PolishPete

Hey guys...looking for some advice here. I'll be making-over my garage soon with a contractor gentleman, just the two of us...and I had some questions to anyone who might have any advice or suggestions.

2 Car Garage...basically just kinda thrown together. I don't want to spend too much on shelving and stuff from sears...so we'll be making it all custom from 2X4's and plywood. I have 2 roadshop type tool chests, about 4 feet tall...the red ones with shelves...that's pretty much all we'll keep, the rest of the drawers, shelves, etc...will be custom made.

I haven't talked over with the guy much except for the fact that he wants to help...he doesn't work, but is very handy, so he loves helping around the house...(he's a family friend).

I assume we need to stain/protect the wood...the flooring will be that black/white square tile stuff...little pricey, but looks good.

Big question is, how do I make the garage heated for cheap...do we need to insulate the walls, which are pretty thin looks like, so build a wall next to the existing walls with insulation in it? Then can we attach heaters around the garage wired to a switch...probably won't be attaching it to the existing house heat for $ reasons.

Any suggestions on what I should add to the garage? We'll be making it very nice!! You should see the walk in closet this guy did for my mom....amazing!!

Scottman111

If your only going to be out there for short periods of time, I would recommend getting a torpedo heater. I have a small one that I wired a thermostat on, then I plug it in while I'm in there and it stays whatever temp I choose. Once it reaches the temperature I choose, it shuts off. All you have to do is unplug once you leave. That is, unless you already have a plan for heat. (not sure if what you said about attaching heaters is already done or being planned)

As for your garage, my advice is to add all of your electric now, and plan for expansion. Make sure you have enough lighting, a lot of garages look too dim to me (but maybe that's just me) How much are you going to drywall?

PolishPete

Thanks for the input...lots of lighting is already in the plan!! The garage is already drywalled, but very cold...it's a standard garage. 10yr old house. Looks normal, I'd just like to make it nice and useful for my bikes and cars.

soopa

Custom shelving, eh?

You know, most of the PVC based shelving you can buy from Sears, HD, etc, is cheaper then what you can make yourself with the cost of lumber these days? Plus it will probably look better.

soopa

Oh, and pictures would help us give you some ideas.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

We got heavy duty brackets which are white. We will be going out and buying plywood and painting the underneath white. Once installed it will look custom b/c all of the trim in our garage is white... so everything will match and it will look like it was a lot more expensive then it was . It will also be very simple to install.

NSXNEXT

iTrader: (2)

My suggestion for shelving is to buy the tracks with the adjustable brackets, similar to the ones below.



I did this in my garage and it's great since you have an inlimited number of adjustments to deal with all the stuff you might want to store.

I used mdf shelving (very cheap and takes paint well) and spaced the brackets every 16". The garage will fall down before these do.

Scottman111

^ Those shelves look cool, NSX...

Good to hear your planning it out first, Pete. Are you putting some kind of work bench in? And it sounds like insulation is a must. Is it a basement garage or on the side of the house?

Post some pics and help us out

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Those are pretty much the shelves we're looking at, except the ones we looked at weren't adjustable. I like that idea better. Going to do them all along the back wall and we'll be golden.... so maybe with the adjustable shelves we can do two rows (storage stuff up high, stuff we'll need throughout the year down low).

Good lookin out

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

BTW, are those the Rubbermaid shelving brackets??

anothercls

http://www.garagetek.com/ <--saw this on the news this morning, a bit expensive with one wall costing $2,000, but it is all relative.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Wow, talk about overkill!!

soopa

the rubbermaid stuff is kewl. i love the "hidden" track.

anothercls

Definately is, they had one woman who paid $12,000 for a 3 car garage to be done, floor installed and everything. The cabinets on the wall can hold from 200-300lbs, which seems to be a good amount. They "justified" the cost by saying you could get the money back when selling the house due to all the storage space in the garage.

soopa

I'd consider a house of greater value if it had a sweet garage.

If a there were two houses side-by-side identical except one had a shitty garage like mine, and another had some tricked out shit like that... I'd mortgage another 12k

Titand19

Let's see some pics of your garage. I did the plywood ax4 deal for shelves in my garage. Worked out great saved a ton of money. Note most of the materials I used were left over from redoing other parts of the house.

Carpet, If I am correct I think Rondog carpeted a portion of his garage floor. I would like that, because I have goten used to throwing a large piece of carpet under the car instead of using my creeper.

Electrical is kind of annoying, relocating outlets for heavy tool usage.

NSXNEXT

iTrader: (2)

Yeah they are. I can't remember if that's what I got. I got them at Home Depot (where else).