Our garage has essentially been a storage unit since we started our landscaping project. It was pretty basic. No insulation or finished walls. Random boards and nails on the studs for hanging tools. It was cold, messy, and the one light bulb didn’t do much for the garage as a project/work space.

Last winter, Kevyn installed a subpanel and added LED lighting which totally transformed the functionality of the space, but we still only really wanted to be in the garage in warm weather. We knew that eventually we wanted to finish the walls and add a heater so it could be a more functional space year-round.

The first thing we had to decide was how to finish the walls. Insulation was obvious but we still had to decide whether to use drywall or plywood. The advantage of drywall is that it’s a bit more traditional and it’s fairly inexpensive. However, we decided to go with plywood because it’s about the same cost, it’s simpler to install, and you can put screws anywhere in the wall instead of having to rely so much on lining things up with studs.

The first phase of this project was focused on getting the west wall finished. The wood racks made sense on this wall because we needed to utilize the storage space, but in order to park two cars in the garage it had to be something shallow. We decided that if we could get this wall done first, it would go a long way toward getting things organized. Also having this wall finished made the whole garage brighter and more sound proof from road noise!

We came back to the project a couple months later and finished the last two main walls. Eventually we would like to get a new insulated garage door and we’ll likely need to address the insulation in the ceiling as that is currently quite inefficient, but it’s a massive improvement already!