Mama's Sweet City Garage

Hi GJ My name is Jack. I do quite a bit of interneting and have been around here a few times. There are some really impressive builds(?) on here. You also have a very supportive and helping community. I like help so that's where I'm at.
I at currently a student, so I am kinda broke and move back and forth between Chicago and Peoria. When I'm home at work I have been working on the garage.

So far I have done the floor, lights, and started electric. Here's a few pics I'll get to the story soon. Enjoy.
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sweet van! good luck on the project!

X2 on the van and good luck on the project.

Floor looks great...and BTW the "A Team" is looking for their van.

Thanks for the positive remarks. The van was a POS, my friends lovingly referred to it as the rock n roll **** van. That picture was probably a little over a year old.

The story behind this garage is that it is my Mother’s garage and I am currently between Chicago and Peoria for school and work. This will be my project garage and her parking space. This garage was what my Father, rest in peace, was able to build after a neighborhood arsonist decided our old garage was ripe for the picking. My father built the garage with a goal of building and experimental airplane. His plans were stalled with a bad ticker that would not let get a pilot’s license plus his fourth child in catholic school.
He was able to finish half of the floor, get most of the drywall done, and get a great tool base with some nice cabinets and carts.

As far as electric, there were only two outlets and a light bulb. I supplemented the light with an 8’ fluorescent fixture that was plugged in by the door opener and sitting on top of the rafters.
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And now the meat. I started with cleaning and finishing the drywall. Poor pops was one piece of drywall short.
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I painted the bare drywall with leftover cans of white paint and did the unfinished half of the floor with a can of Behr I had left over from another project. I did degrease the floor and etch it with an old bottle of floor etcher first. I thought the floor came out pretty darn well.




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This drill mixer may as well be indispensable in my book.
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I thought this was a pretty good prospective shot of how much **** was in the garage and my escape path.

Tomorrow I will post some stuff on the electric.

jealous!

Wiring and Electrical
This is the one part of the garage that I think makes it or breaks it. I think as long as you have lights and power you have a good workshop.
In the before time I had two outlets, one next to the service door and one on the ceiling for the garage door opening. I intend to have around eight or ten outlets. I’d like ate least two per wall.
There were also real bad lights. It consisted of a 120 watter, a 4 foot fluorescent, and a 8 foot florescent that was plugged and sitting on top of the rafters. They cast shadows everywhere and made for a dark dirty looking garage. This pic is after the walls were painted so it looks much brighter than before.

All this was justifiably powered by a single 30 amp breaker. I have blown this with my compressor many times. I plan on welding and cutting with a plasma cutter, so I need a bit more. Currently there are six 16 ga wires running through some 3/4 “ conduit. My electricians say I need some 6 ga to run my 100 amp service. I say okay. I bought a 12 spot panel from the depot. It is wired up temporally right now just as good and exposed as before.
I wanted two lights down down the sides of each “bay” and one at the front and back. So with two bays sharing two lights that makes 10 lights. After pricing and figuring how much I’ll the lights will be on I went with the t5’s. I figure they were the best choice for the money. I wired these into three zones like my wonderful drawing.

zone 1

zone 3



I guess there is no zone three pic. The boxes for the outlets are mounted on one wall and wire is run through them. The cost was probably around $500, that includes outlets, conduit, breakers, then the wire, box and lights.
Here's the best picture of the box I have. I'm in peoria now so I can't take a better pic for a while.

next is the floors redux.

Gratuitous Jeep Shot and Pic of my Electricians, E2(Eric) with the conduit bender and Tall Nick(Nick).

The Jeep is my brother in-laws, T-bone he's next to it, new pride and joy, it's stupid Awesome. He won it from a raffle for the Chicago Police Memorial Fund. He bought one $100 ticket And was shocked to win it. It's a fully kitted out jeep from a dealer just north of Chicago. I'm pretty sure it has just about every part that Mopar makes thrown at it. It is a great jeep the engineering dept. at Mopar did a solid job.


We actually used the jeep a a shop light for the better part of two hours.

Okay so at this point I knew the floors were going to look pretty ******. On half was a 15 year old beige epoxy paint that was mostly worn and stained. The other half was freshly painted with a 2 year old can of grey Behr garage floor that had been outside. So I didn’t have high hopes, but it was better than going the whole nine yards because it was free.

Then I saw the neighbor’s brand new garage. Right away I’d like to say how nice this guy is. He’s always there with a beer and he has three great daughters that I grew up with. He is a retired Chicago Policeman with a few grandchildren. He has finally had the money to build his own man cave garage. So there is oak trim and two lazy boys, not really a working man’s garage but one man’s den. Once I saw that floor I fell in love. It was a full flake epoxy with so much clear it looked like candy it truly looked like granite!
At this point I had been looking at the Depot and Menards. A plan was coming together. Two gallons of Behr, 8 bags of flake, a gallon of Behr degreaser (because it’s amazing), and two gallons of water based acrylic clear from Menards. The flakes are Behr.


Clearcoat
http://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/concrete-cement-masonry/concrete-sealer-repair/concrete-cleaners-sealers/sealbest-ultra-gloss-concrete-sealer/p-1462532-c-5651.htm

At this point I pressure washed the floor again since it got pretty dirty during some of the electric install. Glad I did, lots of the fresh grey paint flaked right off. So on to paint job #2.






I am real happy with the outcome this will be my working garage for the next few years. It really only has to hold up to relatively light traffic. So I hope the super cheap acrylic holds up and protects the other layer. I also put the grippy beads on the left half of the garage. I can slightly see a difference in the clear between the two sides but the bead makes a huge difference. I was a little upset I didn’t just grab 2 cups of glass bead from the bucket at work, oh well live and learn.


I really couldn’t be happier with the outcome.