Grandaddy's Garage Makeover

So, my parents' garage was, well, let's just say pretty much things were thrown in there. So, me and the kids wanted to do something special for them, and my gift was to re-organize and decorate their garage! Well, let's just say it was hard for my Dad to give up the reigns. This is their garage BEFORE:

Everything was moved over just enough to allow for my Mom to put her car in there. Check the eyes on their dog, Pebbles. They look as scary as the garage!

It took me about a month to plan out what I was going to do with it, and I wanted to do it for as little money as possible. The look I was going for was organized, protecting the garage from my Dad's fish juices being thrown around, and bigger shelving for my Mom's corner. It's not an interior room, so i wanted it to have a rustic look, along with different textures.

BEFORE

The first thing my kids, my Dad, and I did was to clean out the "junk." A.k.a. The stuff that my father pulled out the garbage and didn't really need, nor could he use. Then we had to separate that from the stuff that he and my Mom wanted to keep. There were a lot, I mean A LOT of garage bags!

The cleanout was soooooo tiring, not because of the work, but because my Dad fussed the whole time about what we considered trash. Please folks, don't keep rusted nails and fishing hooks in your personal belongings! Then we had to sneak some items into the garbage bags in my minivan.

After we got rid of the trash, we then had to go decide on the organization of the "keep" pile. The goal was to get things that were from the same category together. For example, my Dad had his hand saw in a crate with car wash. There were already plenty of other car care items, so we knew there needed to be organized storage for that.

I then took a trip to multiple stores, such as Walmart, Home Depot, Home, and Tractor Supply to find neat crates, bins, hooks, stools, and a new metal shelf to help organize their belongings. Then I had to buy the exterior paint from Sherwinn Williams, and metal sheeting at Home Depot.

It took us approximately three days of blood, sweat, and, yes, oh, yes, tears (My Dad was driving me nuts!) Well here is a pic of the final results AFTER alllllllll of the work we did:

On the wall organization. I chose to put up sheet metal to allow my rough-handed Dad "no fear" when putting up his tools. I then drilled the simple 2x4's into the studs and added hooks into them to organize his yard and home tools. I bought him a new 8' ladder, so that he can safely go on the roof (previously, he used a hand-made ladder from probably the 1800's....I exaggerate, but it really looked the part).

I took half of his shelving unit and made it into a table. I bought the chair and the stool from the Home store. I like that they were a neutral black metal, which added to my practical look.

I had to repair the shelving that he originally had on the back wall. The wood on the original wood shelves had warped from whatever spills he had (and rat poop....ewwww). I measured the frame of the shelves, then had the wood cut for free at Home Depot!

I had some exterior paint leftover from my garage that we put on the walls. I did have to purchase garage floor paint, which I chose a dark brown, then I added the tan speckles to help hide future stains or whatever my Dad my spill.

I had a few bumps in the road, including opening some floor paint, while I was tired, not using it, and then it hardening over night. (I was REALLY tired. So, tired that I, obviously, made this not so smart mistake. Another problem were the studs in the wall. Some seemed deeper than others and not at the standard 16" apart. Even with my stud finder, I was off may times on where I drilled in the screws. Let's just say there are probably a good number of holes behind that sheet metal! LOL

My Mom didn't like her old plastic, leaning shelving in the corner, so I put in some more permanent, very sturdy ones:

BEFORE (shelving to the right in the garage)

AFTER (see the installed shelving on the right):

My Dad had about 10 different license plates from the various places they lived and cars they had. There were a lot of multiples, so we had to really encourage him to narrow it down. We used the license plates we kept to decorate the wall and keep his memories.

In the end, the whole makeover came out to about $675. Believe it or not, but amongst all of my Dad's (I say it lightly) junk, there were many utility hooks that I was able to use. Then, being able to use items that I had laying around, such as paint, saved us a good forty bucks. I think it's not too bad for my second garage makeover (yes, mine was the first).

My parents and my grandmother, who lives with them, were more than pleased with the garage, which for a person who loves designing is the best thing ever! My grandmother loved it all, but she liked the doggie hooks for the dog leashes (You can see it on the "after" picture on the wall above. ) :)

Another Job to Cook up.....