Our garage is nearly done now (except for the new doors - we’re still waiting on home delivery from HomeDepot) - but while I was checking on my order I decided to do a little online window shopping for fun stuff for the garage…

There are so many add-on features that can be picked up quite cheap that will make your renovation extra special. For example if you’re short on wall space (because you’re using every available inch for storage) you can buy a mounting device for your opener that attaches to the ceiling.

Another nice, and cheap extra, is the stop light for your interior. This helps with backing-in, and parking within the garage - especially at night. Easy to install and helps with parking cars and trucks - comes one when motion sensors are triggered.

Although we had originally planned on storiing our bicycles on the peg boards, hooks specifically made for bicycles are much nicer and easier on your bikes.

Finally, I found a number of ‘overhead’ options for storage. Which - even though we ended throwing out/donating a lot of our seldom used items - we might be looking into as an option to reduce clutter.

Darn if renovations don’t end up costing more than your budget no matter how hard you try!

If you’ve been here before you know that we’re remodeling the inside of our garage (after a short tantrum about not being able to get the bikes out on our one day off this summer!)

And we’d managed to stay within a reasonable budget, until…

I started looking at our nearly, neatly, organized garage space with pride. Then I saw the doors and realized there was no sense putting all that work into the inside when the outside was so frightful! Did we have the money? Well we could, if we re-allocated next month’s budget ‘creatively’.

The garage doors on this old farmhouse aren’t exactly matching the rest of the house exterior - which is why they’re bothering me so much. Almost an eyesore, the entire thing looks like it was an afterthought - or a “make-do until” jobs.

Considering that garage doors are full frontal view of the rest of the house, they really do make a difference in the entire appearance. What’s the use in working so hard on the rest of the frontage but having cheap and generic garage doors? read the rest »

A quick note today about garage renovation and what I’ve been learning…

I thought rubber flooring or large rubber mats might be nice to have in the garage since it will be partially used as a workspace and could even be converted into an exercise room in the future if done right.

You start by measuring the floor space and order mats from there. Keep in mind that all garage floors have some amount of slope from the back wall to the front wall (this allows water runoff).

Note to those who might be converting their garage to a living space: You’ll need to change the grade in your new living area to be level by adjusting joists. I wouldn’t even consider tackling this myself, but if you’re handy you might like to go ahead. I read that you need to adjust the joists perpendicular to the slope, by either ripping down or shimming up.

After surfing around however I see that even though this is an inexpensive option, it’s not great if you plan to park a car or truck in your garage at a later date. Better still to seal the existing garage floor and use mats for standing or work areas.

Sealing A Garage Floor First

By sealing you’ll be protecting the concrete from damage and stains, reducing the repeated dust from a concrete floor, and make regular cleaning much easier. This adds a day onto your renovation, but most of the time is drying time. read the rest »