I grew up in Florida where all the houses had finished/painted garages. Here in Oregon that isn't the case. In fact, most houses around here, even new ones, don't seem to have the garage finished. The typical house does have the drywall/sheetrock installed but only one coat of mud/joint compound. And the worst thing about it is most of the people I've talked to accept this as normal and okay. So, if the construction company can get away with it they do and thus the practice continues.

For a homeowner to finish their garage they would need, ideally, to do another coat or two of mud and then prime and paint. That alone would take perhaps four days, maybe longer. And it seems most people move in, put their stuff in the garage, then more stuff in the garage, and apparently never get around to finishing up the garage or just don't care. Well, I cared. I couldn't stand to have an unfinished garage so I set about educating myself and acquiring the necessary tools/materials to DO IT MYSELF with a lot of extra help from my friend Todd. We did most of the work over the course of several weekends during the Spring/Summer 2001. I worked into the dark some evenings on the insulation and took several days off work to complete the painting.

Unfinished two car garage

Insulation Installation

I saw a commercial on TV with Bob Vila selling another Sears tool. This time it was the Sears Craftsman staple gun. It looked good. For $20 I was sold. I bought 2000 extra staples and ordered a shitload of drywall and insulation. I put up all the insulation myself including the stuff in the attic which was, at times, quite difficult. It all worked out and I only had a little bit of insulation left over. I put R13 into the walls and R19 into the ceiling area. Sure, I realize you should probably have R38-R49 in the attic but this IS a garage so I didn't want to spend the extra money or have to struggle with the larger insulation.

Drywall installation

We used two drills to put up the 5/8" drywall. I used a Makita 14.4V and Todd used a Black and Decker electric (heavier) with a special drywall dimpler bit since the drill didn't have a clutch to stop the screw from going in too far. For the ceiling we rented a drywall jack from the local United Rentals. The price was very reasonable for a one-day (24 hour) rental. We worked on the ceiling for about four hours on Friday night and then another six hours on Saturday. We were able to return the drywall jack with about an hour to spare. The toughest challenge on the ceiling was in cutting the drywall properly to fit the given space. One piece took us perhaps an hour to get into place because we needed to recut it several times to get it correct. The reason it was difficult was because I decided we would work around the garage door opener brackets/braces/chain rather than taking it down and reassembling. I feel I made the correct decision in doing this.

We spent most of Sunday doing the walls. I finished the drywall work a few days later with a couple pieces to frame the window. The discolored piece on the top of the window is from the original drywall left in the garage. I didn't have a scrap piece big enough from the material I ordered to fit over the window so we had to use the old stuff.

Yes, I realize that the way the window was framed with the drywall is incorrect--it is a bad idea to line up a joint with the edge of the window because that is where it has the greatest chances of cracking. At twenty-four years of age I suspect the house is done settling and that this area won't be cracking. So, I just taped it and moved on. Plus, it is a garage.

Todd can be seen resting in the back prior to a long day of mudding ahead.

Installation of the last piece on the ceiling

Here Todd and I installed the last piece of drywall on the ceiling. The walls went up much quicker.

The second and final coat of joint compound (mud)

It is definitely a challenge taping and working with the joint compound (aka mud). We decided to do only two coats because a) it is easier, b) I was going to use texture in my paint, and c) it is a garage. But, with the garage all painted I can now say that two coats were not enough the way we applied it. I did sand this second coat which helped but you can still see some bulges through the paint. I really figured the textured paint and primer paint would hide a lot of what ended up showing. Perhaps if I applied two coats of primer and two coats of paint it may have done a little better job.

I think it took us two or three days to do the mudding and I spent about a half-day sanding. It cost around $100-$200 for all the tools required to do the job. And even with the right tools it seemed to take us a long long time. Be careful before undertaking such a large project. This project was much more challenging than I figured it would be. Todd wasn't sure what he was getting himself into.

We did tape all the joints. Some came out really well. Corners were the most challenging. Once you realize the difficulty of a job like this you gain a lot more respect for those who do it for a living. They tend to be very fast, neat, and do it so you can't see the joints--the way it should be done.

Painting complete, light fixtures going up

I did one coat of primer and one coat of paint (Baer - Chicago Sky). A bit of sand like texture was added to the paint. The downside of the texture was when I overlapped fresh and dry paint the texture thickened and sometimes lines or roller strokes became apparent (i.e. where I ended a row). I used a brush on all the edges and rolled the rest. It was QUITE difficult taking one full day (about 10 hours) to put on a coat. Because of the difficulty (really tough on the neck) and the thickness of the paint I decided to only do the one coat of primer and one coat of regular paint. A second coat would have helped hide some more flaws but even that would have been minimal. Since I didn't see any joint compound/lines showing through I felt satisfied.

I changed the original lighting in order to have more light in the garage when I'm working. It was quite an improvement.

At the bottom of the picture is trim I stained for framing the door and attic ladder.

Framing and Trim

At the top of the picture you can see all the lights installed and shining bright. You'll also find the attic ladder (Werner Aluminum) I installed and framed all by myself. The toughest part of that was nailing into the old wood (trusses). Somehow I managed. Todd helped me with the trim around the door and attic ladder. For amateurs we did a great job. We also put some of that "industrial" type rubber trim around the edge of the garage. It was the self-stick kind which doesn't work that well. I ended up buying some glue to restick some of the parts that were curling up and that has worked out pretty well. Several months later I added some shelves and a cabinets to hold all my junk. I try to keep the garage clean and yes, it can hold two cars unlike many other garages in the neighborhood. So many people have garages yet don't use them for their cars.

Misc Comments

No permits were required to finish the garage--install insulation and put up the drywall. I didn't check about the attic ladder though. I don't recall how much I spent on materials for this project. Perhaps $600--including paint, tools, etc. I suspect it would have run several thousand had I called out a contractor and gotten bids. I enjoy doing projects like this. Course, my weakness is I often underestimate the amount of time and effort required to complete a project. Maybe that is a good thing though. Because, if I understood it would take approximately two weeks of dedicated effort I may not have attempted it and let it sit. What I can say is that if I spend enough effort in getting the project rolling and started you can be pretty certain that I'll finish it.