Steve 96C4S

When I say new paint, I'm only referring to the walls and ceiling. We haven't touched the garage floor, yet. I posted here a few weeks ago about epoxying it or tiling it, but our budget has gone from slim (~$450-$500) to slimmer for this. After showing our newly painted garage to some friends during our 1st annual Spring Bash last night, they said "What's the big deal with epoxying, painting or tiling your garage floor? Just keep it bare cement dude, it's just a freakin' garage floor for g*ds sake". They also said that this way, with bare cement, I don't have to worry about slipping on slippery epoxy, and that the epoxy would never lift up over the years as there wouldn't be any to worry about. They though vinyl tiles was just plain stupid. No accounting for taste I guess... They haven't seen the killer pics from your garages. They thought the tiles would get messed up over time and it wouldn't be worth the expense, that bare cement ruled. They added, "Steve, Steve, Steve... it's a garage we're talking about here, not your family room". Clueless, they are.

None of them could care less about their garages, some of them don't even have a garage, so their opinions are only partially valid. Bottom line, it's really nice to at least have the walls and ceiling painted white now. Instead of dove white, the painter thought it would look better in a semi gloss shell white, so here ya go... Neighbors laughed at me when I mentioned I wanted to paint the garage and hang pictures. We all live so close to each other - zero lot lines. Very friendly neighborhood, but they didn't understand the "fixing up the garage concept. None of them even wash their own cars. They bring them to the car wash, not that it's that easy to clean a car in the alley anyway.

The prepainted look - this is how the previous owner kept the garage for the 5 years they lived here. I hated this unfinished look.


This is after the recent interior painting. It's amazing how a simple coat of paint can make a garage much nicer looking:





Is a bare cement floor really that bad? At least you don't have to worry about it. Failed jack stand scratching it? No worry. But, I've never used a jack stand anyway.



This bike rack is so complicated we just leave it on her car. It's also very ugly, I hate it. Guess she should have bought that Lexus RX350 I fought against so much. I think the bike would have simply slipped into the hatch without needing a bike rack. Curses... I just didn't want to drive a mom-mobile. The RL is much cooler for a guy to drive around town when he has to drive a sedan that that Lexus SUV, not that there's anything horribly wrong with that.

The lilliputian 993

I'm sure a nice grey floor would be better. My buddy in the car business just has his guys paint on a floor with $30 worth of paint and redoes it every 3-4 years. He said it's fine for him.

Nothing like a 993. 997's might be hotter, new GT3's are faster, but the old school 993, for the money, is a bargain.


Here's the newly repainted "above the garage" apt:

This apartment was a total pit before we repainted it and fixed it up last weekend. It used to be the previous owner's housekeeper that lived here and there were huge holes in the walls. Now it's a hang-out room for our 14 y.o. and her friends (though she hasn't really used it but once since moving in 3 months ago) and for me when my buddies come over to watch a movie. We decorated it for no money other than the painting - just old stuff we had around our previous house that we were going to sell for peanuts or donate anyway (minus the new LCD TV I won at work in a sales contest last year )



Before painting and cleaning this was barely habital for human habitation


Someone had posted a link to staining the cement floors. I looked at the pics, but they didn't look dramatically better to me than doing nothing at all with them...

So, is this cement floor looking weak next to the newly, lovely painted walls? Even the day before we had this paint work done my wife was saying "Do we HAVE to spend that money to repaint our garage?". I simply said, "Yes dear, we do."

Thanks,
Steve R

SA Mike

Nice pics. I want one of those license plates (of course from Texas). I wonder if they sell them here.

H.H.Chinn

Your garage walls need the Martini stripes or an accent color wall of some sort IMHO

CaptainGSR

Bare cement is fine if you don't work on your car at all. But if you start bleeding brakes and doing your own oil changes it is another story!

Tisibeast

Doesn't look too bad, but Racedeck would look KILLER!!!

Steve 96C4S

Only a few states offer them. I think you have to get like 200 interested people from the Texas Porsche Club and petition your DMV to get them made. I think Pennsylvania has them as well. Good luck with it.

Thanks and yes, I don't do any work on my car other than Zainoing (waxing) it once every 6-9 months.

Hmmm, I never even thought of this. Now I guess I can start obsessing about this too over the next year.

Racedeck? In what color, grey?
At 20X22 feet, it would cost $1650 just for the tiles... Arghhh. Too much money right now. Maybe I can save for it though over a long period of time.



This looks to be alot cheaper ($1074) ... something to look into too.


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Steve

Tisibeast

Here is what I went with. I couldn't be happier!

Steve 96C4S

Cool color combo. Is it Racedeck? The squares look alot bigger than the ads I've seen of theirs. How did you decide what color combo to go with? Did you pick it from looking at a picture in their on-line catalog or did you come up with it yourself?

John D II

Steve,

You could try staining it with gray transparent stain. It won't lift and it won't cost much. I've heard it works well.

sdcabrio

Your garage looks nice. I like the simple all white look. I would paint the brown shelves to the left of the Acura white, too.

Your floor looks pretty good as is, but I like the professional epoxy finish best. My friend has a really nice Race Deck pattern in his garage. The Race deck looked awesome at first, but now it just always seems dirty. Kinda hard to describe, but it just never totally cleans up. You just mop dirt all over or you have to clear everything out and get crazy with the garden hose.

Have you added any lighting. Four banks of flourescent lighting in conjunction with the white walls and it will be like an operating room.

I'd love a room like that you have over the garage. Anyway you can squeeze a pool table up there?

Steve 96C4S

Thanks for the racedeck info. I'd hate to spend that much on it and find that it stays dirty alot. I love to be able to sweep my cement floor quickly or just leaf blow it and it's pretty clean shortly afterwards.

I was thinking the same thing about those Ikea shelves. They would look better in white paint, but I'm not sure they're supposed to be painted. It might just peel off over time and look awful. They came with the house, about 20 of these shelves so we put 17 of them in the basement's back room and these are the only 3 left in the garage. Maybe I'll look into spray painting them anyway and see how it goes. It would blend in alot better.

No room for a pool table above the garage as it's kind of small and is just used as a TV room, though no one really uses it yet. Eventually in time we hope to.

4 banks of flourescent lights would be awesome but unfortunately not in my budget right now. By the way, any idea how much they would cost? I imagine I'd have to have an electrician run the wires and install them. I'm not a DIY'er and would have no interest in doing this myself. It's really fine for me with just 2 bare bulbs. That's what I'm used to.

sdcabrio

You could pick up the lights from Home Depot for not very much money at all. I would think you could have an electrician wire 'em up for $1-200 bucks I would guess.

My experience has been if you get the car looking good in the garage under the flourescent lights,..it just pops and look amazing out in real sunlight.

Stealth 993

I've painted a few garage floors. The epoxy kits work great & if you prep the floor right will last a very long time.

What makes them great is that it shows more light in the garage, & really makes it pop. Plus it makes far easier to find dropped parts & very easy clean up.

Steve 96C4S

This sounds alot more reasonable than I thought, then. I'll explore this one for sure.

Stealth 993: I'll consider this as well, doing the epoxy floor with someone that knows what they're doing.

993c2cab

My 2 cents.... You would be happier with epoxy, tiles, or something rather than a plain concrete floor. Go nuts!