Single stall condo garage build up.

[Essnowyt]

Hello massive internet population of garage nutz. May I be so foolish to entertain you all with a pitiful progression of our garage build up. As the title states we, my lovely wife and I, are transforming our single stall condo garage into a much more functional space.

Goals:
1: Stop salt like white dust from forming in winter on floor and back wall.
2: Garage must store car in winter and two motorcycles in summer months. Note: not all at once.
3: Increase storage by adding elevated shelving to back wall and back 1/3 of sides walls.
4: Add power outlets to back wall and side walls.
5: Produce man-cave like effect of inviting place to reside and waste time.
6: Shameless attempt to make our unit attractive for sale in later years.

Budget: I think I can do this for $800.00 or less. We'll see.

Progress:
Step 1: I painted the back wall with Zinsser waterproofing paint to help seal the back wall. This should cut down on the white salt like powder from forming. One gallon covered the back wall with a coat to spare. The paint is not meant to hold water back. Maybe a little over kill for the goal.

Step 1.5: We took vacation from our jobs on Thursday and Friday from our desk jobs to prep the garage and floor to be painted. I chose to use the RustOleum brand Epoxy-Shield. I kept reading this and that about it and finally, yes there maybe better products out there. But this product fit the budget and my skill level. So Thursday and cleaned and prepped the floor. Friday I filled crack with a RustOleum brand 2part epoxy crack-filling kit. Saturday I sanded the epoxy for a nicer transition. Sunday we mixed up the floor paint and applied the product.

Below are some pointless photos. However as the saying goes, "With no photos, it did not happen!" So I present you shameless pixels of proof!

Photo 1: Back wall painted, floor has been etched. Oops, notice the foot prints. Needs another rinse, scrub and squeegee!

Photo 2: The crack has been filled and now needs to dry. But wait, who is that. That would be my goof-ball assistant.

Photo 3: Here we just finished painting the floor. We did add the blue, white and black "sprinkles" as my assistant called it. Note that paint can. See it there at the bottom of the photo. Not two minutes after I took this photos I knocked it over. Gray epoxy coating on the asphalt, "Oh Shi-bit!" Ah wait, relax... It is a latex base product, get the hose. Not what I wanted to do... Really not what I wanted to do...

Photo 4: Floor is done and curing. We have walked on it, and i swept out the few leaves that got to it. From this you can see where the crack was/is.. but it is sealed. We both are happy with how it came out.

Up next in a few weeks:
Step 2.0: Add plywood or OSB to side walls of garage.
Step 3.0: Add Electrical to back and side walls.
Step 4.0: Add shelving and maybe work surface to back wall.

Time line for all to be done is end of August. Enjoy the show. If i do it wrong, keep the ridicule down to light jabs.

Snowy.

 

[mikesplumbing]

Very nice, look forward to watching you finish it!

Mike

 

[keflaman]

Welcome to the Garage Journal. Looking good. What kind of bikes do you ride?

 

[UN4GTBL]

Another single garage!

I envy how empty your garage is.

 

[Essnowyt]

Welcome to the Garage Journal. Looking good. What kind of bikes do you ride?

Titan, seen below is a 2004 BMW R1150RT.

And Moose is a 2006 Honda VT750C Aero.

Another single garage!

I envy how empty your garage is.

HA! Keep in mind we just did the floor, so everything was taken out. This weekend all the stuff will return.

Snowy.

 

[Essnowyt]

Step 2.0 Update!

Hello again everyone.

It has been a few weeks since this madness has started, and the pain continues. Last Friday night my wonderful assistant and I attacked Menards to get 13 sheets of 7/16 inch OSB sheets. I decided to use OSB over plywood for a few poor reasons. Cost was the main one. OSB at this thickness was less than $8 a sheet. And at this thickness I can move the panels by myself. Any thicker and I would always need my goofball helper.

Now I know I am giving up the luxury of nicer finished walls. But this build is already way overkill for what most other unit owners have done. I will miss the flexibility to screw or hang things anywhere. I will always have to look for a stud, or bridge the 24 ish on center with a stringer. Again this is a single stall in a residential condo complex. Not my final home stead garage. Simply put, we had to compromise.

Progress:

yes there is a motorcycle missing. Goofball is out to dinner with her Girlfriends. Leaving me to do the special cuts by myself.

Challenges:

I am not a carpenter!
I’m using a Skilsaw that I took from “My Dad’s Arsenal of tools”. I am not a overly skilled user of this tool. I should also point out I really do not like using any circular saw aside from a miter box. So my first cut was looking at a chalk line was not what any one would call strait. For my next cut I made a quick fence from a 10’ 1x4 that will be used later. Much better result, and comforting to manage.

The structure is stupid!
Talk about poor over engineering. See that PVC pipe. Yes fokes that is a drain for the roof. This building is a bank of 16 single car garages. Each unit is allotted one garage and one parking space. The garages are not connected to the unit. I happen to have the 2 door to the end of building. Instead of doing a simple hip roof, or a single slope roof, this building has the back block wall raised to the roof peek height. Im told it is a fire wall. Ok… Now at this point I may have lost you, bottom line it’s a stupid fire code. The roof for what ever reason was not meant to drain off the exterior in all places. So this 3 inch PVC pipe is a drain for the roof in a specific area. It travels over three bays and discharges to bad spot in the parking area. Hey in not the designer. The good news is, I’m handy with a jig saw!

The next phase of this is going up. I plan to panel up into the roof joists. That will be a weekend project.

If you would like more entertainment your welcome to view my flickr account. I have some less than good photos there of the whole project.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24895657@N07/sets/72157624305760651/

Snowy.

 

[Essnowyt]

Hello Garage Journal Peeps!

Our progress is slow, but it is progress. All of the OSB wall material is up!

We have now moved into the dreaded, "Painting Stage"! It totally needs paint as raw OSB walls ****! Truth be told I don't really mind "painting", the action of putting COLOR on said surface is enjoyable. The prep work is annoyingly tedious, and clean up just plain *****! However, as they say, "the devil is in the details". So I am painting this as I would my living room. I started with Kliz oil base primer for a base. On top of that I'm using Bear paint. I'm only gonna do this once, so I want good results.

Prep shot: These were taken Saturday.
Goof ball was on hand for a bit to help me mask and cut in on the high spots.

I knew there was a reason why I kept all my college shirts. They are now painting clothes!

Primer shot:

Layout planning: Taken Sunday morning.

Paint on: Taken Sunday evening.

At this point I still have to paint the decorative rail pieces, and do a 2nd coat on the gray. The good news is so far we are OK on budget and even on time!

More in a few days

Snowy.

 

[Rando]

Looks good cant wait to see the finish

 

[Essnowyt]

Hello Garage Journal viewers!

Saturday was a success! Let me bring you up to speed. Painting is done! Remember how I said I like putting color on said surface. Yah, it gets old very quick! Please let me revert to a, "Painting *****" mentality. But that is now behind us.

So in the grand scheme of this project, Step 2.0 is complete. I do have to put up some trim pieces, but I'll talk about that soon. I have talked to a electrician buddy of mine, and he is busy for a few weeks. So Step 3.0 will come a little later. It is now on to Step 4.0, shelving and organization.

I borrowed a hammer drill from again, "My Dad’s Arsenal of tools" to drill into the concrete block. We then started to put up metal hangers for shelves.

Yup, that is me there.

The tricky part was getting the shelves level. Each of them are close, but they do not match perfect. We got them as close as we could, so we're good with it.

And repeat for shelf number two!

So at this point the major shelves are done. On the right side is shelf with hanging rod for motorcycle gear storage. The then back and left side are simply high shelves. Sadly we really could not go higher then what we did as again this stupid PVC drain pipe is in the way. If the top shelf was any higher, then we could not put our new large Rubbermaid tote on the top shelf. Yet again a compromise. However this will still function well. We got four larger totes, one already has all of our painting supplies: brushes, rollers, trays, and drop clothes. Soon the other will be filled with other home project bits/tools.

At this point goof-ball had to depart for work. So I was on my own. I stated working on some other details.
I put of my white board, and billiards clock. I put this clock on our wedding registry. Goof-ball asked, "Where are you gonna put that? I did not know at the time, but it like it here!

I also covered those square openings with vents.

Finally on to the blue trim pieces. The paint is awesome! The visual look, of the gray/blue/white is awesome! The suckie parts are the walls, or the fact that they are not straight. So I put two trim pieces up, and they the next seam will be less than 4 inches from a seam of the OSB sheets. Thus sending my trim off in all weird directions. So, plan B. I'm gonna take down and what i have up and stagger the trim seems in the field of the OSB.

A this point yesterday it was almost 8pm, and that is getting a little late to running the chop saw and small compressor. I really don't want to disturb the neighbors. So I called it quits for the day.

Snowy.

 

[Motown 454]

You doing a great job. It looks completely different from your first pictures. Very nice.

 

[imok]

Your space is looking great! Can you post a close up of the clock?

 

[Essnowyt]

Hello again.

I am happy to report, the hardest stuff is done! I was able to get the blue detail rails into submission and affixed to the walls. I did move a few organization bits in the garage. Moved the ladder hangers more to front. Sadly that was it for additions. And then spent about an hour or so on clean up.

It looks big when empty.

Ladders and saw horses hung, waiting for next project.

Helmet on shelf and Aerostich hung. This will be very nice to have a place to put these when not in use. Yes, I know I need a stronger hanger as it is about to fail.

Hanging device ready for other tools. This was a impulse buy, don't really know how well it will work yet. I have more brooms, a shovel, a squeegee that need to move it yet.

Finally the bikes are able to park in here again!

Whats next:
The hardest of work is over! Step 3.0 is to add some electrical bits. That should happen in a few weeks I hope. In the more immediate future, I do have a kick plate/skirt to install along the floor.

We now have to organize all of our stuff. Oh yah, our stuff, where has that been your wondering... Well this garage is the unit that is tied to our residential condo. We own this garage stall and one open air parking space. The association does rent out two additional garages. I was lucky to rent one when we moved in almost four years ago! The rest of our stuff has been down the drive, sitting is a space worse than how this garage started. We now I have to spend sometime putting things away in our this new garage.

Snowy.

 

[Essnowyt]

Your space is looking great! Can you post a close up of the clock?

Tomorrow we will get you a photo of the clock.

I also will get a photo of my car in the garage.

Snowy.

 

[Essnowyt]

Here are few more photos!

As promised, a clock photo! It looks real slick and classy in the photo. Don't the pixels fool you, it is plastic! You can get your own at Kohl's!

I also stuffed the cage into the garage today too! 2007 Pontiac G5. It is not a "Pony" car, or a "Toy" car, but I like it! I have bikes for fun!

Looking at the last photo again, the car looks incredibly small, or the garage looks big. Neither are the case. I parked the car back a little to far, thus showing this size illusion. I planned out the garage to have the left wall mostly clear of "stuff", as I will push the car close to that wall. I then have a larger area on the right for a walk way to the back and storage of stuff. When the bikes are here in the summer the lay out is not as critical, but we have backed the little Honda in on the left side for more space at times. Ultimately, we did spend some time on the layout, including some error and trials before this make over took place.

One final photo for tonight. I added the black toe kick to both walls. Sadly one one photo now.

Snowy.

 

[DzNuts]

Looks pimptastic! Wish I could say I worked that quickly on my garage. Its about the same size and incredibly close to how you have yours set up. Once the floor is finished, I will be proud enough to post pictures like you have.
What size is your garage and how many gallons did it take you?
Again, looks Great!

 

[Z48LT1]

goof ball? are you crazy? buy her a dozen roses and promise to never use that name again.

and mean it.

Best -- Gary

26 years and counting

 

[rsieracki]

goof ball? are you crazy? buy her a dozen roses and promise to never use that name again.

and mean it.

Best -- Gary

26 years and counting

ya no kidding my old lady would smack me upside the head and we dont even live together yet let alone her help me in the garage

 

[glsmaverick]

Nice looking garage and bike! (The BMW)

Definitely thank your lucky stars your significant other is so into helping out like that. I couldnt pay my wife to help out in a garage. She comes out on the mezanine every once in a while to make sure I'm not dead if I am working out there. Luckily my Father-in-law only lives 20min away so he helps out.

 

[imok]

Unusual clock!

You should add it to the Shop Clock thread, and I need to add mine too.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=59129&highlight=clocks