Dream Garage

Comedian George Carlin once mused, “Sometimes we have so much stuff, we need to get more stuff just to store our stuff.” After years of being a pack rat, I’ve amassed a mountain of junk, and now I need some place to store the stuff. I called Doug Lucas II of Garage Outfitters in Waterford Works, New Jersey. Lucas has been outfitting garages for the past six years. The guy has tackled everything from single-car units to custom 10-car garages. With his help, I’ve transformed my disheveled garage into a functional and aesthetically pleasing workplace in just weeks. That’s right, I now have the ideal car-guy garage.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to building the ultimate garage. You can customize it for as little as $1,000 or you can easily spend $10,000 to $20,000 for tools, cabinets, flooring, lighting, and other equipment. It depends on what you want and how much of the work you can do yourself.

I set aside $5,500 for my upgrade, not including labor. The money would buy new cabinets, a flooring treatment, electrical work, and general building materials. Renovations can be rewarding, but don’t overspend, especially when buying trendy garage accessories, and you can cut costs dramatically by tackling a lot of the labor on your own.

All well-outfitted garages are built to suit the lifestyle of the homeowner and their expensive toys. I remodeled my garage to house two cars, handle casual automotive use, and give my wife a workstation for her business and hobbies.

The Plan

Before you design a purpose-built garage space, set a goal. Set a completion date and budget you can live with. Write down your top 10 reasons for renovating the garage space. These notes will set your priorities. A detailed plan will give you a clear picture of what to purchase, order, or build before you begin to remodel.

I wanted more workspace free of clutter, a his and hers workstation with ample lighting, and lots of power receptacles. Once you have the plan on paper, determine the total square footage of your garage floor. In my case, the garage floor had approximately 720 square-feet of usable floor space. Knowing the exact space you’re working in will help when ordering material.

Where to Begin

I began by temporarily relocating all the stuff in the garage and yanking out the old, tired cabinets. At this point, I got a better picture of what I was up against. Then I went to work reinforcing the rafters so they could hold a load of small boxes for holiday decorations and other things I hardly use. Typically, homeowners place a sheet of thin plywood on top of the rafters and that’s it. But I wanted to cover most of the cross-joists (rafters) using ¾-inch construction-grade plywood, so I contacted a general contractor in my area for advice.

A contractor can determine how much your garage rafters can support and the best ways to distribute that weight. Luckily, the rafter system in my garage was constructed to hold more weight than I was planning on, so I went to work on a sub-floor of sorts, complete with wooden fold-down stairs to get to the storage.

Utilizing these spaces will keep boxes off of the garage floor. Check your particular building codes and/or with a contractor before you start building anything too elaborate. Also, never cut a support rafter.

I spent $300 for the materials and two weekends of my time, but I added nearly 500 square-feet of light-duty storage to the garage.

The Garage Floor

Lucas knew I wanted to get away from the stained bare concrete floor. Lucas introduced me to U Coat It America out of Royal Oak, Michigan, which specializes in garage floor treatments for commercial and residential use. U Coat It promised a concrete floor treatment that is slip-resistant and repels oil and harsh chemicals that leak and spill in your garage. The cost to treat a standard two-car garage is approximately $500, plus shipping and handling. This provides an aesthetically pleasing effect, plus it’s permanent.

The kit included 2 gallons each of professional-quality epoxy coating and activator, an ultra chemical-resistant high-gloss clear topcoat, and a decorative enhancement option composed of multi-colored vinyl chips that create a beautiful Terrazzo look to hide imperfections in concrete floor surfaces. The water-based epoxy comes in a variety of colors, and U Coat It supplies all the application equipment needed, including the mixing buckets, rollers, drop cloths, and safety goggles, except for an extension handle for the paint rollers. There’s also a step-by-step video included in each kit that details the application method from start to finish.

With two coats applied, I allowed the surface to cure for 48 hours before I placed a single item on the floor, and then waited another week before I pushed my 500-pound Craftsman toolbox across the floor; even then, I placed cardboard underneath its rollers.

The floor now sweeps up easily, all type of spills simply wipe away with a damp cloth and all the nasty stains and cracks have virtually disappeared.

The Cabinets

Lucas and I had talked more about cabinetry than any other aspect of the project, since cabinets govern the overall look and feel of a garage. I decided on cabinets from the English company Pinder, a premier cabinetmaker for the past 40 years.

Garage Outfitters is the U.S. distributor of Pinder products, and Lucas guaranteed they would be right for the job.

Although shipping took longer than expected, it was worth the wait. Pinder’s Workstore 2000 cabinets are designed specifically for residential garages and are constructed to withstand the rigors of heavy use.

The Workstore 2000 cabinets are unique because they’re made from 1½mm steel and feature 100-pound drawer capacity. The Workstore 2000 is also equipped with adjustable feet and magnetic kick plates, and it can be in place in a few hours. The Workstore 2000 arrived nearly assembled; all I had to do was attach the feet and bolt them together to make one big system.

Another bonus is that the Workstore 2000 cabinetry is lockable. You’ll never have a problem keeping kids out of your hazardous chemicals or expensive tools again. The Workstore 2000 is also very versatile because the cabinets are modular in design and have endless configuration possibilities. I created a Workstore 2000 that measured approximately 10 feet wide by 7 feet tall when completely installed.

What surprised me most was the capacity of the cabinets. The dimension for the completed assembly seen here is as follows: The tall locker cabinet measures 24x18x78 inches, the wall shelf unit is 48x12x24 inches, the base cabinet without drawers is 24x18x37 inches, the five drawer cabinet is 24x18x37 inches, and the workbench measured 48x18x37 inches. That’s a lot of usable storage space, and the drawers fully extend thanks to a well-engineered metal-slider system.

The Garage Walls

You don’t know how valuable wall space is until you need it. When it came time to cover the interior framing, I used 8-foot sheets of ¼-inch white pegboard for one wall and ½-inch drywall for the remaining walls.

This combination is ideal to hang tools, gardening equipment, brooms, or brushes on pegboard, while still allowing solid walls for the cabinetry. For heating and cooling conservation, consider insulating the walls beforehand. This set me back about $200 for materials and took approximately 8 hours of labor.

The Electrical

There’s no sense in going through all this effort if you’re not going to upgrade your electrical system, especially in an older home. In this case, there was one dedicated 20-amp circuit to feed both lighting and convenience outlets, with no receptacles on one side of the garage.

Because I use a lot of small power tools, I had the existing electrical system changed to double-duplex receptacles at both sides of the garage for convenience. They were surface-mounted in steel boxes with industrial cover plates for added durability.

Rob Barchilon of Anchor Electric used MC cable to hide the wiring. MC cable is an aluminum shielding for a “to code” installation. “This is a very typical upgrade,” says Barchilon, “and can cost anywhere from $300 to $1,000, depending on the lights, switching and special requests.”

Because I had separate workspaces across from one another, I asked Barchilon for additional overhead lights, and he pointed out several alternatives that would serve the purpose. I used large fluorescent wrap-around fixtures on both sides of the garage, which give off more lumens for the cost and less heat than incandescent lighting.

The Accessories

When it came to accessorizing, the first thing I got was a good fire extinguisher. There are several classes of fire extinguisher to combat different types of fires, so be sure to ask for recommendations on which type to purchase. I purchased a Kidde brand ABC-class dry-chemical extinguisher and wall-mounted it so it would be easily accessible in an emergency. I recommend you purchase an extinguisher that can be recharged every year, rather than the cheaper ones that are simply discharged after so many months of non-use. I want to know my extinguisher is charged and ready to go, if I need it.

Another accessory no garage stud should be without is a good wet/dry vacuum. For this garage, I used the new 3hp Bull Dog from Shop Vac, which is intended for garage use. It’s compact and mounts on the wall, which frees up valuable floor space. The Bull Dog comes with an 18-foot vacuum hose, two extension wands, a 12-inch deluxe floor nozzle with brush, a squeegee, a crevice tool, an upholstery tool, and a wall-mount accessory holder.

The Bottom Line

No matter how you do it, get organized. Whether you have $500 or $15,000 to spend, you can’t find a better investment for peace of mind than remodeling a tired, old garage—especially if you’re a car nut that likes to collect stuff.