Garage / Party Room Combination

[bnr32jason]

We close on our new house tomorrow morning and I've already got several projects in mind for the garage. I'm very budget limited right now, so the final product isn't going to be done for at least a year, probably two, but the basics will get done pretty quick. I don't have many pictures yet, but it's 20x18 and finished with drywall.

Since it's so well finished already I'm not going to have to many major projects. Just things like paint, lighting, flooring, storage, etc.

The plan is to have it be a functioning garage that I can work in, even though I currently don't have any project cars, just two nearly brand new daily drivers that won't be worked on by me. But I also want to put my video projector setup in it as well for F1, NASCAR, NFL, etc parties.

The only pics I have so far:

Projects are as follows (chronological order):

1) RaceDeck Flooring
2) Liftmaster 8500 + Raise Tracks
3) Do basic lighting (at least one LED slim mount shop light to start)
4) Paint
5) Set up video projection + surround sound system
6) Install arcade cabinet
7) Complete lighting setup, more shop lights and some recessed for party use.
8) Full cabinet setup

 

[bnr32jason]

For the RaceDeck flooring, I actually came across a really good deal on Craigslist a couple of days ago. This was going to be one of my later projects, but I found a guy selling about 500sqft of the RaceDeck Free Flow tiles for $1/sqft. He had a pretty good mix of red, black, alloy, and white. I only wanted a little white, so I took almost all the red, all of the black, and all of the alloy. He also included free edging! So for $360 I can do my entire garage including edging with used (but in great shape) RaceDeck.

Filled up my MINI Cooper pretty quick:

More pics coming when I install it on Friday/Saturday.

 

[bnr32jason]

Opener and tracks project info:

Going to install a Liftmaster 8500 opener so I can have it wall mounted as well as shorten the horizontal tracks and raise the vertical tracks an equal amount. This will provide more clearance for future projects, such as the video projection system.

 

[bnr32jason]

Paint progress:

Much of my inspiration for paint has come from these forums. There are so many beautiful setups here, it makes it easy for someone like me who doesn't have a very creative eye.

The idea right now is to paint about the bottom 24" of the walls red all the way around, then have some sort of stripe, and then white walls to the top and the ceiling. The only variation in paint will come with the projector screen which will be painted directly on the wall with a specific mixture of paints to create a gray contrast-enhancing "light-rejecting" screen which is great for when I'll have the garage door open for warm-weather parties. It will only cost me about $75 to do instead of spending $1000+ on a screen.

 

[bnr32jason]

Reserved for A/V install information...

I'm a big home theater enthusiast, but nowhere for a dedicated theater in our house, so I figured I could set up something in the garage that would be great for movies, games, and motorsports/football viewing parties as well. On a budget for now, so using equipment that I already have, but later on will explore things like in-wall speakers and other extras.

The projected image will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-160" based on my tests so far. The projector is a Acer H6510BD which is 1080p and 3D capable. One key to a good "entertainment" projector is a high lumen rating, which essentially means it can project more light to counteract the effect of ambient light.

The screen will be a DIY "light-rejecting" screen which just means it's a special mixture of paints that ends up being slightly gray to enhance contrast but also not reflect back light and ruin the image if the door is open.

The audio for now is going to be a cheap 5.1 receiver with some old Klispch satellite speakers I have and a Polk audio subwoofer. That will all be upgraded later.

Video sources will include a Xfinity HD DVR, PC, Xbox 360 and probably eventually an Xbox One or something.

Everything will be mounted on shelves on the opposite wall, approximately 17ft from the screen. The projector will be mounted from the ceiling though.

 

[bnr32jason]

In the back corner of the garage I'm going to rebuild the current arcade cabinet that I built for my son last year. He rarely uses it, so it sits there off most of the time, he's only 4, he gets easily distracted.

This picture was from a 90% completed state. I'll be pulling the guts out of it and mounting a 37" or so TV to the top of the cabinet, something like this, but with the TV mounted on a pedastal:

I'll probably expand it to be 4 players as well just to fit with the party theme. It's really quite simple to setup, not much specialized skill is needed. This was on of my first wood projects and it was pretty easy.

 

[bnr32jason]

Reserved for lighting pictures.

 

[OscarTango]

Start installing already !

 

[bnr32jason]

Start installing already !

Believe me, I want to, but I don't get the keys until tomorrow afternoon and we aren't really moving in until Friday. I'm going to try to get as much of the RaceDeck done on Wednesday and Thursday as I can though. Not much time between work and going back to school.

 

[theoldwizard1]

heating and cooling ?

 

[bnr32jason]

heating and cooling ?

Yeah, it doesn't get very hot here in the Seattle area, so I don't think I'll bother with cooling, maybe several years down the road though. Maybe a couple of portable fans or something for now. I will be insulating the garage door though.

For heating, I'm still debating, I could mount a natural gas heater in the top right corner, would be a short run for the professional to run the gas line and vent it. I might do electric though, not sure. That job will be done around September or October, still figuring out the details and researching. Do you have any recommendations?

 

[IFMJohn]

heating and cooling ?

I live in tacoma and i dont even have AC in my very nice apartment. None of the apartments I looked at had AC. Its simply not needed.

Heating however, thats a different story.

 

[bnr32jason]

I live in tacoma and i dont even have AC in my very nice apartment. None of the apartments I looked at had AC. Its simply not needed.

Heating however, thats a different story.

Agreed, heating is a must, we probably won't bother with AC in the house either, but we're going to re-visit that consideration after our first summer in the home.

My gas furnace is right there in the corner of the garage (ugly and I hate having it there) so it does make it convenient to install a gas heater right in the corner there, just have to do a little more research. I could probably even have them tap in to the existing vent pipes right there so we didn't have to make another hole leading outside.

 

[bnr32jason]

Got the flooring down. Still have to some tiles to go around the stairs and in the back. Looks pretty good, especially for the price I paid, needs to be cleaned up though, but I'll do that after we move in tomorrow.

Considering moving the "parking boxes" one tile forward, gotta see how it all works out this weekend.