Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT The Garage at The Place in The Valley (Garage Condo 45x23x20)

The black looks good but personally I would have gone with the red. Just finishing up a storage project that includes powder coating my two short and two tall Lista cabinets. Red because red my favorite color. Black is cool as well.

It might be fun to use all of your photos and notes to put together sort of a "Coffee Table Book" to have setting out - so guests can page through and see the whole transformation as well as read about all the problems with the county and the ADA requirements.

It was a surprisingly nice day out today. Our unit gets lots of afternoon sun so it warms up nice on days like today. So here are some pictures - just because....


I also took some panoramas with my iphone and posted them on the first post of this thread. I'll post them here too so you don't have to go look...

Looks awesome! Hope you guys are enjoying it.

A long journey and plenty of patience.
Well done.
Thanks for sharing and all the updates.

Very nice. Well done.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I did some clean up of the index tonight in the second post. I was a tad behind in keeping the index up to date. Enjoy.

It is a cold snowy day today at The Place. It was really nice to be able to turn the heat up from home and go work in a comfortable environment.



I had ordered one wall cabinet from New Age when I got the big cabinets. I decided in the end I didn't want to install it over the sink. Instead, I ordered 5 more and I am putting a series of cabinets by the hose bib for all of our car wash and wax stuff. I am doing an L shape with 3 across the top and 4 down. This is not exactly how these cabinets were set up to be used but wanted cabinets that sucked up close to the wall to not obstruct driving into the unit.

We put the upper cabinets in one at at time. The instructions say to bolt them together first and then lift in place but we did not think we could lift three at a time. We installed the z-brackets to the metal studs for all three cabinets and lifted them one at a time. Once all three were up we then bolted them together from side to side. The end result was the same but it was less lifting for me, my wife and my daughter. It was very nice to have help!


The next part was a little interesting. I needed to get the cabinets to sit flush from the upper cabinets to the next lower cabinet. I decided to stack all three together and then use my race ramps as wedges to lift them into place. Then I was able to drill and install the lag bolts into the metal studs. I have to say this was one time where I worked smarter than usual and it worked great!!


The last photo above shows how flat the set up is with just using wall cabinets. I think it turned out great. I still need to order a hose and hose reel and my larger 5 gallon bucket for car wash still getting delivered. That little bucked is just an extra. I like using a second bucket to wash my wheels - I don't like getting the brake dust anywhere near my paint so I use separate buckets. I'm also thinking about getting those bottle holders from Griots to mount on the wall above the hose reel and below the cabinets.

I don't have any pictures but I also used a new Milwaukee drill/driver set to install the cabinets. It was nice not having to swap between drill bits and socket to drive the lag bolts. Plus, the driver did a better job of tightening the lag bolts into the steel studs. It was just really nice to be able to use good tools in a warm garage.

I hope everyone else had as much fun as I had in my garage today.

Merry Christmas to everyone at Garage Journal!!

Looks cool. I'm not being a jerk, no really.

My first thought looking at the finished product was, I'd start at the bottom.
It really looks good.

This is EXCELLENT garage ****....

Greg -

I love your space, and the idea of car neighbors. I was curious how the developer was doing? The website for The Place made it seem like there are the majority of the units still avail? I would have thought phase 1 would have sold quickly given the success of similar developments in Minneapolis MN and Naperville IL.

Looks great.

Not sure what to say. It is the Show Me state! We are only now getting the first set of units with mezzanines completed. The Place is two and a half years old. It was six months waiting for construction to start, a year of construction on the main buildings, six more months fighting over what county was going to allow us to do, and now six months to build out units. I believe about 12 or 13 units of 35 units have sold. I’m hoping this year people will start to see finished units and finally get what the garage condo concept is all about.

All I know is that now that most of the frustration of building is over and I’m just using the unit - I’m loving it.

Glad you are in, and enjoying. Your place shows like a model. Given all the brain damage you had to go through with the county and how well you are showcasing the finished product here I hope the developer is extra nice to you. They are lucky to have you.

It is very cold today but I took a little bit of time to move a bunch of miscellaneous wash and wax stuff down to The Place. Believe it or not, all of this was in one cabinet in our laundry room at our house (or under the laundry room sink).



I also spent some time today keeping the economy going. I ordered a hose reel, hose, some more car wash stuff ... seems optimistic of me considering it is going to be single digits tonight in STL. I also ordered some socket and wrench organizers for the tool box. My wife even got in on the act ordering a new piece of artwork. It's a custom piece so you will all have to wait a while for that....

Impressive, love it.

Can't wait to see the art work. Wishing you all...and everyone at GJ, a safe and Happy New Year!!

Looking good in there! Judging from all your Griot's items, I assume you are also on the Autopia forum? I'm not a member over there yet, but I do lurk from time to time.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is dealing with single digit low temps lately! It was 7 degrees when I left for work this morning...BRR!!

I'm not on Autopia. I like a clean car but I'm not sure why I latched onto Griot's. I must admit they do a good job of burying me in catalogs. Their stuff tends to be more expensive but I don't usually feel like I've completely wasted my money when I buy from them. It's like they do all the research and filter out the poor performing stuff. If I see a new product on the market, within a couple months they have a copy of it branded in the Griot's colors or at least in Griot's bottles. Some stuff, I'm not real fond of. I've had two bottles of their car wash with broken lids delivered. So I ordered a couple versions of car wash soap from Chemical Guys this last time. The buckets I just got are actually Shurhold which is a marine supply company. The buckets have nice thick rope handles instead of metal ones (metal being the enemy of marine environments). I did get the Griot's rinseless car wash that I want to try out this winter.... but no 16 oz bottle. I've always wanted a orbital polisher but I didn't want to buy anything else that I had no room to store in my old garage. Now, I want a nice cordless one and I haven't seen a good one yet. With battery power going the way it is - I don't think I will have to wait long.

Thanks for sharing this build and guidance on mine. Seeing what you have done is giving me ideas on some of the things I want to do and will save me a bunch of time.

Yes, they certainly do a good job burying a guy in catalogs, don't they? I have used a few of the Griot's products & have been pleased with the items I've tried thus far.

I think I'm going to be in the market for a good cordless orbital polisher soon, myself. My 15~ish year old corded one finally rattled itself to death last October, and apparently the pieces that broke are no longer available.

ewjax said:

Thanks for sharing this build and guidance on mine. Seeing what you have done is giving me ideas on some of the things I want to do and will save me a bunch of time.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure suggesting a alternate fan counts as guidance. However, feel free to ask about anything you want. I'm not even sure I've been using it long enough to give good feedback on the decisions I made.

Having said that, here are a few:

1. HVAC - Figure out how you want to do your HVAC. Here, they put the units on the floor and took up valuable real estate. I put my in the rafters and have access from the mezzanine with a short ladder. Others have put them in the ceiling but not near there mezzanine and now need to rent a lift to change an air filter. These were all split units and only the line set and a small makeup air had to penetrate the roof. Our club house has the entire unit on the roof and I assume all the maintenance is done up top. I have also seen pictures of people that put the units above the man door mounted to the front wall. This gets it off the floor but is a long run for copper from your service panel if it is in the back. Find out how they plan to do yours and make sure you are ok with it.

2. Bathroom. If you read my thread you know that I ran afoul of the ADA regulations. An ADA compliant bathroom is close to 10'x10'. With your 30' wide unit that might not be a big issue. It was with my 23' wide unit. Find out what you have to meet as far as code before you get too far.

3. Sprinklers. It was mentioned on your thread but I will reiterate. I assumed the builders all understood. We didn't have it explicitly stated that we needed sprinklers under the mezzanine and it was a month delay when we got to that point and we had to re-bid out that part of the job. Just one of those communication things.

4. Roof. Ditto here on communication. Our facility uses a roof that has to have a very specific style of penetration to keep warranty. I had to re-do one because I assumed it was a standard thing in our area and the sub I hired didn't know.

5. Lights. You can't have enough light. If you do that is what dimmers are for. I used this site to plan out stuff and have a better understanding when I talked to my electrician. (http://www.visual-3d.com/tools/interior/). It's kinda fun to play with different fixtures and patterns.

There are things that I did that I really like but they are really subjective. I like my quad TV and the fireplace. They are not needed at all in a garage but I was having some fun. Painting the ceiling really helps it all blend into the back ground. The floor was the single biggest thing that was impactful to how the unit looks. It might be because it was done last or just because it covers so much area. I thought about tile (your plan) but decided I didn't really know enough and didn't want to make a bad choice there due to a lack of knowledge.

Whatever you do, have fun! Nobody that buys one of these units really NEEDs it. If you are going to spend time in it then in needs to be more than just a place to park a car. Good luck!!

@C_F

I have seen one cordless dual action or orbital that looked interesting. It's made by RBL who I have never heard of before. It looks good but since I've never even used a orbital polisher before I was hoping to see some reviews or one from a more established player.

http://www.rblproducts.com/21mm-cordless-polisher.php

The units all come with Mini-splits. All spec'd the same way. I've gone through the complete construction plans, so that part should be good. Want to see where they plan to drain them.

Not sure what the ADA rules are in your area. The C&R restrict any commercial use in these space, and maybe things are different here in FL. My office condo units don't have 10x10 restrooms. Sounds a little regulatory to have to put an ADA compliant restroom in a private condo unit.

I guess technically, I don't really need to put a bathroom in it at all since there is a shared space 7 doors down that has showers, restrooms, entertainment area, etc.

As for the lighting, I'm with you on that! I plan to put two banks of lights so I have have bright, and REALLY bright. I'm going to go with light colored walls and paint the ceiling light colored as well to help with reflectivity of light. I'm going to go light gray on the tile as well. So that should make the place really bright.

Each of the units is being built the same exact way by the builder. After that, it's up to the individual unit owner to do what they want. This makes it easier for them to meet county requirements since the plans were approved, I guess.

Do they treat your space as a commercial property?

Our C&R also do not allow businesses but in the end the county just decided they had no other way to treat us but as a commercial property. There is no “private commercial” zoning here. Most other garage condos haven’t been hit with this so you may luck out.

I can't believe it but I'm going to post about wash buckets ... deal with it.

This is my old wash bucket. Its not just a bucket but has the typical dolly, grit guard, and gamma seal lid too. It was a huge step up from just your average 5 gallon bucket but over time it had some issues. The handle broke and when I filled it up inside with hot water (during cool weather) it was a pain (literally) to carry it back outside. The bolts holding the bucket into the dolly were also problems. One was bent on arrival and I did replace it with hadware from Lowes. But they are rusting now and hard to get to move. Not pictured here is a small 3.5 gallon bucket I use to wash wheels.


I looked around a lot for what I wanted to replace it but couldn't find exactly what I wanted. So, I made my own franken wash bucket system. The buckets are Shurhold 5 gallon and 3.5 gallon buckets with a nice thick rope handles. The dolly is a Chemical Guys dolly with plastic screws. Time will tell if the plastic outlasts a rusty metal screw. The 5 gallon bucket came with a grit guard with measuring cups built-in, a removable tray for tools and a snap on lid. I bought a gamma seal lid because I like them for the big bucket and moved the snap on seat lid to the small bucket. I also bought a thinner vortex grit guard for the smaller bucket. I also transferred the tray to the smaller bucket and will keep some of the brushes and wheel cleaner for the wheels in that tray/bucket.

Overkill - You betcha! Hose reel, hose, and foam cannon still on the way...

Greg_STL said:

@C_F

I have seen one cordless dual action or orbital that looked interesting. It's made by RBL who I have never heard of before. It looks good but since I've never even used a orbital polisher before I was hoping to see some reviews or one from a more established player.

http://www.rblproducts.com/21mm-cordless-polisher.php

Click to expand...

Hmmm, that one does look like it could be nice, although the brochure doesn't make much mention of the power of the motor, or the speed variables. But the $359 price tag isn't terrible, maybe I'll buy one next spring & see if I like it. If so, I'll report back.

Nice wash bucket write-up!

I'm only 111 pages in on the small thread about the garage at the center of the universe.....

However, I'm far enough to learn how he protects his floor while working in his shop on tile that is probably much softer than my epoxy floor. He uses big sheets of 4'x8'x0.25" thick Masonite that he throws down as needed. My garage is much smaller so I thought I could use much smaller sheets. Menards had 2'x4'x0.25" sheets. I bought three for now - one for the jack and one each for my two jack stands. I'll see how it works and go from there....

For now, they are small enough that they are just leaning against the wall by the tire stack.


Thanks BB767....

I've also been cleaning up some small electrical items. Nothing wrong - just not right enough yet...

All of the outlets have the grounds post up much like you see in lots of commercial spaces. That works great except when you have a product that was designed to be used in the home environment where the ground plugs are down.


No big deal, I just shut the power to that circuit and flipped the two outlets on the back wall where we plug these battery minders in...


Next, I had a couple outlets in the bar area. There was nothing wrong with them but I wanted a couple of USB ports for charging phones. While I was at it I went ahead and upgraded the outlets to nickle faces and wall plates.


Didn't notice till I posted this that the lettering on the new outlets are upside down. I put them back in with the plugs facing the same way that they were originally but now I wonder if I should flip them both as well......

FYI, the outlets you replaced are GFI outlets, required by code for outlets near water source like a sink. I don't see a sink immediately near them in the picture, but you've replaced the outlets with non-GFI outlets. Might want to be sure that you aren't creating a safety issue for yourself.

Great build.

In the first picture the left outlet is a ground fault outlet. The outlet feeds the right outlet that is not. When I hit the test button it cut power to both outlets. I replaced the the GFCI outlet with a GFCI outlet and wired the down stream outlet the same way as before so it protects both outlets. Believe it or not those are the only two outlets on that circuit. My little circuit tester lit up that things were wired right and the test button still worked. I think I’m good.

As for why GFCI? Countertops get spills all the time and the outlets are low.

Thanks for keeping me honest.

Greg_STL said:

I'm only 111 pages in on the small thread about the garage at the center of the universe.....

Click to expand...

Is that an awesome thread, or what?

Regarding the lettering on your plugs...if those were mine, I would definitely NEED to turn those around. I'd probably never sleep a wink until they were right.

Yes it is an awesome thread. I'm up to page 147 now - Still 400+ pages to go! The question is will it grow faster than I can try to catch up??

As far as the plugs ... I'm going to leave them alone. The power comes in from the left and feeds out to the right. The wires in the box are short. For the GFCI to work it has to feed into the left of the outlet as shown and have the downstream outlets pick up a different set of terminals to the right on the outlet as shown. There was a little sticker over the terminals that stated as much on the new outlet. I'm going to let fit and function triumph over form on this one. Heck, I couldn't even read the text until I got home and looked at a blown up picture!!

I did some organization in my Husky box today. I am seriously lacking in tools but that is no reason not to organize. I got in some Olsa Tool socket organizers and a couple Ersnst Manufacturing wrench organizers.


The ratchets & sockets are mostly Craftsman from sometime in the late 80s with a few extra pieces purchased over the years. I didn't quite have enough 1/4 drive clips so I ordered some more. I'm not really sure why I needed 12 point, 6 point, and deep 12 point on some of the 1/4" drive sockets but I imagine it was because they were cheep and they wanted the set to have a high piece count.

I know about the hole red SAE - blue Metric color coding but decided to do red SAE - black Metric instead.


The wrenches on the right say Fuller but were purchased in a Craftsman set in the early 90s. There are some missing including the ever popular 3/8" - I wonder where that went??? The others are a Gear Wrench set I bought when I was working on my Subaru and realized I didn't have any metric combination wrenches. I like them but they are thick and don't always fit where I want them too. So, I've kept the original Fuller/Craftsman ones around and probably need to pick up some thin metrics as well (Besides that one 13mm one that I have for some unremembered project - probably a brake job).

I need some impact sockets. I think I have a couple for changing tires but that is all.

I will need to start frequenting the tool section of this forum to get an idea of what to pick up since Craftsman seems to be on the way out.

Quad TV Set Up

I've had a few people on and off the forum ask how I did the quad TV setup. I thought I'd go through it with some part numbers so people could replicate if they want.

There are 3 main parts to get this to work. One, you need a mount that holds the TVs together; Two, you need four TVs; and Three, you need a box that can convert a single signal into a video wall.

So first, I picked up a single mount that did all four TVs at once. It would be possible to do this with multiple mounts but the math would hurt my brain. The Peerless DS-VW655-2X2 mount is set up to any TV in a range from 46-55 inches and has built in adjustability features. I also put blocking in the walls a long time ago to make sure I had some thing to bolt this monster mount onto.


The second step was to pick a TV. One key here is not to buy anything too expensive because garages with higher than normal humidity can cause issues with electronics. You are also going to buy 4 so there is that. I went with the TCL 49" S405 TV. It was only $350 a piece but was a 4k TV with an included Roku player. That gives me the ability to watch internet video (Amazon, U-Tube, Pluto, etc) on the TV without having to hook up to any extermal source. I also liked it for the small symmetrical bezels and that the IR input was small but not blocked by another TV when stacked.


The third thing that you need is an electronic box that will allow you to convert a single source by breaking it up to four 1/4 sections of the image to send to four different TVs. I use the J-Tech 4X4 Video Matrix with Video Wall capability that I bought on Amazon.


With this box you can send any signal to any other TV or a single signal as a video wall image. I do both and even mix matrixed video from a DVD player on two screens while watching broadcast TV over antenna on another two. The box even has the ability to correct for the bezels between the TV sections in video wall mode. For example, I turned the bezel correction off and took a picture of Cars and you can see that Lightning McQueen has some issues around the tires where the image looks jagged. You see the entire picture but because the bezels space out the images they look wrong.


Now, with the bezel correction on, there is picture cut out so that the image looks correct as a single large image. I like it better this way but the option is there which ever way you prefer (and you can adjust to the specific bezel width of the TV you pick).


The fan in the J-Tech box is a little noisy and I would not want to use it in a quiet home theater but in a garage it works fine.

The TVs have quite a few choices for streaming content. The hardest part here was getting all four TVs to have the same set up so that a single remote can navigate all four TVs at once. Even then, I get them out of sync sometimes and have to go back to the home screen and start over. You can address each TV individually using an ap on your smart phone but the regular remote seems to be what I grab first.


Right now, I have used it to watch sports over antenna (four small images only since the antennas go directly to the TV and skip the J-Tech Box).


Four different streams of U-Tube....


I obviously have watched movies based on the Disney Cars images above. However, the most fun has been with an old Wii that I set up. I'm not sure which is more fun - Mario Kart with each person getting their own 49" screen or Cabella's Big Game Hunt in arcade mode on a ~100" equivalent screen.


My original goal with all of this was to hook up 4 PS4s so that I could do four person racing in the same room on Grand Turismo. All the latest console games got rid of the four person split screen for online playing. With this setup, I could be online but still have four person split screen. The latest Grand Turismo has gotten mixed reviews at best and I'm just not sure that I want to got that direction now. It was tempting when the PS4s were down to $250 during the Black Friday sales.

Hope this helps someone out who wants to try to duplicate....

Greg_STL said:

In the first picture the left outlet is a ground fault outlet. The outlet feeds the right outlet that is not. When I hit the test button it cut power to both outlets. I replaced the the GFCI outlet with a GFCI outlet and wired the down stream outlet the same way as before so it protects both outlets. Believe it or not those are the only two outlets on that circuit. My little circuit tester lit up that things were wired right and the test button still worked. I think I’m good.

As for why GFCI? Countertops get spills all the time and the outlets are low.

Thanks for keeping me honest.

Click to expand...

My bad; glad to hear you're on top of it.

Re: Quad TV Set Up

Greg_STL said:

I obviously have watched movies based on the Disney Cars images above. However, the most fun has been with an old Wii that I set up. I'm not sure which is more fun - Mario Kart with each person getting their own 49" screen or Cabella's Big Game Hunt in arcade mode on a ~100" equivalent screen.

Click to expand...

Golden Eye was made for this set up.

It's very cold in St. Louis today. I'm just glad that the heat is working and that I can check on it from the warmth of home without having to drive down to check.





Stay Warm and Safe Everyone! And Happy New Year!

We continue to do little things and fill in holes at The Garage at The Place in The Valley. The hose reel and hose showed up and fills in nicely the space left by the cabinets.


Considering this is going to be stored inside the garage, this powder coated reel should do the job nicely. I can drag it slightly away from the wall and run the hose outside the unit to wash cars. It is shallow enough that it is in the shadow of the door when stored and doesn't block moving cars in and out.


We also had our combo washer and dryer unit delivered to The Place. Its the first time we have done that. I've been delivering stuff to my house and then having to move it down. Duh, this was much easier.


The washer/dryer combo fits over by the sink and large storage cabinets. It is a ventless unit that uses a condensation method to dry. I'm really just planing on doing very small loads of micro fiber or greasy clothes/rags. This should do great for that. Its only 120v and doesn't need a vent so it was very easy to hook up.


I also picked up a small seating bench to put by the entry way. It had some assembly required ... but was a quick and easy job.


I wanted a set of hooks to use as a coat rack. It is nice that the garage is heated but we were always throwing coats off as soon as we got in the garage and started working. I thought one of the garage hook systems would work well since this is a garage. I got a 4 foot section of the Gladiator GearTrack and just some standard hooks.


All in all, I like the way things are filling in...

First Indoor Washing

And just to prove we actually use the garage sometimes...

We brought some old towels down to run thought the new washer/dryer to make sure it worked. One of the drawbacks of the ventless dryers is that they take a longer time to work. Personally, I think that the time is balanced by the fact you only have to push the button once and it will go through both the wash and dry cycle. Normally, I would just throw in stuff and leave and let it take its good ol' time. But, given this was the first run, we thought we ought to stick around just in case something went wrong.

What to do with our "free" time ... I know, lets wash a car. It's only 17 degrees F outside so why not! We filled up a bucket with warm water from the utility sink and added Griot's Rinseless Car Wash to it. We also had a spray bottle with a more concentrated version of the same stuff. It is the first time that I have used a rinseless product and I think there are several good versions out there such as ONR, I just happened to buy the Griot's version. Not knowing how this would work, we decided to try it on the Volkswagen and not the Porsche.

Now I screwed up here by not taking a before picture of the salt encrusted car. It wasn't too bad but the black car was certainly white-ish from the belt line down. The process is easy - You dip the microfiber wash pad in the bucket and wipe the car down. Start at the top, work your way down, and wipe dry in sections with a microfiber cloth. Just keep rinsing the microfiber wash pad out after each swipe/section. Where it is really dirty, you use the spray bottle to pre-apply the solution. The spray bottle really helps to lift off the dirt before you wipe it with the sponge. My wife and I worked as team. I would spray some, she would wipe down with the wash pad, and I would dry behind her. It actually went pretty quick.

I went in with mild expectations and came away thinking it is a viable winter wash method. I don't think it will ever replace a hose and bucket wash in the summer but when it is 17 deg F outside - this is great!


Another bucket list item completed in the garage! (pun intended.)

To my eye it looks like the photos of the pre-bezel and post-bezel adjustment are almost the same. I see the correction but the big issue for me is the big plus sign in the middle. Can that be adjusted away? 98 combined diagonal inches is big.

I like it and we have a wall in our living room that can handle it.