Drywalling Complete

If you are just joining us, you'll want to start at the beginning. :)

http://mygaragemakeover.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html


Here's the garage after the insulation and drywall were added.

Here's the garage after it has been painted. Isn't this a pretty color blue? Hubby picked it out. :)

WATCH MY GARAGE MAKEOVER!!!

So... here it is... You can watch my garage makeover step by step. I had taken the BEFORE pictures, but naturally you can be darn sure they weren't going to see the light of day until there were at least some IN PROGRESS pictures. I'm happy to say, there has been some progress made, so I can post the pics. :)

And, by the way, yes, yes, yes. I know. It's absolutely shocking that our garage looked like this. hehehe I blame my husband! Yeah, that's it, it's all *his* stuff. Oh hush... Pay no attention to those boxes that look like they might contain my stuff.

:)

BEFORE Pictures

These are the dreaded BEFORE pictures. The ones that people take, but hide away never to see the light of day because they look so absolutely dreadful and embarrassing... That is, until... they actually work on the project and start making progress. Then it becomes cool to see just how far they have come. :)

So here's pics of our three car garage before we started our makeover project.

IN PROGRESS PICS - AFTER EMPTYING

We rented a POD to clear out the garage completely so we could work more easily. We've actually gotten rid of a TON of stuff so there's a LOT less in the POD than you would think! Our goal is to put less than 50% of what came out of that garage back into it. What??? You don't believe me? Oh doubting Thomas. Ha! Here's the proof. This is all that is in the POD:



The garage floor had the usual assortment of stains and whatnot that accumulate after 8 years of being stacked full of junk. (Ick!)

IN PROGRESS - AFTER PREP FOR EPOXY FLOOR

We decided not to do a do-it-yourself project on the epoxy floor, for a lot of reasons. We saved up our pennies (OK, a few dollars too) and paid the professionals to come in.

We chose Floorguard (http://www.floorguard.com) of Aurora, Illinois. We are really pleased with them so far. They returned my call promptly when I called to request a quote, were pleasant, helpful and knowledgable when I stopped in unexpectedly at their showroom, showed up on time to give us an estimate, provided the quote on the spot, called us the day before to remind us of the planned install, showed up on time for the install, helped me put some of my stuff in the POD when I ran out of time after hubby was unexpectedly called out of town on business, did a great job with the install, had helpful friendly polite installers, and cleaned up after themselves. So far there have been no unexpected charges. Assuming the floor lasts as planned (there's a great warranty on it), I can definitely recommend them confidently. (And no, I was not paid for this endorsement! I believe in giving credit when I come across a great vendor.)

Putting in an epoxy floor is a multi step process. First they went through and durashotted the floor (basically bombard the concrete with pellets to take off everything that is marring the floor - ok, that's not a scientific explanation, but it's good enough for me). The research we did said that shot blast or diamond grinding are the best things to do as a first step. Most do it yourself kits can only do acid etching as a first step. Then they put down the epoxy (I think it had two coats). Then they come back the next day to do the clear top coat. :)

IN PROGRESS - EPOXY FLOOR FIRST COAT

How gorgeous is this floor??? And it doesn't even have the shiny topcoat on it yet. We're really pleased with our choice. It looks terrific. I can't wait to get the whole garage finished!!!







Since the stairs were just low quality wooden things, we went ahead and had them epoxied too. :)



Here's the view of the stairs looking down from the entrance door. We're having contrasting color strips added at the edges later in the process, since, let's face it, that epoxy floor just blends together on the stairs.



Next step: insulate and drywall the garage. Pics will be posted when that phase of the project is complete - hopefully within a week or two.