The Experimental Garage

[MightyP]

Last summer, my wife and I got sick of renting and bought a house. We found one we really liked for the right price, but the garage is only a 2-car+ and we don't have enough property to build a workshop. Add in that this isn't our forever home, and I've decided this is going to be a good time for me to do some experimenting. In other words, each thing I'm going is to help me learn what I like and what I don't like, while balancing cost and whether it'll be a positive or negative for the house for when we sell it in 5-7 years.

In any case, here are some pictures of what I've done so far.

Here is how the garage looked the day we moved in:

Here is the garage today (Feb 2017):

It's definitely a work in progress, but I'll document that in following posts.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

You're off to a great start! What are your plans for the future?

 

[nicholam77]

Nice. I like the paint and accent stripe. Looks like you have a nice clean slate to work with.

I recently moved into my first house too with what looks to be a similarly sized garage space, although it is in need of MUCH more work.

Looking forward to see what you do with it!

 

[MightyP]

Thanks guys.

Roboto: I'm not entirely sure what I want to do. Part of being an experiment is doing things that seem interesting as they come along. Right now, I'm seriously looking at making a folding work bench or two in the main garage and using the side room in my garage as storage. I'd planned on using the side room as a workshop, but the folding table idea is growing on me and I REALLY need more storage.

Nicholam: Thanks! I honestly don't remember exactly how big the garage is, but 20x22 sounds about right. My biggest complaint is Texas puts water heaters and water softener hookups in the garage, so I lose a lot of space there. My garage was really nice from the get-go. We bought a model the builder was done with, so the garage was painted and had the floor sealed.

 

[MightyP]

A little background on me and what I'm trying to accomplish.

We've rented houses for a while now, so I couldn't do a lot to modify them. Plus, I'm a believer a garage is, first and foremost, a place to park cars, so everything I do assumes I leave enough space to park 2 cars inside.

My last garage was so small, we actually couldn't fit both cars inside, so it turned into a storage shed, but wasn't very organized. I kept enough room where I could wedge one car in, but it was TIGHT. You literally could not walk around the car with the garage door closed.

My initial plan for the main part of the garage was to keep it clear of basically everything and make it a sort of showroom. That didn't last long. Water here is HARD and the hookup is right next to the water heater, so we added a water softener. I also needed more storage space for camping gear and kids' toys, so I added the overhead storage.

Overhead storage was interesting as I don't have a lot of clearance over my 4runner. I measured it half a dozen times to make sure everything would fit. Worked out well my shovel is mounted to the driver side and I back in because, while the roof rack fits under the shelf, the shovel is actually too tall.

And while the interior of the garage was finished and painted, the builder used a flat, interior paint, so I repainted with an indoor/outdoor semi-gloss. I went lighter grey with the ceiling and slightly darker gray with the walls. It sat for about 6 months before I finally added the accent stripe. My one disappointment with the stripe is I thought I got black and it's really just a dark gray. It looks nice, but doesn't work with the black outlets and switches I bought. Guess I'll stick with white.

 

[MightyP]

Today my daughter was home sick from school, and while she's pretty low maintenance, I had to stay home, so I decided to work on the shelf for the air compressor along with mounting the air hose reel. I found a shelf online that's rated at 200 lbs, so I got it to put my roughly 80 lbs compressor on. The I originally put the brackets as far apart as I could (like the instructions said) but quickly realized that the shelf flexed too much, so I moved one bracket in a stud. Unfortunately that means I have to fix the holes from my first attempt. While buying the mounting hardware, I found some wood flooring pieces on clearance, so I bought a couple and cut them to fit as shelves next to the compressor. Now that I know I like them, I'll pick up stain the next time I'm at Lowes/Home Depot.

My original plan was to put the hose reel just above the outlet, right next to the compressor, but as I was looking for studs to mount to, I realized the was the exact spot my breaker panel is located, just on the other side of the wall. I ended up deciding to mount it below the shelf and am happy with how it turned out.

Here's how the wall looked after I was done with everything for today. I was even able to put my pressure washer there, which had been just stuffed wherever I could find some space in the work room before.

I'm sure the setup will change a few times before I settle on where stuff should be, but I'm already happy with the organization. It's not as clean as I'd hoped, but I'm ultimately a function>form guy. Next steps are to mount the hardware to hang things like brooms, ladders and whatnot.

 

[Purist]

Great paint scheme! I might borrow from this when it comes time to repaint my garage...perhaps this Spring, if I'm feeling up to it!

 

[vonhef]

The paint scheme looks good! I also noticed your an overlander.... welcome.

 

[MightyP]

Thanks. Yes, I get out there when I can.

 

[MightyP]

I've been busy with other things, but still making progress, however slow.

Easily the biggest (or at least most labor intensive) project was reorganizing the workshop attached to my garage. It's a fairly small room that's more like a hallway than anything. When we moved in, I had just thrown shelves and stuff in there without a plan. Now that I have a better idea what I want to do with the garage, I had to reorganize it. I still need to sort through a bunch of stuff, but at least I can get to my tools now.

Before:




After:

 

[MightyP]

Once that was done, I was able to move around enough to do a few other small updates. I stained the wood for my shelves and my pallet coasters, and I painted a peg board to put match the wall. I also painted a 2x6 for a folding work bench.




Here is the peg board installed with a few things hung on it. First, I'm not entirely sure I like the stripe color for the board. Second, I'm not sure what all I want to put on the board, so specific items will probably change. Overall though, I'm happy with how it turned out.




Putting air in my tires, I realized the whole shelf vibrates enough that all the stuff slides around when the air compressor is running. I had some anti vibration pads from before, so I put those under the feet. There is much less vibration, but still some. May have to re-attack this later.




Today I felt like adding some decorations to the walls, so I hung a flag and some signs I had.

 

[MightyP]

Got a couple more things done this weekend with the help of my father-in-law. Got the LED lights hung on the ceiling. Happy with the lights, but I definitely need another one farther inside to get even light distribution. Ordered another one today, so I'll get it installed as soon as it arrives.

Also, do any of y'all have a suggestion to hide the stupid socket and adapters? They look really trashy, but I'm not sure the best way to clean up that part. Thanks!




I also hung a folding work table. Work got new coffee tables and a couple of them arrived broken. The seller didn't want the bad ones back, so I grabbed one to use in the garage. My little workshop doesn't have much space, so I picked up some locking brackets from Amazon and now it can fold down when I'm not using it. I don't know that I would stand on the table, but it's sturdy enough for work.

 

[goofiefoot]

Nice folding table! Will you provide a link to the brackets?

 

[MightyP]

Nice folding table! Will you provide a link to the brackets?

Here are the brackets. Not sure I'd trust them to hold 550 lbs, but they're sturdy enough and my shelf feels solid.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F9O4YPY/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[vettex2]

Got a couple more things done this weekend with the help of my father-in-law. Got the LED lights hung on the ceiling. Happy with the lights, but I definitely need another one farther inside to get even light distribution. Ordered another one today, so I'll get it installed as soon as it arrives.

Also, do any of y'all have a suggestion to hide the stupid socket and adapters? They look really trashy, but I'm not sure the best way to clean up that part. Thanks!


I also hung a folding work table. Work got new coffee tables and a couple of them arrived broken. The seller didn't want the bad ones back, so I grabbed one to use in the garage. My little workshop doesn't have much space, so I picked up some locking brackets from Amazon and now it can fold down when I'm not using it. I don't know that I would stand on the table, but it's sturdy enough for work.

I'd hard wire it
Nice shelf too

 

[Bob275]

Also, do any of y'all have a suggestion to hide the stupid socket and adapters? They look really trashy, but I'm not sure the best way to clean up that part. Thanks!

Can you switch that light fixture out with a duplex box for 2 outlets instead?

 

[Finallygotit]

Also, do any of y'all have a suggestion to hide the stupid socket and adapters? They look really trashy, but I'm not sure the best way to clean up that part. Thanks!

Another option would be to remove the ceramic light socket and install one of these

Then install this for your outlets

This will allow you to run additional conduit or Romex as the need arises out of the box extension.

HTH

 

[Sawdustmaker]

Another option would be to remove the ceramic light socket and install one of these

Then install this for your outlets

This will allow you to run additional conduit or Romex as the need arises out of the box extension.

HTH

Exactly what I did, works well. Nice that your garage was drywalled when you moved in.

 

[MightyP]

My other lights arrived and I got them put up. Now I have 3 lights controlled through the switch and one manually controlled. Even light distribution is great. I kinda feel like I need a nighttime project to enjoy my new lights.

I also took the suggestions to hardwire the lights in. Found a conduit box I liked and ran the wires that way. Pretty happy with how it turned out. Now I just need to change the extension cord over from black and reroute the cords a little and I'll be golden. Thanks for the suggestions!