Schnitzel's Showroom | 3-car Garage Renovation

It was a dark and stormy night...

OK, that's not really where this story starts. Many seasons ago, my wife and I sought a new residence with a bit more space. We, being of modest means, were fortunate to find the perfect house with a three-car garage on a quiet cul-de-sac. We were sold, and quickly placed that word across the realtor sign in the yard.

The listing noted the garage featured "custom built-in cabinets." I thought the use of "custom" might be a reach, like the difference between "hand-crafted" and "homemade." There were, indeed, cabinets. What was not mentioned was the use of extension cords instead of wiring to code and a maintenance strategy that apparently oscillated between "cut it off and leave it" and "it doesn't need fixing."

While the garage had some odd features, there were bright spots. It already had insulated sectional garage doors. The concrete was in good shape. Et cetera.

All in all, it was the blank canvas I wanted. My renovation of our previous garage was limited mostly to paint and posters. This time, I had a more comprehensive vision.









I suggested to my wife that the garage should be the first area of our fixer-upper where we do some fixing-upping. My rationale was that completing the garage would establish our storage space there and simplify organizing the rest of the house. That was complete BS and my wife pretended to buy it. Thus agreed, I started making plans for the garage.

So, the story of Schnitzel's showroom really starts last summer with Phase 1: Demolition.

I'm all over this one! Impress me.

Great area to start with, I'll be watching this.

The first order of business was to remove the existing custom, built-in cabinets. While the cabinets themselves were basic MDF/melamine, they were installed like all life on earth depended on them remaining affixed to the wall for eternity. The only other reasonable explanation is that the installer was paid by the nail.

The blue tape covers the light switch that had been pulled through the wall and affixed through the cabinet by the door. Why the owner felt compelled to put a custom, built-in cabinet right there, electrical be damned, I do not know. This jury-rigged light switch expressed its dissatisfaction with my meddling by sparking and tripping the breaker.



Boom. Right side garage cabinets down, along with what seemed like several hundred pounds of flooring, assorted wood scraps, dust, and dead insects (not in equal proportion, thankfully).



Note the care with which the low-voltage lighting and sprinkler timer are wired and mounted to nothing. Neither one actually worked and, for the life of me, I can't understand why.

That steel pole protruding from the ground is called a bollard. Thank you, Google.



This was the pile that wouldn't fit in one of four rented dumpsters (over several weekends). For the amount of stuff I was hauling out of the garage, you'd think I was knocking down an apartment building.

From summer into fall, I finished my demolition of the cabinets and the drywall from the walls (not insulated) and the ceiling (insulated). I also removed the fluorescent lights. My progress was limited both by time and dumpster capacity so it took a bit longer than I anticipated.

Also destined for removal was the existing garage door opener on the double side (single side was human-powered) and the doors into the house and to the side yard.











By the end of Phase 1, the garage was down to the studs, beams, and bare floor. While I had been developing my vision for the garage since the beginning, it was time to start designing in earnest and making decisions.

This is very similar to what I want to do and the state my garage is currently in. I'll be following closely.

Great intro! You have me hooked. Looking forward to watching the plot develop.

Phase 2: Structure and Requirements

After removing everything from the garage and completing the demolition, I focused on how everything would be put back together. I had some lessons learned from the previous garage, both good and bad, that I wanted to keep in mind for this garage.

The areas where I had to make decisions were as follows:

Electrical
I planned to replace the fluorescent tube fixtures with can lights. I was already going down that road but, during the demo phase, I probably hit the old fixtures a dozen times with the top of the ladder as I moved underneath them. It's a miracle I wasn't covered in glass at some point.
I would raise the outlets on the garage wall to avoid any future conflict with a higher countertop.
Likewise, I wanted outlets on both sides closer to the garage doors. The Shop-Vac has a reasonable cord length but not enough to go start only halfway down the garage, go halfway down the driveway, and still leave me slack to move around. Also, if and when I replaced the lighting and sprinkler controls, I wanted them mounted at the front of the garage so I can get to them without walking between the car and wall.

Walls/ceiling
To moderate the temperature in the garage and provide some sound deadening, insulation all around. I didn't want a TV in the garage but always have music. So, R-13 for the walls and new R-30 in the ceiling. After insulation, all new drywall on the walls and ceiling and enclose the previously open ceiling area at the front of the garage.

Access
I would replace the door into the house with a new fire-rated door and new satin nickel hardware. The door to the side yard was flimsy to start with and really showing it's age. The window so close to the handle didn't inspire confidence in its security, either. So, new fiberglass door with new hardware and no more window.
The vehicle doors would both get new openers. The existing opener on the double side was still in working order but my OCD demanded a matched set.
This would be done before drywall so the wiring could be concealed.

Floor
What to do with the floor? The age old question. I imagine, in the early days of civilization, men pondered this same question as soon as transportation began to mean something other than your own feet.

Zog: "Zerg, I am finally fixing up my garage. It's going to be a real Cro-Magnon man cave. I'm stuck on the floor, though. Do I leave the natural stone and dung or splurge on the palm frond flooring?"
Zerg: "Dunno. I like the dried mud look myself. Plus, I don't have to worry about moisture getting under the fronds."
Zog: "Good point. Maybe I'll go with the tree resin coating. Even with our short lifespans, I like the piece of mind of a warranty."

I agonized over this decision and that alone probably added weeks to my timeline. First it was Racedeck, then porcelain tile, then floor coating, and the circle began again. Reading Garage Journal and other resources only made matters worse. For every person who sang the praises of Racedeck, there was another who had banished it from their garage in favor of floor coating, and vice versa. For my roughly 520 sq ft garage, the respective costs were not so different as to sway the decision.

I visited high-end dealerships and, like a run-of the-mill lunatic, walked around taking pictures of their tile floors.

Sales staff:

The downstairs of the house would eventually be tile/stone, though. Tile in the garage might be too much of a good thing. The floor coating would have a warranty. No warranty in the (admittedly unlikely) event I smash a tile. What it finally came down to was that I knew I would like tile and I knew I would like floor coating. I had seen and walked on both many times. An entire garage of Racedeck looked sharp in pictures but I didn't know what it was like to live with it. Around and around I went.

All that said, I would probably have been happy with any of the three. They each have pros and cons but there weren't good options and bad options; just good options. It would have been a much quicker decision if one or more had been obviously flawed. Tile, Racedeck, or floor coating would all work in my vision so I just had to choose. And I chose...

Looks great so far.

A bigger job than one might think. Looks like you have the dirty, nasty part behind you. Keep posting. You're getting to the interesting, problem solving part.

Great stuff! I'm hooked like....well...err.....

Now well into fall, the rate of progress was picking up. The insulation was installed. The two new garage door openers and controllers were installed and the wiring routed. The most obvious improvement, of course, was having real walls and a ceiling again.

I noticed after drywall that the wires for both controllers did not come out of the same hole. I considered cutting the drywall back open and moving the wire but I couldn't bring myself to harm the drywall. It was too new, too beautiful. I couldn't defile it. I'd have to find another solution to clean up the door opener controller placement.



No more having to get out of the car to lift the single-car door. (First-world problem, I know.) I should note there was an unanticipated benefit to replacing the garage door opener. Previously, you could be anywhere in the house and know someone opened the garage door. Very noisy. The first time my wife came home and parked in the garage post-opener replacement, my first clue was when she walked into the kitchen. Sorcery!



The water heater area now looked squared away. At that point, I figured I was going to have to do something with that platform. I had big flat, painted areas in the old house that collected dust and were impossible to clean. Dusting didn't do enough and wiping it down just made mud in the nooks and crannies. So, I added that to my list of future fixes.



The ceiling area at the front of the garage looked fantastic. There were a couple areas where pipes ran uneven to the wall and I was concerned it wouldn't look right after the drywall was installed. No issue; the workmanship was top notch.



I made repairs to the beams to undo years of abuse. The previous owners used railroad spikes to hold up random runs of conduit and dead wires. Lots of holes and gouges to fill.

The new door to the side yard was installed. There is something very satisfying about a door that closes solidly and securely, and doesn't have a half-inch gap at the bottom for insect ingress.



The can lights were installed on a dimmer. In hindsight, this was pointless. I do not know that I'll ever need to dim the lights. It's either broad daylight and I don't need the lights, or it's night and I do. Oh, well.

For the ceiling, I first applied a coat of drywall primer and sealer. Next, rolled on two coats of matte ceiling paint. I will tell you, that was a major pain in the ***. I was painting white over white so it wasn't immediately apparent if I missed a spot. Also, painting the ceiling in the evenings meant I could either (a) paint in the dark, or (b) paint while staring up into the new LED lights. I had a deadline for painting the ceiling so, unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of doing it all over the weekend during the day. For weeks, I was seeing spots I missed when the light was at the right angle.



"A good man always knows his limitations." - Dirty Harry, Magnum Force

My contractor handled the aforementioned construction. I'd love to be able to say I did it all myself. I could have, but I wanted it done right. Given the state of the wiring, playing electrician seemed like asking for trouble. I raise my glass to those of you who could build your own house from raw materials if so inclined.

Next stop: Flooring

Interested in hearing more on two points from the above:
1. How many sq. ft. of drywall did you end up putting in, and assuming you hired someone to do this, how long did it take them? (Price reasonable?)
2. Details on the solid side door and what you're going to do with the garage-house door please.

Great stuff - thanks!

I love a blank slate.

Nothing but potential.

Looking forward to seeing your vision come to life.

Moving Chicane said:

Interested in hearing more on two points from the above:
1. How many sq. ft. of drywall did you end up putting in, and assuming you hired someone to do this, how long did it take them? (Price reasonable?)
2. Details on the solid side door and what you're going to do with the garage-house door please.

Great stuff - thanks!

Click to expand...

1. I took delivery of twenty-five (25) 4'x12' sheets of 5/8" fire-rated drywall. I went back and looked for dates but, as I recall, it took them two days.
2. Went back and looked and side door was 6-panel, primed smooth, pre-hung fiberglass, double bore.

Looks great. I could have lived with the original setup but I'm waiting to see your finish ideas.

The drywall and lights were up and everything looked great so far. It took me another week or two to make a decision on the flooring and then schedule the installation. By the time work began on the floor, we were almost to the end of spring.

Day one was grinding the floor back to pristine concrete and doing the base coat and chips. Day two was the coating. Even with the garage doors partially open for air flow, the smell as the coating cures is potent.

Theoretically, you can drive on it after 48 hours but I waited double that just to be sure.





The only drawbacks to the coating are visibility and, despite the uneven surface, it can be slick when wet.

When I installed the switch and outlet cover plates, I dropped the little white-coated screws a few times. The first time, I looked down and thought, "That thing is ****ing lost." After the second dropped screw, I figured out a flashlight on the floor created a shadow for whatever I dropped and made things easier to find. Necessity being the mother of invention and all...

Not surprisingly, water doesn't soak into the floor. Say you unhook your pressure washer and immediately put it in the garage. Say the remaining water drains from your pressure washer onto your garage floor. Say you stride confidently right past your pressure washer. In that hypothetical scenario, you would need ninja reflexes to avoid a posterior landing.

To clean it, I get an old towel and a bucket of water. Wet towel, wipe floor, dunk and wring out, repeat. Air dry. When I used to sweep out the garage, I felt like half of what was on the floor went into the dustpan and the other half went into the air to land somewhere later.

Floor looks great.

With all the aforementioned items complete, I could finally get to the fun stuff. What was my garage going to look like when I was complete?

As I mentioned, I visited a number of high-end auto dealerships looking for inspiration (in addition to garage threads here and elsewhere). My vision was of a garage that was clean and contemporary. The cars would be the focus of the garage so I would stay away from bold colors. Classy and understated.

From a color perspective. the beams were painted white and getting them back to any natural wood look wasn't feasible. Instead, I wanted a (brown) color that was clearly wood-inspired. To complement the wood beams, I'd paint the structural hardware like iron (or similar). The walls would be a shade of gray - elegant and understated. The doors and casing would be true white. Lastly, I would paint the walls a shade of grey light enough to avoid sucking the light out of the garage but dark enough to provide contrast with the white doors.

For texture, I considered MDF cabinets originally but switched to shopping metal cabinets. The platform area next to the water heater would be wood or stone. Any countertops would be something wood as a stainless counter would be too many different horizontal surface materials. Plus, the stainless steel counters remind me too much of the veterinarian office.

Where the drywall meets the stem wall, the texture wasn't as perfect. I thought some baseboard might clean up the look and provide a cleaner transition between the floor and the wall. I thought about painting the bottom half of the walls a darker grey but decided instead to put the darker color on the baseboard and be done.

In my previous garage, I built a simple workbench. I don't know that I ever actually did any work on that workbench, as it was always covered with stuff. If I was actually working on something, I used a couple sawhorses and a sheet of plywood to make a temporary workspace. So, I clearly needed some flat counter space where bulky items could live.

Adding a TV to the garage wasn't part of the plan (although the previous owner had done so). If I'm in or around the garage, however, I'm usually playing music. Since I had all the drywall down, I considered in-wall speakers and a dedicated receiver. I looked at the budget, considered how I was really going to use the garage, and decided a Bluetooth/wireless speaker set up would sufficiently suit my needs. I needed music but it didn't need to be the highest fidelity.

At this point, I did not yet have a plan for the bollard. In the meantime, I sanded it back to smooth, bare metal.

Is it just me, or is that bollard too far back to do any good?

Looks like the tank would get hit before the bollard.

As we moved into spring, I picked my color swatches. To test the colors in various lighting and angles in the garage, I primed and painted each color on a leftover piece of drywall. That way, I could see how shadow and lighting changed the look of the color, depending on where it was and which way it faced.

I covered the walls in drywall primer/sealer and then rolled on two coats of paint. The walls look slightly blue in the pictures but the color is actually silver. I could have gone a bit darker and been OK but I was very happy with the final result. That required three weekends to complete.

For temporary storage, I took my two (2), five-shelf steel racks and reassembled them as two (2), three-shelf racks. Next, I had some paint color-matched to the steel rack. I primed the MDF shelves and gave them two coats of that color-match paint.

For the top shelf (counter), I bought a 4'x8' sheet of 3/4" maple plywood and cut it into four, 4'x2' pieces to fit the racks. I sanded the tops smooth and then, over the course of a week, applied three coats of satin finish polyurethane. I laid those pieces over the top shelf of MDF to level the counter surface with the corners. Eventually, I will likely take plywood and replace the bottom two MDF shelves.







Besides the color, there is still enough grain and texture to look like wood. After having filled the nail holes and gouges, I used my orbital sander on the beams and then coated them with primer. Next, I applied two coats of paint with a mix of brush and roller application. Because of the rough surface, I had to go back and fill in small pockets that were missed.

The metal brackets were tougher. I used steel wool, a steel brush, and sandpaper to clean them up a bit. Primed them, and then two coats of paint with a couple sizes of modeling brush. Working around the garage door tracks wasn't easy.



For the stem walls, I bought fairly plain 1 5/8" baseboard and painted them a darker grey from the floor chips. I didn't want anything ornate (or too tall) and that baseboard fit the bill perfectly.

After priming, I painted the square pipes the same metal color as the brackets.

I primed and painted the round pipe black. That was inspired by a thread I saw on here many months ago. I briefly considered a bright color like yellow but used black to tie in the black chips in the floor. I would paint the entire pipe black but, when I took this picture, had only done the vertical portion.

RivennHewn said:

Is it just me, or is that bollard too far back to do any good?

Looks like the tank would get hit before the bollard.

Click to expand...

It's (mostly) not just you. If you were scraping the wall with the side mirror, it would be a tie. The bollard and the platform under the water heater are about even. I imagine the builder had a smaller water heater in mind when the bollard was placed.

Looking good color scheme. Are you thinking about painting the door tracks?

WarrenJ said:

Looking good color scheme. Are you thinking about painting the door tracks?

Click to expand...

No, garage door tracks will remain as is.

Thanks for the detail! This has been great! Keep going

As I mentioned earlier, it can be difficult to keep a horizontal platform clean when it's just painted. In this case, it was semi-gloss and not matte paint, which would help, but it needed something more. So I wouldn't have to worry about whatever I stored there wrecking the drywall, I found a fabricator with granite and quartz remnants and had a piece cut and polished to fit.

It's the only stone texture in the garage so I might, at some point, replace it with urethane-coated wood. For now, though, it meets requirements.

Your garage looks GREAT! I love the floor. I will add a bit of criticism though. You should have pulled those bent nails out of the column base before you painted.

Nice work. I like the pipe painted black and those posts in grey.

Wow, I had to scroll back to the original pics to make sure I was looking at the same garage. Great transformation!

For my garage door opener mounting, I needed to correct for the awkward placement of the wire points. I bought a sheet of thin maple and measured for a platform of sorts. Then, I cut strips of the maple to create the walls of the platform so there would be a gap behind the platform face where the wires go (and cover the big hole).



Maybe you're asking yourself why I notched the platform for the opener wires. Couldn't I just have popped the back off the openers, disconnected the wires, fed them through a discreet hole, and then reconnected for a cleaner look?




If only I had looked more closely at the openers before finishing the platform...

After installing the baseboard around the edge of the garage, I tackled the door casing. I went a little fancier with the door casing but not so ornate that it would look out of place in a garage.

It has been roughly eight months since the story of Schnitzel's Showroom began and we have now caught up with present day.

One of the last items to resolve is the bollard. I looked first at bollard covers from industrial supply stores but they were all made for larger outside bollards.

So, I sanded it back to bare metal, primed it, and then applied a couple coats of safety yellow paint. I need to find a cap of some sort but, so far, no luck.



The Showroom is nearly complete. I'm down to cabinets and décor on my checklist.

Ok, a userid with the name schnitzel needs to be followed. Now I'm hungry.


Keep the shop updates coming.

I applied one final coat of yellow to the bollard using a foam roller to prevent brush stroke lines. I have to say, it was a bit of work, start to finish, but I'm very pleased with the result. I considered black to match the other round pipe but that bit of bright yellow really works. I suggested to my wife that I chose yellow so she'd be less likely to clumsily ram the garage wall. She was not amused.

The last major reconstruction task remaining is...

Cabinets.



As if the what-to-do-with-the-floor conundrum wasn't bad enough, now I have to decide on cabinets. Wood(ish)? Steel? Aluminum? Plastic? Say, "**** it," and keep the open steel racks? This is another situation where reading the threads in this forum is both a blessing and a curse. I get inspiration and think I've made a decision, and then I see a killer garage that went another route and I'm back on the fence.

What to do... What to do...



In the meantime, I've been figuring out how to make the pristine garage walls less bare. My previous garage was very liberally sprinkled with pictures and posters. Basically, if there was a vertical surface, I put something on it. I'm taking a bit more restrained approach to garage décor this time. Less is more, right? In between sorting, organizing, and discarding in preparation for migrating stuff back to the garage, I have put a couple things on the wall...

The cabinet decision is made.

Cabinets will go in place of the two steel racks in the picture, and I've moved one of the steel racks to the right of the door.

I assume you had looked for PVC or other type of pipe caps to fit the bollard?

Very very nice transformation. simple but clean

AStrahota said:

I assume you had looked for PVC or other type of pipe caps to fit the bollard?

Click to expand...

The bollard is about 2 7/8" diameter outside and 2 1/2" inside diameter. I looked at both steel pipe caps and PVC pipe caps at the local home improvement store and, so far, found nothing that fits.

Nice garage!

Check out this link for domed caps:

http://www.sharpeproducts.com/store/domed-weld-on-pipe-tube-caps

You could epoxy it or even use silicone adhesive.

A beautiful -- and completely entertaining -- transformation, Schnitzel!

Can't wait to see more!