kevincwelch
New member
- May 12, 2013
- 2,686
- 0
I'm very excited about this project, and have been slowly putting it into place over the past 6 years since I bought our house here in Illinois.
When we bought the house, the detached garage was typical of the neighborhood. It was a mess. The concrete had been poured over 40 years prior and it was cracked, dusty and unsafe for little kids -- even I have tripped on the uneven pavement.
I lived with it since we were just parking our cars in the garage. However, I started to get unhappy with how we were accumulating toys and equipment in the garage. It was a mess! The next motivating factor was that the garage floor was getting worse and it started scraping the bottom of my car when I was pulling into the garage over the apron. Fortunately, I could mitigate that problem by placing my car into "very high" suspension (thanks to air suspension).
But, a year ago I discovered this website, and that was the final straw. I couldn't really do any detailing in my garage. It was dirty. It was dark.
So, we've begun a complete rehab.
Here's what it looked like when we moved in with all of our stuff. It basically looked like this for two years and got worse:
I threw away a bunch of stuff and started to organize things with shelves and with bins. I put up some 4x8 three ply panels along the wall, but I'm not a carpenter, and although it looked much better, I wasn't really satisfied with it because it was still dark and the floor was really a problem. It was a short term solution.
Fast forward 3-4 years. The garage floor is even worse. The cracks are bigger than ever. When I use the Metro air force blaster to dry my car, dust from the concrete and cracks kicks up and gets all over my car since it is suspended in air. Because I have young kids, I have to clean my car later at night, and with the poor lighting in the car, I can start to see how poorly my buff jobs are turning out when I pull my car out the next day for a drive.
(I know, #firstworldproblems.)
We made some inquiries and decided to replace the concrete floor. This process when surprisingly smoothly.
The floor was sealed. We decided not to go with an epoxy at this time since most places informed us that it couldn't go on for about 30 days and we needed to move forward with the project.
The electrician is here today and pulling some wire to expand our capacity. About 1.5 years ago, I had a 100 amp subpanel installed in the garage, primarily to support the 50 amp NEMA 14-50 240 V outlet I use to charge my car.
I worked with my contractor and my electrician, and we're basically installing 120v outlets at the four corners and installing 6 4-bay fluorescent lights along the ceiling of the garage over the next few days. It will also be wired for CAT-6 and speaker wire.
Here's the garage with the floor protected and the studs exposed for rewiring.
I'm really looking forward to seeing this thing evolve over the next couple of weeks.
After the electrical is done, the support joists will be reinforced and raised up a bit. The walls will be insulated and dry wall placed. The ceiling will be closed off and will provide an enclosed storage option.
Stay tuned for updates!
When we bought the house, the detached garage was typical of the neighborhood. It was a mess. The concrete had been poured over 40 years prior and it was cracked, dusty and unsafe for little kids -- even I have tripped on the uneven pavement.
I lived with it since we were just parking our cars in the garage. However, I started to get unhappy with how we were accumulating toys and equipment in the garage. It was a mess! The next motivating factor was that the garage floor was getting worse and it started scraping the bottom of my car when I was pulling into the garage over the apron. Fortunately, I could mitigate that problem by placing my car into "very high" suspension (thanks to air suspension).
But, a year ago I discovered this website, and that was the final straw. I couldn't really do any detailing in my garage. It was dirty. It was dark.
So, we've begun a complete rehab.
Here's what it looked like when we moved in with all of our stuff. It basically looked like this for two years and got worse:
I threw away a bunch of stuff and started to organize things with shelves and with bins. I put up some 4x8 three ply panels along the wall, but I'm not a carpenter, and although it looked much better, I wasn't really satisfied with it because it was still dark and the floor was really a problem. It was a short term solution.
Fast forward 3-4 years. The garage floor is even worse. The cracks are bigger than ever. When I use the Metro air force blaster to dry my car, dust from the concrete and cracks kicks up and gets all over my car since it is suspended in air. Because I have young kids, I have to clean my car later at night, and with the poor lighting in the car, I can start to see how poorly my buff jobs are turning out when I pull my car out the next day for a drive.
(I know, #firstworldproblems.)
We made some inquiries and decided to replace the concrete floor. This process when surprisingly smoothly.
The floor was sealed. We decided not to go with an epoxy at this time since most places informed us that it couldn't go on for about 30 days and we needed to move forward with the project.
The electrician is here today and pulling some wire to expand our capacity. About 1.5 years ago, I had a 100 amp subpanel installed in the garage, primarily to support the 50 amp NEMA 14-50 240 V outlet I use to charge my car.
I worked with my contractor and my electrician, and we're basically installing 120v outlets at the four corners and installing 6 4-bay fluorescent lights along the ceiling of the garage over the next few days. It will also be wired for CAT-6 and speaker wire.
Here's the garage with the floor protected and the studs exposed for rewiring.
I'm really looking forward to seeing this thing evolve over the next couple of weeks.
After the electrical is done, the support joists will be reinforced and raised up a bit. The walls will be insulated and dry wall placed. The ceiling will be closed off and will provide an enclosed storage option.
Stay tuned for updates!
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