I've been lurking here for awhile - and finally have some time to make a thread here.

I've got a 2 car garage that is attached to my house that really wasn't much more then a dark and dreary spot that previous owners did not keep there cars in.

I bought my house 3+ years ago now - and this thread is about the upgrades that I have done.

Here is a pic showing just how dark it was in there:



After moving in:



One of the first things that I did was before I moved all my stuff to the house - I epoxy coated the floor with Griots Garage "No Lift" Epoxy.









The epoxy project took the better part of 3 or 4 nights after work - it wasnt too bad - cleaning off the floor and using the muriatic acid was the worst part.

I'll be adding more to this thread as I have time - so stay tuned for more updates.

 

The second garage project was adding some shelving for all the the car parts and garbage that I have collected over the years - got to love the fancy painters tape to measure off and setup my layout.

I got these Gladiator Garage works units from Sears on Black Friday - they where $90 each on sale.





Starting to decorate the wall's a bit:



After owning the C6 for a few years - and realizing it sucks to change the oil using jack stands - I picked up some Race Ramps online for like 280+ shipping to the house:

 

So in 2010 - I bought my house and totaled my daily driver all in the same month - a lowly '99 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP - nothing special about it besides the fact that it was supercharged.

So I picked up a 2008 Pontiac G8 GT as my new daily driver. These car was built in Australia as a Holden Commodore - and I always liked the Holden brand ever since they brought over the 04-06 GTO/Monaro.

I met 3 guys on the Power Tour in 2010 that imported there cars for the event - 3 HSV Maloo's. 2 of the cars where supercharged and all where RHD.



After drinking some beers with the Aussie's they gave me a contact for one of there buddies that would ship Aussie parts to the US - so I used the contact and ordered some HSV racing shirts and flags for the garage. Can't be too many garages in the US with Holden Racing flags in them.

 

Of course I had to put some of the other junk that I had been collecting on the other wall:



Then i decided I needed more room for tools/parts and a work space - so I bought these assemble yourself Gladiator Garageworks floor cabinents.

I got one from Lowes - and the other from Sears. The one from Lowe's - not sure on the price but they did price match the unit to a price I found on the internet - and they beat the price on the composite top that mounts the 2 units together.

I think the whole unit was probably $300-$400 all together - far better then prices I saw online for these.



Also just realized my first Craftsman toolbox is in this pic - that was another Black Friday special - I think it was $200 for the whole set.

 

Finally - big project time - time to bust out the power tools and summon my inner Tim Taylor skills.

Like I mentioned in the first post - my garage was always dark and dreary - not a place to go work on your car/hangout at all.

Here is the one of two lights that was in my garage from the day it was built - you literally couldn't see a damn thing in there.



So I bought 4 - recessed twin T8 housings @ Home Depot - after sitting around in the garage for a year - i finally starting planning and cutting holes in the ceiling. The housings where something like $50 each.



I had originally planned on using the legs that swing out from the housings and attach those to the studs in the ceiling - but they are ~24" apart and no way in hell that would have worked.

So I ended up cutting some 2x4 into ~24" lengths in 3 sections - and tied them into the ceiling studs with screws at a 45* angle or so.

I then took the housings apart - removed the cover in the middle and used the mounting holes in the housing to tie into the studs that I had put in.



I had carefully cut the ceiling apart - so I put in the sections that I had to cut apart back together - taped, mudded and started sanding.





The biggest pain in the *** part of the project was the drywall part - if I never have to tape/mud/sand again - I'd be glad to not to.

Now - with the new lights on - you can actually see what you are working on!

 

So after I finished up installing the lights - I decided to retape and mud all of the seams on the ceiling.

The builders did a terrible job when the taped off the seams - some spots didnt even had mud on it.

After a couple days of mudding/sanding - I bought a 5 gallon bucket of white primer and used that to paint the ceiling 3 coats later - the ceiling was done.




After I finished up the ceiling - it was time to invest in some proper tools - and tool storage.

I picked up a used 80 gallon air compressor from a friend who had rebuilt the motor - I also picked up a stainless Kobalt toolbox from Lowes as they where discontinuing the model on clearance.

Yes this is the model with the beer fridge, the radio, and speakers in it.



I found a portable AC unit on clearance from Newegg.com - they had these going for $200 shipped.

Now this style unit requires an exhaust vent to go outside - and since I did not have a door to run a vent tube through - I picked up a dryer vent off the web since it was all metal construction. After some careful measuring I cut a hole through the wall with a 4" holesaw.






The unit is rated for 14k BTU - which should be good for the space but I can't say it works all that great. It cools the garage a bit - but the most that I have noticed is that it pulls the humidity out of the air - and down here in the south that is really helps out a lot.

 

The air compressor sat around for awhile before I decided to finally hook it up. We had to run 220 wiring for the compressor - and I needed to decided what I wanted to do with the the air hose real.

I picked up a 50' 3/8" line from Harbor Freight for like 60 bucks.

Many trips to Lowes/HF later - I got all the fittings straitened out and got the air hose reel working.

I cut a 8' section of 2x11 and screwed that into the studs.

I then took 1/2" anchor screws and screwed those and the hose reel into the 2x11.




I later picked up a retractable power cable - and mounted that on the 2x11 next to the air hose reel.



After I got the compressor and the bigger tool box - I of course started picking up more tools - and that of course means you need more storage.

So another Black Friday came by - and I bought 2 more of the Gladiator GarageWorks 30" cabinets at Sears., the tracks for them, and I bought one of there pull out worktop stations as well.

I got the work station at Lowe's and saved some money by finding one of those 10% off moving coupons - and printed off a better deal on the web that they price matched.

 

At this point - I thought I was done with getting stuff for the garage - well I was leaving for work one morning and I closed the garage door - and I noticed that the door wasn't closing.

So I went back inside - tried the button from the wall - still didn't work - I'm like WTF...

So I pull the emergency release cable for the door - and closed it and looked up and noticed that the spring had snapped in half!

So I called a local garage door service company - and 2 new springs later the door was fixed up... or so I thought.

I don't know if it was the fact that I went from 1 spring to 2 springs on the bar above the door - but the opener crapped out no less then 2 weeks later.

The crappy Craftsman unit was original to the house so it was 12 years or so.

I pulled the opener apart and found that the plastic gear inside of it crapped out.

I called around - everyone wanted to replace the unit as whole since it was so old.

I did find a few companies online that sold the gear set for like $60 or so plus shipping.

So at that price - I wasn't sure if I would fix up the old unit for the motor just to crap out - or just replace the whole unit.

I called around for estimates on getting a side jack opener from Liftmaster - I got quotes from $1200 - $1500 installed. I was shocked by how much they wanted for that!

So I started to scour the internet - looked on Ebay/Amazon/etc - and found someone on Amazon had it for $275 shipped to the door.

Now mind you - I have never setup or installed a garage door opener before so I was pretty nervous about ordering it online. After reading the install instructions from Liftmaster - and watching a few videos on Youtube - I pulled the trigger and ordered the Liftmaster sidejack unit.

I ended up ordering it from Amazon and got it a few days later.






The install went pretty smoothly - I read the instructions a few times - and had no real problems.

Putting the opener itself on the end of the bar above the door really takes a second pair of hands to help steady it.

The install took most of a Saturday - running all the wiring for the sensors and what not is pretty tedious and time consuming.

But for less then 300 bucks - and lot less then then $1200+ quote - I replaced the garage door opener and have had no problems with it since.

This unit came with a remote light that turns on when you open the door - or the button on the wall sees you with the infrared sensor. Also the button the wall has a clock and thermometer on it.

A few weeks after the install - I decided to remove the old opener - and fix the ceiling where the old one was mounted to it.

 

Some of you may wonder why I went with the sidejack opener vs a traditional opener - and some of you with keen eye's may have seen the yellow arms in the pic above.

Through a friend of a friend I caught word that someone was selling a Danmar MaxJax portable 2 post lift.

So after a few email's back and forth - I got more information about the lift and its condition.

A deal was made - and after borrowing a truck from a friend - we drove up to Greensboro to pick up the lift.

The lift was brand new and never installed - the guy had it sitting in his garage for over a year and never once used it.

So for $1200 bucks + the 70 bucks in gas to go back and forth in the pickup we had - I had the lift in my garage.

I only have an 8.5' ceiling in my garage - so I have limited height in the type of lift that I could use. A 4 post wont fit and most 2 post lifts are 10' in height or taller.

Plus this portable lift can be disassembled in 30 mins - pushed to the side and I can use my 2 car garage for what its mean for - storing 2 cars!

So I bought a hammering drill - read the instructions/referred to Youtube videos - and starting drilling!

4 hours later - praying that my concrete pad was thick enough - I got all 14 holes drilled.

My concrete pad ended up being 6+" deep - and the install kit calls for mininum thickness of 4.5" or so.






I then assembled the lift - poured in the 14 quarts of ATF fluid - and bled the hydraulic rams.

I've used the lift to change oil, install swaybars on Vette - and did a big brake upgrade on my G8 with it.

I am very happy with it and I am glad I can get off my back laying under a car!

I can sit under the car with my rolling stool and work above me.





That brings us up to date on the garage mods - lots of typing done in this thread over the last couple of nights.

My future plans are to pick up some kind of oil catcher container that I can use on the lift - putting my oil basin on top of a bucket is less then ideal.

Plus I want to run a wire for a 220 outlet for a welder.

More on that in the future.

Thanks for reading!

 

This is wildly motivational. I've been in my house for (2) years now and have organized the garage, but not tackled any of mudding/taping, let alone adding a maxjack.

Awesome work and DIY ability!

 

Awesome work. This gets me really excited to refining the details on my project. Hats off to all the DIY work.

Pretty amazing transformation from the first pic!

 

Looks great ! now you can spend some quality time in the garage with your car.

One thing. I would think the 14k BTU air unit would work well in that space.
I have seen similar units work well in larger spaces.

 

Thanks for the comments guys - I have been working on both my cars.

The Vette is far from stock - and the G8 has mostly bolt ons.

I could start a thread about them - just not sure people care/or even look at them.

Todd - to be honest I haven't run that AC unit for much longer then an hour or 2 before I go out to the garage to start working on the car - it has to work pretty hard to pull the temp from 80+ degrees in the garage into the 70's. I have found that I need to elevate the 2 front wheels for the unit to work properly and get rid of the water condensation that builds up and causes the unit to shut off.

I also have not insulated my door - as its pretty beat up and not sure for the few times a year I use it - it would be worth the expense of doing so.

Also - as I mentioned above I was looking for an oil catch can - I picked up this unit for 50 bucks @ Harbor Freight - pretty cheap - but I know what I paid for - the construction honestly isn't all that great - but I will have no problems cutting this thing down since my lift only goes up to 44" or so in height and the lowest setting of this thing is around 38" - I will adapt it to fit my needs.



This is only my second time uploading pic's to Flickr - let me know if you think its too big. I am on dual 24" monitors at home so its not all that huge for me. I used to use Photobucket - but after 5 years of taking pics - I hit their storage limit - and I refuse to pay those morons for cropped pics and degraded resolution.

The one thing i will say about PB is that there sharing is super simple - flickr - not so much - but I work in technology so its no big deal for me to figure it out.

Thanks.

 

was that an old Beretta in the background of one of the first pics?

 

That's a pretty great job you've done!