Traditionally the garage serves as a place to simply provide protection for your vehicles and to allow homeowners with some additional storage. But with a little innovation and strategic innovation, your garage can be a whole lot more than that. It can become a wifi-enabled man cave to enjoy watching the big game, a super-efficient storage area that frees up space in your home, or a fully-functioning workshop.
Before you start your garage makeover, here are some pivotal factors that you should keep in mind.
Your garage project should be anchored in accomplishing a primary goal. Throughout the project, you’re going to make dozens of decisions. Some will be small such as choosing lighting fixtures and some will be big such as selecting storage solutions. By having a primary goal in mind, you’ll be able to make each decision while weighing how it affects your goal.
For example, your goal might be to convert a portion of your garage to a man cave, with space for a sofa, tv, and mini fridge. If so, you’re going to need to make storage decisions that free up room for this addition. Or maybe the goal is to maximize storage so that the spare bedroom in your basement that is currently used for storage can be converted into a home gym. If so, you’re going to have to select storage solutions that utilize all of the valuable vertical space your garage offers.
There’s a lot of different directions that you can go with your primary goal, just make sure that you have one from the onset of the project.
As with any home project, planning is going to be a vital part of whether you consider the project to be a success or not. For your garage, start the project by creating virtual quadrants or zones, or take some chalk of physically draw out zones.
For each zone, decide what you’d like to accomplish. Specifically think about your wall space. For one zone you could hang long tools such as shovels, rakes, and brooms. Another could be for a workbench, another for sports equipment. By plotting out each zone, you’re going to have a better idea of the amount of space you have for the physical improvements you make down the line.
Make sure that as you’re delegating roles to each zone of the garage that you’re keeping your primary goal on the top of your mind. Especially in terms of storage. For a garage to function effectively, you’re going to want at least one of the zones to serve a role of mass storage. Utilize garage cabinets to store a lot of items without taking up much space.
If you can avoid it, try and execute your garage makeover in one designated effort. Sometimes that isn’t always possible due to financial constraints or seasonal obstacles, but a common garage makeover mistake that some homeowners make is putting off large elements of the project for later. Sometimes later can become never, and your garage will end up being only halfway finished.
If you’re going to execute your garage makeover over time, no problem. Just make sure you knock out the big projects first.
Some of the larger elements of a garage makeover that qualify here are electrical, HVAC, and flooring. Does your man cave require some additional outlets for the TV and Wifi extender you’re installing? Or maybe your workshop is going to require some heating so that you can work during the cold Minnesota Winter? Or perhaps you need to paint your flooring, or insulate your walls?
Regardless of what the job is, by doing it first, you allow yourself to slowly complete the smaller elements of the garage makeover as time goes along.
The perfect garage for your neighbor Tom or your cousin Julie is not necessarily the perfect garage for you. We all have different personalities and interests, which leads to us all having different needs when it comes to the garage.
Now that you have each area of your garage zoned off and the big jobs done, start working on making the individual improvements and additions that will help the garage work best for you. If your primary goal was to make your garage a highly-functioning workshop, then install the lighting that you want to work with. For storing your tools, ask yourself whether you prefer a open, wall mounted approach or a more hidden cabinet style where all of your tools are out of sight.
The little choices you make are going to go a long way in how much you enjoy your new garage. If you are going with a workshop theme, look into installing a shop vac or wall-mounted vacuum system to save on overall space and to make for quick and easy clean up. A successful garage makeover falls apart if your space quickly becomes cluttered and messy.
If the new space will be primarily for relaxing or watching sports, let your imagination run wild as you decorate your garage. Find a theme that is unique to you and have some fun with it. Are you a big sci-fi geek? Find some cool posters and decorations that fit that theme.
Best of luck on your garage makeover! If you’re looking for some garage storage solutions to help free up space in your new garage, Harkraft has you covered.
Take a look at some of our garage storage products and services and contact us today to learn more about how we can help.
