The Garage

When we moved into our home six years ago, we planned on tackling every room.  We made many lists, prioritized projects, and budgeted carefully.  We didn't always follow our plan - sometimes we took on projects earlier or later than anticipated - but we tried.  We knew we wanted to remodel rooms that we used the most first.  For example, we completely revamped the kitchen early on (you can see that transformation here).  We also focused on rooms that would be cheap or easy to fix - like the dining room (I showed that here).  But, funny enough, the one space that I've wanted to tackle badly was the garage.  And even though we just got around to it this summer, I am thrilled that it's done.

This is what it looked like when we started:

The space had dark panelling and an unfinished concrete floor.  It always felt cave-like even though it's quite large.  And the floor was impossible to keep clean.  Here is a close up (yes - everything is pushed to the middle so we could start painting the walls):

We had replaced the windows a couple of years ago:

And here is the corner we sacrificed for a big kitchen pantry (I explained this in that kitchen post):

Can you see the unfinished drywall?  It really needed paint.  I also removed the two shelves that ran between that bump-out and the door to the house.

I knew the dark wood would be tough to cover, so I used one coat of Kilz oil based primer.  Then, I painted two coats of Behr Gobi Desert in eggshell:

We then had to prep the floor.  We did a lot of research on different floor treatments and finally settled on a concrete stain.  After we cleared everything out, we washed the floor with Quickrete Bond Lock Concrete Cleaner, Degreaser, and Etcher.  We let the floor dry for a few days.  Then we applied two coats of Quickrete Solid Color Concrete Stain (in Valspar Light Gray):

What a huge difference!  We have been finishing a few little things (painting the drain cover and hanging curtains) but we love how clean and bright it is.  And now when I have projects to do, I have a pleasant place to work!