New Home, New Garage Project

[GreenTitan05]

Hi all, I'm closing on my first house in a few weeks and am wanting to get some ideas for the garage. I want to do an epoxy coating while its still empty and the whole floor is accessible. I want to build a work bench that suits my needs and stores all of my tools. The garage walls are unfinished, all they are are drywall taped together with only one layer of mudding. The project manager said to really finish the walls it'll need another two layers of mudding to finish them nicely. So I'm looking for help on:

• Epoxy floor brands, tools, application tips
• Tool bench ideas
• How to finish the walls or suggestions on what to do with them

The garage is 19'-7" x 21'-7" with a garage door. Nothing is in the garage except the water shut off line on one of the walls. Thanks for any advice, recommendations and pictures!

 

[nicholam77]

First off, congrats on the new place!

• No idea on the Epoxy (no experience with this)
  
• Tool bench might depend on what you want to store in it and what kind of tools you have / the type of work you do. I went with a storebought solution from Crafstman because at the moment I have a lot of smaller hand tools that I use on my car. I didn't need a super rugged worksurface because I'm not really going to beat up on it -- it's more for storage. I also plan on building a second workbench that is a miter saw station that will house my air compressor and shop vac underneath. This < thread >has a ton of examples of other peoples' workbenches.
  
• I believe finishing the walls should be as easy as applying more mud, sanding until satisfied, and then priming and painting. I would paint them if I had drywall.
  

I moved into a first home last summer with a detached garage a bit smaller than yours. 17.5 x 20.

Below is a rough Sketchup of my future plans and layout if it helps at all. Basically the benches go on the back wall.

View media item 67959

 

[tizzdizz]

I just joined up to ask the exact same question, pretty much verbatim. My garage is even the same size/condition as yours. Congrats on your new place, and good luck. Does yours already have good electrical? Mine only has 1 outlet, and no drywall.

 

[gdpolk]

No suggestion on the floors.

As for the tools bench, look at some Harbor Freight 44" box mods and some guys have used those boxes as cabinets in welded metal frames with countertops on top of them. That's pretty fantastic in my opinion.

As for the walls, man I'd finish out the bottoms and then hang pegboard over the entire room from waist up. That stuff can be incredibly handy.

 

[GreenTitan05]

Yes the peg board is definitely going in, helps organize things and looks good in my opinion. I just need to sit down and brainstorm about what I want, what tools I have and will have. I'll check out that thread later today for some ideas. I'll be sure to start a thread of the garage project.