Welcome to Week 2 of the One Room Challenge. It has been really busy around here! Last week I showed what a disaster our garage was, but we have now cleared it out and transformed the raw studs and bare concrete to create a much prettier blank slate. The organization and colorful elements will be coming into the space in another week or two, but let me show you what what we’ve accomplished thus far!
In order to fully appreciate the progress we’ve made, let me remind you where we started. Keep in mind that this was the “cleaned up” version of the garage. I’ll leave the scarier photos back in Week 1 because I can’t bear to see them again.
Around the time that I started contemplating this garage makeover, I was contacted by my friends at Rust-Oleum asking if I’d like to partner with them by using their metallic garage floor product to create our own DIY retreat. The answer was a definite YES! But the more I looked at our unfinished garage, I couldn’t yet envision it as a retreat. I worried that adding a shiny, pretty floor would look really mismatched against the unfinished walls.
Since drywalling the entire garage wasn’t in the budget or the timeline, I hired a friend with a professional-grade sprayer to give the walls a quick coat of what paint.
We had to move everything to the center of the floor so that the walls could be painted, but even with that disorganized mess in the middle, isn’t it amazing how much fresher and cleaner the garage looks with the white paint?
Once the walls were painted, we were ready to start finishing the floor. Well, almost… First we had to completely empty the garage. I’ve talked many times about the benefits of completely emptying a space before you begin reorganizing, but I’m typically talking about a pantry, a drawer, or a closet. Completely emptying the garage is a whole different ballpark {especially when you have enough c#@p to fill a ballpark}.
We took truckloads of the less frequently used items to the basement of a willing family member, and then rented a small {5’x15′} storage until just a few blocks from our house for the items that we will more likely need access to during the course of the ORC.
Coming home to the empty garage after loading up our storage unit was a bit surreal. It looks so big and clean that I almost hated to think of filling it back up again! But that feeling passed quickly when two hours later I needed something that was in storage.
The garage floor might look pretty clean, but don’t be deceived it took nearly seven hours of cleaning and preparation, and half a day of dry time before we were finally ready to apply the Rust-Oleum RockSolid metallic garage floor coating. I’ll share all the details about this floor on Monday, along with the full tutorial, but I just had to give you a couple of sneak peeks. {Spoiler alert: It’s a sea of shiny gorgeousness!}
So that’s where we are at. We have bright white walls, a gunmetal metallic floor, and a whole lot of empty space.
But it won’t be empty much longer. I’ve been working on the organizational plans for the garage, and I’ve come up with solutions that will help us maximize the amount of storage we can pack into this space while still allowing us to park two cars in here {a novel concept, I know}.
The location of the workshop will stay the same as before {in the front, left corner of the garage}, but we are replacing the old plastic cabinets with two new, much more functional workbenches. One will be stationary, with an open bottom shelf for our large tools. The other workbench will be on wheels with an adjustable height work surface.
Since the workbenches aren’t in place just yet, I thought I’d create a little mock up to show you what they’ll look like in the front corner of the garage {reflections and all}. I am still deciding what color to paint the pegboard, but right now I’m leaning toward a light aqua blue.
Thanks for stopping by to see our garage progress! Next on the list: getting the electrical run for the new fridge and freezer {which are scheduled for deliver next week}; installing ceiling shop lighting to brighten up the work space; and painting the workbench pegboard. Now that I have the organizational plan drawn up, I’m also hoping to start shopping for the shelves and drawers for the storage wall.
Be sure to stop by Calling it Home to see what all of the other One Room Challenge participants have been up to this week. I was so impressed by everyone’s plans last week, and I can’t wait to see how the rooms come together!
UPDATE:
Check out FINAL GARAGE MAKEOVER REVEAL
and
Read the METALLIC GARAGE FLOOR TUTORIAL
