The Garage that Mark Built

Posted by Mark:

As we've been remodeling our house I have relied heavily on the vision and design provided by my wonderfully talented wife. Kimmi does a great job choosing paint colors and tile, light fixtures and door hardware. There was however, one project she was almost entirely hands off and let me do whatever I wanted. The Garage! I've been looking forward to the garage remodel for years. I am a firm believer that garages should be used as God intended..... for cars and tools. I cringe a little when I drive past a home with cars parked in the driveway and a garage stacked to the rafters with boxes and and junk. I've of course used mine for storage too but it's always been temporary. I've even blogged previously about when I got all of our junk out of the way and was able to once again park in the garage.(Past post about garage)  As you'll see in the before pictures below, the garage was dark, dirty, and entirely un-user friendly. It was my quest to change that, many months have passed and I have finally gotten to a point where I feel I have accomplished my vision. Will there be additional changes and additions? Yes, but for now I feel I'm as close to perfection as I need. My deepest thanks to Kimmi for letting me invest so much of my time into making my garage one of my most favorite rooms in the house. I look forward to many hours of fun spent here.


Here is a few before pictures. sadly I didn't officially document the before aesthetic. I instead had to rely on a few photos I had taken for other reasons. The first was a picture of when we were once again able to park in the garage due to months of using the garage as a staging area for items in our kitchen we were remodeling. the other two pictures is showing the large mountain of old cabinets and carpet we ripped out when we first moved into the house.

The first order of business was to epoxy the floor. This was also the most time consuming project. It wasn't painting the floor that was bad, it was the preparation. I washed, rewashed, grinded out rough patches, swept, and swept some more, then washed, and washed some more. it was vitally important  the concrete was clean so we could get the correct bond between the epoxy and concrete. thankfully the epoxy is doing well thus far.  However If I were to do this part again I would rent an industrial size, walk behind, grinder because my little harbor freight grinder took a beating and it took me an entire Saturday to grind out all the stains and chipping cement. I would also have bought the larger pack of epoxy. I bought the amount specified for a 2 car garage, I should have bought the 3 car garage pack so I had lots of extra and I could have made it extra thick. oh well. I had the help of my dad and my little brother for this part. My brother was nice enough to snap a photo of me smoothing out any air bubbles. 

Next I needed to paint the walls. I wanted to get rid of the dreary cinder block look and so I painted the walls I bright white. Cinder block is not the funnest thing to paint. It just SOAKS in paint so it took almost 8.5 gallons to get the room properly covered. The result was worth the effort though. I also bought myself a utility trailer so I'm able to pick up large loads of lumber and such without need of a pickup truck. Not wanting to take up valuable wall space with this trailer that folds in half and can be stored vertically on casters I built a system using a hoist, steel cable, and pulleys to store it in the rafters. It works awesomely, if you're bored and want to see it in action you can go to this You tube video I made of the process. Video of trailer in action

Here is the hoist that lifts the trailer, I built a box to house the unit in the rafters

Here is the hoist mounted.

 Running the steel cables to the trailer. 

 Trailer lifted to its highest point and a good view of the newly painted walls

 
Any good garage needs some good workbenches. I bought a bunch of lumber and built these great workbenches that are quite solid. I also put them all on casters so I can easily roll them into the driveway when the garage needs a good cleaning.

Below you will see the finished product.

One main problem with my garage was its lack of electricity  The entire garage only had ONE outlet. Who only has one outlet in their garage??!! This was unacceptable so I installed 9 more outlets as well as installed a few florescent lights above my workbench. Let there be light!...and power.

I've always wanted a bank of lockers, So when the Bountiful Temple was remodeling their locker rooms I bought a bank of eight.... not exactly sure what I'm going to store in them but they look cool anyway. 

The only problem with epoxied floors is that you get sad when the cars bring in snow, salt, and grime from the wet winter roads. I can't wait for spring when I can bring in a hose and mop to make them nice and shiny again.

I built some more shelves above the workbench and installed a few peg boards for all my stuff. I have collected a bunch of licence plates from both Australia and the USA so I thought it was about time to display them. the wood dresser on the right is a project I've been working on. lots of sanding and paint stripping yet to be done on it. Until then it will continue to be stored in the garage. I'm glad I left at least one empty space on my wall so I can still store random objects. I also had such a good time hanging my trailer in the rafters I decided to hang my bike up there too.

This propane space heater is a must for winter garage projects. Got it at the DI for only $10. great find. 

Proudly displaying flags to two of my favorite things.