Setting up a cool space doesn't
have to be costly. It's all in the execution. Being deliberate in the design and layout and the details helps a lot. And keeping the space neat and tidy and well organized will also help.
But if you're looking to make your mark? Some ideas:
Paint
It's relatively cheap and easy way to brighten a place or change colors. Want a stripe around the room in an accent color, get a pint of pain for $15 or so and a $5 roll of paint.
Heck, even if you don't have sheetrock on the walls and just have open stud bays that would be fine, too. That would actually look pretty cool, with painted studs and sheathing. The way the light would hit that would give a good depth and pattern to the wall.
1/2 Wall Covering
Or, instead of wall boarding up the whole wall, do part of it. Maybe the lower 3 ft up to work bench height. Nail blocking between the studs at a given height, then nail a 1x2 across the face of the studs and have the wall panel **** into the bottom of the 1x2. Open studs above, smoother wall surface below. See comment about painting studs above. It cuts sheetrocking efforts and material costs by a bit more than half and effort by about half, too. and it's an easy project to tackle by one's self. Nail up some batten strips over the panel joints if you don't want to mud and tap.
Anyways, I've love to see how everone else comes up with more budget minded garage projects, too.
Being able to DIY
If you can do the work yourself it's a big savings on labor, too.
I've posted these pics here before but I'll do it again. This was a garage organization project I did at my place. It's a very narrow garage. Total cost to sheath the wall in peg board + the micro-work bench built-in cabinetry I did was probably $400 and that included the trick anchored pegboard hooks. The whole thing was built with a skill saw on some saw horses. Doing it again I would have stepped up to a Birch shop grade plywood that would have been $10 more per sheet than the ACX that I used. It would have added $20 to the project cost. But oh well, it's done now.
What I started with.
Sheathing the wall in peg board.
Starting to put up "stuff" on the peg boards. Note how the various elements line up and register off of the garage structure. There's a 1/2" reveal joint between the concrete foundation and the peg board. This line is carried into a rabbeted reveal joint between the wood base of the cabinet and the cabinet box. The joint between the upper and lower peg board panels lines up with the counter top.
How everything got laid out on the wall. The top shelf stopped about 4 ft short of the end wall. I extened it mostly just to carry the visual line of the shelf from wall to wall but it also helped with a few extra fee of shelf space.
