direction. Looks great!

 

[dislexiclawyer]

Here is yet another I can't believe it has been so long post.

I guess I have set up a space that is efficient for my uses, because I haven't needed to change much. I have almost filled up the storage up near the ceiling. Most of the bins are baby clothes though, which will be coming back down soon when our second daughter is born. I have been thinking about re-arranging the workbenches and cabinets. I want the back wall to be more symmetrical, so moving one of the cabinets to the left may be in order. I have also been thinking about getting 4 or 5 of the Craftsman wall cabinets to hang over the workbenches for extra storage. I have been accumulating more detailing supplies, and it would be nice to have dedicated storage for it all. My drawers are also filling up with tools at a steady rate, so more large item storage right at my work space would be nice. At least my daughter loves playing in here.



We tore out our old driveway and walkway back in June, and had a new one poured with a parking extension. It is nice having a new driveway without any cracks, that drains water properly. The old one had settled between 1 and 6 inches.



I did some finishing work on the deck this summer too. I may have mentioned that I wanted to do a facia around the perimeter of the deck and steps, but needed time to undertake the task. What better time than peak heat in Missouri to work on a deck right? I extended the middle step about 4 feet to the east, so the step down wasn't so long. I also trimmed out the deck in a 1x10 facia board, which really finishes things off. My wife has also been pushing me to turn our screened in portion of the deck into a 3-seasons room. I have gotten some quotes for some Eze Breeze 3-season windows, which seem reasonable, but it will be a big project. It will require pulling up the decking and replacing with subfloor without disturbing the existing aluminum walls, and I would like to add more exterior lighting on the porch and the deck.




My detailing game is taking a step up as well. I think it was sed335i who asked me about Obsessed Garage. While I am not a member there, I do watch some of his stuff on YouTube, and a few other channels he collaborates with. He turned me on to CR Spotless Water Systems, which has been a life changer. While I am on county water here, it is super hard, and makes washing cars a nightmare. I wanted to give the CR system a try, but didn't like needing to drag out a power washer and a water treatment system.

I ordered a DI-120 system, which is their cheapest option, and seems to be the most economical option for my needs. To avoid having to drag out my gas power washer, which also puts out too much water for the CR system to work properly, I found a Karcher K1700 on Amazon for a decent price that OG also recommends. It is the right gallon per minute output, but more importantly, it has space to mount the CR system inside. It turned out to be a nice compact little carwash solution. If there is any interest I can go more in-depth with what I did. Now all I need to do is wheel this little guy outside, plug in a garden hose, and power washer hose and I'm in business.