Finally finished painting my garage

**Modena AL** · 10-24-2007, 06:02 PM

When I built my house the builder told me it would cost $1100 to finish the garage. That means painting it and putting trim around the bottom. I told them that they could shove it because there was no way I was paying that much to have them paint it a color that I would just paint over nor have them put trim around the garage just so I could run a lawnmower into it the first summer. So I opted to do it myself.

My goal for the garage was a neat and organized area for detailing cars and putting sweet mods on my Mini. I also wanted it to look good so that I would feel at home and comfortable since I spend 10+ hours in there each weekend. But the main thing I wanted is to make sure no one had anything else like it. I'm far from done because I have expensive things to buy, but the painting is finally done and this was a bear to do. I was going to wait till I had everything I want in there, but since Kimi won the F1 world title, I just had to show it off now.

The results:

The garage was painted red with a checkered flag around the top. This took a MONTH of weekends to do. You wanna know why?

Drywall sucks up paint like no tomorrow. First I applied a coat of primer. I probably should have done two becuase of what happened next. I painted the white next, which took 3 coats. Weekend 1 gone.

The next weekend I masked off my line and did the red. This took 5 (FIVE!) coats, and it still wasn't covered right and needed another. I knew it was hard to cover but this was ridiculous. I didn't do another coat because I didn't have enough paint and was so annoyed I didn't want to go get more or continue Weekend 2 gone.

Next I masked off the checks (top row and 3rd from top row). That alone took 8 hours! Painted the black the next day. 2 coats. Weekend 3 gone.

The next I masked off the 2nd from top row and the bottom row of checks. Only took 4 hours, but I was so drained I waiting till the next day to paint the black. Again, two coats. Weekend 4 gone.

I was so frustrated with painting that I waiting until this weekend, 4 months later, to paint the ceiling; 1 coat of primer, 1 of white. It needed two coats of white but I was so annoyed I didn't want to. Next we epoxied the floor TAN and put white and black sprinkles on it. This really brought the garage to life and it looked so much better and really brightened it up.

Corner 1:

My white container has all my MF towels and polishing pads in it. I was going to take a picture but it took 30 minutes to fold them and get them all in there and I didn't feel like taking them out. I want to replace it with a craftsman tool box to hold all of that mess. The black shelf thing will also be replaced by a workbench and hopefully a compressor next to it!

Corner 2:

My detailing cabinet that I got at a employee sale for like $50. I'm going to give it to a friend that owns a body shop and have it painted black. Also my tool box that is full. I hope to get another one to go with it and hopefully hold everything.

Corner 3:

Gladiator corner! Part of my goal was nothing on the floor except big things. These worked out great for that. A little overpriced for what they are, but I don't know of anything else like it, however, they really freed up ALOT of space. I also want to replace the lights with some flourescent ones, but I ran out of money

the wire running up the wall is for comcast. They did a horrible stupid job installing and ran this wire up the wall and across the ceiling. I'll be fixing that next weekend

Corner 4:

Just the lawn mower and ladder. I wanted to keep it clean and open wherever someone had to get out of a car everyday so they wouldn't be tripping over everything and would have plenty of room to walk around. Success.

Detailing Cabinet

It's getting full

I hope that by the end of winter I can get my extra toolboxes and work bench to finally finish it off. Maybe santa will bring me a compressor! Things left to do: reroute comcast wire, put a piece of rubber trim around the bottom to clean it up and keep water out of the walls, buy a beer fridge and fill it so I can immediatly empty it.