My fight with a 2 car garage in Suburbia!

tdkkart said:

Did you know the cops are at your house........???

Nice job of reorganizing.

We've always had 2 garage rules:]
#1. (her rule) I can have anything and do anything in the garage as long as there's space for the wife's car.

#2 (my rule) I will abide by rule #1, however kid and house **** does not go in the garage, that's what the basement and shed in teh back yard are for.

Both these rules sorta went away last year when we bought our new place with a 2 stall on the house and my 30x40 in the side yard. Now I get 1 of the house stalls plus my whole building.

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she has a small shelf in the corner for her gardening type stuff, and she parks her car in the garage in the winter. i had moved my s-10 and tools to a rented building a couple years ago, but with her unemployed right now i decided to give up the building and move back home with everything.
still need to get a shed, but tax $$ is running out fast, so maybe next year

**UPDATE**

Haven't posted an update in a while, so here is what I have been up to lately. I primed the drywall and painted. I used drywall primer on the new drywall, but had to use Kilz oil based primer on the older yellowed drywall. Otherwise, the yellow showed through. Just a paint note, because I found out the hard way, the top coat will have a different finish over the Kilz and regular drywall primer, so make sure to paint the whole wall with the same primer.

Here you can see the area around the water heater and furnace. I have not figured out what to do with this area. Regardless, I need to get back there and prime and paint, but I need to make room in the garage first to make it easier to access.



This coat of black turned out more brown than black. I ended up repainting with a true black semi-gloss.



It's so much brighter with the ceiling white!



Here you can see the true black paint, as well as the Gladiator Gear Track that I ran around the whole garage to divide the black and white paint. It should come in handy for storing stuff too.



My red accent stripe. What a pain in the ****! You can also see the new door trim that I came up with. I have not decided what color to paint the door. Ideas?

I was yelling 'PAINT!' on page 3, and I see you did it. VERY nice! It'll make the whole place look bigger. Do the floors while you have things up and mobile. Clean-up is a breeze with a painted floor.

Can you enclose the water heater/furnace behind some vented doors, perhaps pegboard? You could paint that, and hide the mechanical at the same time.

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas

CrashTestDummy said:

I was yelling 'PAINT!' on page 3, and I see you did it. VERY nice! It'll make the whole place look bigger. Do the floors while you have things up and mobile. Clean-up is a breeze with a painted floor.

Can you enclose the water heater/furnace behind some vented doors, perhaps pegboard? You could paint that, and hide the mechanical at the same time.

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas

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Yep. You got me thinking, and so I did it. As far as the mechanicals go, I was thinking about putting in vented bi-fold doors, but I am unsure whether or not it will be to code.

CrashTestDummy, this is for you...

Today, my Dad and I knocked out a closet to hide the furnace and water heater. I used 30" louvered doors. The clearance from the front of the furnace is 16", which is more than what it indicated on the inside of the furnace door.

Trimmed out the storage shelves. I decided against doors for now. Just need to install the paneling to cover the unfinished bottom, and then lots of caulk and wood putty.

The unfinished MDF panels at either end are for future wall speakers. The speaker enclosures are sealed front and back and are the depth of a 2x4. I ran all the speaker wire already and looped it up inside the enclosure. I am still trying to determine the best place to terminate the other end.


Left to right...



The exposed 2x4's you can see in the upper corner have been covered with a sheet of drywall.

Wow! 2 years and 9 months since my last post in my garage remodel thread! So much has happened since then...

A brief explanation is in order before I move on with where I am at today. Shortly after my last post in March of 2010 my wife (now ex) suddenly decided she was leaving after 8 years with her two kids. That left me and my son here. Needless to say, I lost my motivation to finish the garage, and rather focused my attention on supporting my son.

Fast forward to present day... I am remarried to the love of my life. My son loves his step-mom to pieces and all is very well. I am actually still in the same house and have moved along in the garage a bit. So, without further jibber jabber, here is where the space is at these days. Nevermind the mess, I am in the middle of several projects. Clockwise..















It's a constant fight to keep this space clean. Seems like I spend as much time cleaning as working, but whatever. Next up... Some of my projects.

I use my garage for everything, from cutting trim to welding small projects. I would love to have a dedicated space, but that is down the road. It WILL happen, just not right now.

Here is the kitchen island I built during my remodel of part of my downstairs. It's just angle iron and flat. I did this all with a $90 HF fluxcore. No big deal since I was going for a distressed industrial look. This was the first welding I had done in 3 years, and it felt good! Sorry about the pic quality, most of these were cell phone pics on the fly.







Here is a piece of butcher block I bought off a really nice gentleman on Camano Island. He had the block in storage for 30 years, so it needed a little restoration. It's a working block, so I soaked it in mineral oil for several days and then coated in in beeswax.



Here is the finished product. I just hit the finish with some steel wool and cleared it with laquer. It's the anchor in our kitchen, and it is used nightly.

Here's a hand distressed table top made out of 2x6 studs and some steel strap. I made this for my wedding to serve food on, which it did very well, and it is now awaiting another purpose.





Placed on some saw horses in the front room awaiting use at our wedding. For the finish, I mixed all my leftovers, then put on 2 coats of poly, sanded and a final coat of poly.

Very cool island. I was going to post something pertaining to your open shelves in the first post of this thread, till I noticed the date it was posted! Looks like your making the most out of a 2 car garage now.
I'm just about to get started on mine so I like seeing these start-progress-finish threads.

I also rebuilt this junkyard High Pinion Dana 60. Well, most of it anyway. I had the gears done professionally.



High steer goodness.



I tore down this Sterling 10.5" and it is awaiting a rebuild.





All this for my 4wd Ford E350 Diesel Van conversion that I am working on.

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/75555-New-E-350-Project-VANdiana-Jones!

Brad

Jay Sco said:

Very cool island. I was going to post something pertaining to your open shelves in the first post of this thread, till I noticed the date it was posted! Looks like your making the most out of a 2 car garage now.
I'm just about to get started on mine so I like seeing these start-progress-finish threads.

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Thanks! It's been a while, I know.