Garage Re-org and Fence Project

Took some pics of my recent projects.

I built some custom cabinets in my garage. I was tired of seeing things stored on shelves.

The two tall cabinets are 2'W X 8'T X 12" deep. The two upper cabinets are 41"W X 30"T X 12" deep. They had a killer deal on some cabinet grade plywood at Home Depot for $28 a sheet so I jumped on it. The materials were 5 sheets 3/4"x4x8 cabinet grade plywood, 1 sheet 1/2" MDF (for drawers), 2 sheets Luan (for backing), 24 Euro full overlay hinges, knobs, screws, glue, primer, paint, and drawer slides. All in all I spent about $350 on the cabinet materials.

I originally planned on doing drawers for the bottom sections of the tall cabinets but unfortunately I wasn't happy with the results since I couldn't get full extension slides in 12". I scrapped the drawer fronts and just put doors on the bottom section. Now unfortunately my drawers will not open because the door is in the way...oh well I will fix them later

I also built two 4x8 storage platforms to go above the garage door. Only about $60 in materials.

Next step for the garage is to put down the expoxy floor coating I have sitting in the house and paint the walls (haven't decided on a color yet.)

I also built a fence in my backyard last weekend for the dogs and to "define" my backyard so I can finish the landscaping back there this spring/summer.

The fence is 7' X 58' X 50' X 37' X 4'. I put in one 5' gate and one 6' gate. Spent about $1k in materials, food/drinks for help, and tool rental on the fence. Put in about 30 hours labor on it for my backyard and my nextdoor neighbor's backyard. Not bad considering my neighbor down the street spent $1700 for his fence w/ install. rented a two man auger for the holes and ended up having to rent a jackhammer for two of the holes (lots of big rocks under the soil).

 

Looks great after the paint.

 

Looks good man .

I love the paint can sawhorse extensions , lol .

 

nice work

 

Haha yeah. I needed to make a "custom" outfeed table in order to rip those 4x8 sheets by myself

 

Cabinets look great! Good idea with storage above overhead door. I like the fence post caps, fancy, I just used black plastic caps. Posts will last longer!

 

They weren't super expensive ($4 each) and they added a nice finishing touch. I have seen people use them before and really liked the look so I decided to add them. I plan on staining the fence in probably May or June once the wood has time to dry out/weather a little.

 

The cabinets look good. Overall look of the garage is great, very well organized look.

I am wanting to see a side shot of your truck with the wheels. Those are my second favorite factory wheels after the 16" offroads.

 

Nice job man it looks good I love the cabinets.

 

Here you go

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/141751-got-my-wheels-285s-put.html

 

Epoxy coated the floor this weekend.

I used the Rustoleum 2.5 car garage kit. It's a 2 part epoxy system. It came with 2 gallons of paint, 2 pints of activator/hardener, 2 bags of flakes (more than enough), and 2 packets of etcher/cleaner solution (powder). It was $104 at Home Depot.

I have done this before at another house and the key to good adhesion is PREP PREP PREP AND MORE PREP!

Here's the steps I took. I went above and beyond the instructions:

-I got started on friday night, took everything out of the garage (workbench, compressor, table saw, lawn equipment, etc. Put it all in my kitchen lol.
-I pressure washed it out with a little 1800 PSI karcher unit. I did this about 3 times on friday night. I also scraped anything off the floor (wood puddy, paint, glue, etc) with a shovel and/or a razor blade.
-Saturday morning I pressure washed it again.
-Then scrubbed it with a purple power degreaser solution. After that I rinsed it out a few times.
-Mixed up about 1/2 quart of Muriatic acid in about 2.5 gallons of water. Always wear eye protection, gloves, and a respirator bc this stuff is corrosive and can burn your skin if you have sensitive skin. I slowly poured this on the floor working in sections using the squegee to evenly distribute it and using the deck brush to scrub it in. When you hear it fizzing you know it's a strong enough mixture.
-sprinkled baking soda all over the floor to nuetralize the acid, then rinsed this out about 3 times to be sure I got all of the acid out.
-I cleaned the floor again with a purple power solution and rinsed about 2 more times.
-Now I used the etcher/cleaner solution that came with the kit. Followed the directions and mixed it in 2 gallons of water. I applied this just like I did with the muriatic acid.
-I rinsed it out about 3 more times with the pressure washer.
-Squegeed the garage dry.
-Then I set up 4 box fans in the garage. I pointed one fan from one corner facing the other corner, The next fan then points towards the next, and so on. Basically this created a clockwise vortex of airflow to dry it out. I did this at about 12:30PM and left the fans on the rest of the day (with the garage door open while I was home) and they stayed on until I painted the next day (about noon on Sunday) so I basically let the floor dry for a good 24 hours.
-Sunday morning about 11:30 I mixed up the paint, following directions, based on temperature you have to let it sit for a certain amount of time after mixing before you start painting. (make sure you wear gloves and a respirator, longs sleeves aren't a bad idea either, I had to use rubbing alcohol to clean the paint off of my elbows and knees)
-Cut it around all the edges and the small vertical sections of concrete with a paintbrush (buy a cheap throwaway brush)
-Then I began rolling the floor using a 9" roller with 1/2" nap. I would paint about a 3'X6' section, sprinkle the flakes/chips, then move to the next section.

Painting the floor took less than an hour but prep work took about 4 hours minus drying time.

Let the floor dry for 24 hours before you attempt to walk on it or put anything back in the garage. The kit says wait 3 days before pulling the cars back in the garage. I say 4-5 to be safe, and use cardboard under the tires for the first week.

Here's a pic of the final result, I took this morning. I will take some more when I get home today.

 

Really nice job on the cabinets, fence, and garage flooring.

 

Thanks for posting this up. I am planning on the same thing in a week or so. Clean the floor and washing it all out looks to be the bulk of it all.

 

wow, that looks great! nothing better than enjoying a clean and organized garage, especially one you've taken the time to build up yourself!

 

Good job on floor! Used the same product on my garage when we built a couple of yrs ago. Really helps keeping things clean.

 

Nice .. This will b my next project

 

Hey Macgyver, how has that garage floor held up over the last year and a half? Im thinking of doing this to my garage floor.

 

It's holding up well. I have a few small dime sized chips where it came up. I dripped some glue on the floor and when I went to scrape it up later, it pulled up some of the paint.