Garage gets a lick of paint

[Serendipity]

In the summer I gave my garage\workshop a spruce up. When we moved in a few years ago I just slung everything in there and finding stuff again or just moving around the packed garage was a pain. Plus it had not one, not two, but seven empty wasps nests and a fine collection of arachnids. My intention was to whitewash the walls, but in the end I also laid interlocking tiles.

I put a gazebo in the garden and started unpacking the garage contents. That took longer than expected so cleaning didn't start until the next weekend. This is the garage as it was minus bikes, bicycles and about 50 boxes of horded stuff. I forgot to take a pic before I started clearing out.

https://i.imgur.com/cTlLRmIh.jpg

Once the garage was cleared it took me another weekend to clean it. I filled a couple of rubble sacks with the wasps nests, two birds nests and a load of sweepings from the walls and floor. Then I went to work with Henry and vacuumed the shit out of the place.

Then a quick splash of white on the wall to see how it looked.

https://i.imgur.com/Xs3xhaph.jpg

Then a bit more.

https://i.imgur.com/MrSsxXfh.jpg

Until it looked like this.

https://i.imgur.com/AZGtr6Bh.jpg

I think it took me another week to get to this stage. I'd be a crap tradesman. My pace of working on this sort of stuff is glacial. Fortunately the missus and kids were strangely keen to help with the painting so I tried to suppress my OCD and let them help.

By now I'd decided to cover the floor and had thoughts about paint or epoxy, but in the end went for interlocking floor tiles. You can see the grey ones stacked on the selves in the pic above. I decided to go for a checkerboard look. I thought all light coloured would show the dirt too easily, but black would be too dark. This was the compromise.

I measured the garage and built a simple floorplan in SketchUp Make. It's free and pretty simple to work with. This let me buy the right number of tiles and plan for the least amount of cutting.

https://i.imgur.com/W6xMZMwh.jpg

The tiles are sold as vinyl and I assume that means PVC (I could be mistaken). They're pretty flexible, but solid and heavy with a honeycomb base.

https://i.imgur.com/xiCdAIqh.jpg

Not too hard to cut with a knife, but pushing down on the knife and metal ruler was killing my hands so I resorted to a circular saw which worked brilliantly, but was a little more messy with statically charged plastic sawdust going everywhere.

I decided against an underlay, but wonder if a thin layer of the foam you put under laminate flooring would help deaden the tippy tappy noise as you walk around.

I bought a few extra tiles to finish the doorway at a later stage. I inherited the garage with a wooden shed front instead of doors. It's really well made (I assume by the previous owner as he was a builder), but I eventually plan to replace it with side folding garage doors.

https://i.imgur.com/3NCUfI9h.jpg

The tiles lock together with a little encouragement. The seller's videos showed using a rubber hammer, but I found that a bit brutal and could mark the lighter tiles or distort the puzzle lugs. In the end I just forced them together with careful placing and strong fingers.

https://i.imgur.com/lY2DHV9h.jpg

All down and ready to start filling the garage with crap again until you can't see all the good work.

https://i.imgur.com/gDEu8Yyh.jpg

The tiles are pretty tough although side and center stands will sink in a little overnight. The bikes I rarely move are stood on thick carpet tiles to spread the weight and I use a sidestand puck for the CBF which I use daily. If you squish a tile with something heavy it does eventually spring back and the mark disappears.

The paint I used was smooth exterior masonry brilliant white from Homebase. It was ok to use with both roller and brushes, but needed two or three coats before the brick colour stopped showing through.

The tiles I got from https://www.bigdug.co.uk. I'd found them on amazon, but went direct to pickup some storage boxes and a saw horse at the same time. They delivered quickly and the stuff arrived on a pallet that the delivery driver tucked away out of sight while we were out. That particularly impressed me. He could have just dumped it anywhere, but clearly went out of his way to leave the pallet where it couldn’t be seen from the road.

The tiles are easy to sweep clean and a quick mop every few months brings them back to looking like new.

So have I kept my garage mostly clear and looking like a professional workshop?

Errrrrrr, no…….

https://i.imgur.com/roZBehGh.jpg

But it is better organised and much lighter. Also a lot less dusty.

There's still work to do and I still plan to sell the CB500 which will free up more space. Eventually I want to get electric run out to the garage and as mentioned above I want to replace the wooden front with side folding garage doors. Getting a bike in and out of the current narrow door isn't too bad, but a wider door would be a pleasure.
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2007 CBF1000-ABS - Commuter heaven | 1994 CBR600FR - Awaiting defibrillation

[Aky208]

Looks great, well done.

I have the same issue where I have a sudden burts of OCD and completely clear and reorganise the garage. Unfortunately the feeling settles much too quickly and it becomes a dumping ground again.

[stevo as b4]

Nice clean bright garage now!

I did mine in 2012 after selling my old garage Queen car and getting the space back for a nice work shop room. Well that
was the plan, but 2years later I brought another car of the same make and model and decided it would be cruel of me to keep it outside in the winter, so I've lost all my space once again oops!

[recman]

Look's good. I had plans to do a spot of white wall painting in my garage/shed, have to wait until after winter now.
It'll really help the LED lights I installed recently.

[Suntan Sid]

You've got TOO MUCH STUFF!
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"Everybody needs money, that's why they call it money!"

[Rncv]

Looks nice!

Can i ask, what size is your garage? i'm looking to upgrade mine in the summer.
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Current: 01' Bandit 600, 92' Goose 350
Previous: Lots!

[J4mes]

You inspired me to sort my garage but jesus those tiles are expensive - I'd need 130 of them at £3 each

Did you seal your brickwork or anything before you painted or just slap it on?

[B5234FT]

Looks great! Painting bricks is horrible, but as I've discovered, a pleasure compared to concrete block. I did mine last winter and new lights and white walls and a painted floor makes such a difference!

[Moxey]

That's disorganised state of mine and the Triumph isn't even in there! Nice to see how mine could end up when I finish (painted and resurfaced in the summer until shed build took over).

Dibs on the CB btw
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Current: 55 FZS 1000S, 02 FZS 1000, 77 CG 125, 04 XR 125 Some Bike Pics...
'I was too busy paying attention to pay attention'

[Serendipity]

[pompousporcup...]

the white walls look pretty good! think i may have to do that to mine soon

[Mawsley]

I think I need to get busy with a paintbrush. Probably could do with installing some new lights at the same time. Nice post OP, motivation obtained.

[Serendipity]

I've currently got a solar shed light that I got free. It's laughably weak and I only kept it because it was a freebie.

It casts about the same amount of light as a full moon. Enough to see where you're going and not fall over stuff, but totally useless for anything else. It was one of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cole-Bright-18120-Solar-Light/dp/B000TAOYGM

Avoid

I'm considering something like this instead.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Solalite-Powered-Rechargeable-Motion-Security/dp/B00C4BHEY8

At least until I get mains power. A PIR activated light so I can have the solar panel on the roof, but the light inside. I don't need it to stay on for long and even if the amount of light is a bit disappointing it can't possibly be as bad as the current one.
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2007 CBF1000-ABS - Commuter heaven | 1994 CBR600FR - Awaiting defibrillation

[recman]

If your going solar, go for a solar panel to leisure battery to LED strips.
Plenty of info online.

[bacon]

I like the white walls and the flooring idea is an interesting one, but fuck me man! Get yourself a garden shed for the bicycles and garden tools!



Oh and when trying to organise my shed I found racking, as found on amazon and the likes of ebay really helpful.

https://s19.postimg.org/jdkanb9kz/shed.jpg

These were under £30 each and can hold over 250kg distributed on each shelf (fairly thick mdf shelves). I actually only ordered 3, 2 the first time and 1 the second time, they messed up and sent 2 on that second occasion so I put them all up... loads of storage, though fairly crowed in my 12x8 shed.

I will soon try and fit another bike in there and a shit tonne of spares too, fun..

[pompousporcup...]

what he said ^^. get a shed (if you can) for all the crap you don't want cluttering the important garage space.. more space=more bikes

[UnknownStuntm...]

Solar kit in my shed: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Off-Grid-Lighting-System-Lights-Battery/dp/B00HOEGHSY/ref=sr_1_2?s=outdoors&ie=UTF8&qid=1479903008&sr=1-2&keywords=solar+shed+kit

It's pretty awesome, tbh. I think you can only expect all four bulbs on for about an hour, but if you put just one of the bulbs on, it'll last for 4 hours or so.

[owl]

[Snowdonia Rider]

Draughts or Chess?
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I want your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.
Suzuki GP125 Suzuki GSX600F Suzuki SV650S KTM EXC250F SkyTeam Bongo 125
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/SnowdoniaRider

[bacon]

[recman]