The Motorrad Double Garage!

[Essnowyt]

Hello massive internet population of garage nutz. May I again be so foolish to entertain you all with a useless documentation of our garage build up. Yah, I did this once before. You know how the story goes... You outgrow your first home and move to new home with great big ideas! That is where we are! My lovely wife and I moved into a new home a year ago. Actually it is our first house! No more condo life! So now I have much more latitude on what I can do. So sit back and enjoy us, again making all the mistakes.

Goals:
1: Add lights and more outlets, insulate exterior walls and sheet rock remaining walls.
2: The floor plan must be flexible. We need to store two cars and two motorcycles in the winter. Summer months one car can be outside.
3: Increase storage by adding elevated shelving to west wall.
4: Produce man-cave like effect of inviting place to reside and waste time.

Budget: I think I can do this for $2000.00 or less. We'll see.

Progress:
Today really started the process. I had an electrician come and all more outlets. When new homes are built, why is it builders are so cheap? Our two car attached garage had only one light bulb and one outlet. Yes, there is the lights on garage door opener, and that had it own outlet. But really one light and one outlet. I could not live like that any longer.

So we ran two 20amp circuits from the panel up to the garage. The back wall got five more outlets, the west wall got three and the east wall got two. I also had him add an outlet on the by the door spring. We may use that later... We are adding six lights, 4' T8 fixtures with two bulbs each. I thought about LED's, but cost did not make sense yet. I grabbed these on sale for less than $20 per fixture. I found LED's still to be $50-$60.

The installer ran out of time today and only got three lights up. He will be back tomorrow to finish the last three. Already this is a huge difference!

Lights off. (Simulating before)

Lights on! SO MUCH BETTER!

That is all for now. Check back soon for more.

Oh yah, here is the first garage we did. http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68942

Snowy.

 

[Kevkx125]

Looks like a fun project.

 

[Essnowyt]

Here is the update at the end of the week.

My electric guy finished the last of the lights.

Then Thursday my drywall crew started insulating and hanging rock.

Today left with the first coat of mud on and to dry over the weekend.

So I have the weekend to go and play on the bikes and do other stuff. Tuesday they plan to be done and I can start rolling on texture. That is when my fun begins!

Snowy.

 

[Remythepug]

Bikes! Look likes fun and great progress.

 

[ajohno]

Coming along nicely.

 

[Essnowyt]

So today I weaseled a half day at work. OK, not really. I asked, they said ok. I went home to paint. Why am I taking off of work to paint? This might not be one of my better ideas, but it is to late now.

So I got down to business. Only after gathering the proper supplies.

This was just a primer and sand coat for the repairs and new drywall.

West wall.

East wall.

Tomorrow goofball should be able to join me and we should be able to get the ceiling done together. Hopefully, I can start on the walls tomorrow afternoon. Or at least that is the plan.

I have seen some odd looks from the neighbors as they drive by. All this stuff is loitering in the yard when I am working.

Snowy.

 

[55cadillacking]

Shaping up to be an amazing space. Keen to follow along. Best of luck.

 

[Richard Cranium]

looks like you are having a Yard Sale, is this stuff for sale?
Must be what people are thinking.
Good luck with your update.

 

[MrBalll]

Looks good so far. Drywall looks good. Bet that insulation makes it feel nice inside when you were painting.
Are those empty boxes going to have power to them on the north wall or am I just not seeing the outlets?

 

[1/2 Cup]

Great work.

Such a transformation...

Regards

 

[Essnowyt]

Looks good so far. Drywall looks good. Bet that insulation makes it feel nice inside when you were painting.
Are those empty boxes going to have power to them on the north wall or am I just not seeing the outlets?

Yes, it is more comfortable. There is no insulation above the garage yet. The attic is a common space between the house and the garage. The house has almost 24" of blown in insulation. We are going to see how the garage is this winter and maybe next year we will blow in 12" of insulation. So we have not really felt the benefit of the insulation yet. I'm holding my judgment till its -5 outside in January.

Yes, the boxes on the north wall do have outlets. I have painters tape over them in the recent photos.

I should be painting now...

Snowy.

 

[Essnowyt]

It never fails, too much to do, and too little time.

We starting off with the plan to paint the ceiling and then start painting the walls today. That did not exactly happen. Goofball was able to help, but only for a little bit. She had other plans for the better part of the day. With no sympathy for the project, she left to go to a family party.

I stayed and worked on the ceiling. The supervisor, is pointing out, "I" missed a spot...

At this point I ran out of paint. I was a bit optimistic on the coverage for one gallon. But what really cought me out was how the ceiling was taking the paint. The first coat ended up streaking (Not visible in the photo). I'm thinking the ceiling was primed by the builder in 2004, and not painted since. So any moisture it took in odd ways. So I started doing a second coat and that looks good. But I need a third gallon.

Tomorrow the weather is going to rain/thunder storms. So I won't be able to put the stuff in the driveway. Well see how much I get done.

Snowy.

 

[marty_p]

Great progress, Snowy!

When you have a free moment (yea, right...), I have a question. I know we are all curious what your plans were for any workbench / tool storage / relaxation areas while still using your garage as a garage?

I went to your 'Mad Town' ten years ago and enjoyed far too much beer, brats, and cheese. I arrived there on college move day that Fall, and that was quite an experience to see.

Keep us posted as you move forward!

 

[Essnowyt]

I know we are all curious what your plans were for any workbench / tool storage / relaxation areas while still using your garage as a garage?

Thank you Marty. I wanted to share the masses my bad ideas for this project. I work in excel a bit for work so I know my way around it. I tried to find a layout software tool, but gave up. Excel to rescue to mimic old grid paper. One square equals 6".

Winter configuration.

Summer configuration.

These are all the big things in the floor plan. There is however lots more that is not seen on the over head views. I'll talk about the those later.

I put things away last night like this to be really close. The shelves are in the right location.

Later I will build the bench/counter to the right of the shelves. At the far right I'm thinking of a 36" cabinet with four pull out drawers. I would like to replace the red tool chests with one unit that would slide under the bench/counter. It would live there in the winter. When I need to work on a bike it would flex over to the west wall. However, I need to watch how high that tool chest is. As the chest height will force how high I build the bench/counter. Currently I'm thinking of this one. http://www.sears.com/craftsman-56-i...50779000P?SID=IMxdCx-CoreTools-V2-activeusers

Ok, other stuff. When we moved in we found the former owners left five sections of wire closet shelving, 96" x 20". Menard's sells them for about $30 a piece! So I will put them to good use. On the west wall approx 80" off the floor I plan to use the shelving and span the entire depth of the garage. At 80" high, I should be able to move my bike under the supports. I may however need a step stool for the items on the shelf. The shelf will store totes of stuff... Ex: Motorcycle covers, Wood sanding stuff, Electric stuff, Plumbing Stuff, R/C stuff/junk (I may have a problem). You get the idea, stuff.

Below that, behind the compressor I will build a vertical storage tool/holder for the lift table wings. The table is huge with the wings and for normal stuff I don't need them on. Lawn tools will be hung above the lawn mower. Ladders and saw horses will be hung on the east wall. I'll keep that step stool here too...

I will also state that I don't use the lift table all the time. I purchased it for a big project last year. I hope that my family and friends will be able to use it once this build is done. So when the lift is not in use, I plan to push that the west wall and keep it up as a table for gear and prep.

Transmission replacement August 2015

That is the plan. Let's talk about execution. I just spent lots of money on the drywall. I want to hang things on the wall. That may mean putting holes in said drywall. I also know what may work today, I will curse at in a year. As I generally know where I want to hang things. I want to try to set up a french cleat attachment system. The goal is to be flexible. Yes, it may look odd with a 1x4 spanning an area, but I like function over form. I'm not going to care if it looks odd, as long as it works. I think this will also help with odd sized items.

So that is the plan. What have I forgotten? What could be improved on?

Snowy.

 

[oldironfarmer]

That is the plan. Let's talk about execution. I just spent lots of money on the drywall. I want to hang things on the wall. That may mean putting holes in said drywall. I also know what may work today, I will curse at in a year. As I generally know where I want to hang things. I want to try to set up a french cleat attachment system. The goal is to be flexible. Yes, it may look odd with a 1x4 spanning an area, but I like function over form. I'm not going to care if it looks odd, as long as it works. I think this will also help with odd sized items.

So that is the plan. What have I forgotten? What could be improved on?

Snowy.

Great space, you're going to have a great garage.

Sheetrock repairs easily, as I'm sure you know. French cleats are a good way to hold heavy loads. With the right treatment it could look like a racing stripe.

Full speed ahead!

 

[Boosted1]

Seems like you would have more space to walk around cars in the winter configuration if you put both motorad on same wall nose to tail.
Nice progress so far.

 

[Essnowyt]

Well summer is here. Really not fond of the heat advisories this past week. Yesterday I made it out to the garage about 6am. I starting painting the walls. I was done at 9:30am. The idea was to do the same today. But that did not happen. I got sucked into F1 qualifying and watched the race. I'll get back out to the garage once the heat breaks later this week.

Boosted - I have thought about storing both bikes on the west wall. And that may happen yet.

Snowy.

 

[Essnowyt]

It was a week ago and I was roasting in the garage. The heat and humidity has passed, now I can work outside again. Made some progress yesterday with paint. Put on a second coat of white for the top of the walls, and I got two coats of grey on. Today I plan to mask and paint the blue accent. Once that is done, then I put things away in a more permanent location.

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Snowy.

 

[Essnowyt]

We made great progress today. Goofball helped me plan and layout the masking for the accent stripe. As with any painting project is the preparation key to results. We/I spent about two hours testing and layout tape. We settled on what is below. We found this little youtube clip, and it helped a ton!

Here are the results:

Next weekend I can start building all the organization stuff and putting **** back in place.

Snowy.