Garage Makeover REVEAL {Before & After}

Over the last five weeks, we have completely transformed our garage from a hoarders dream to an inspiring and functional space. We battled crazy travel schedules, way too much rain, and an incessant army of June bugs. Don’t they know it is only May??? If I hadn’t been committed to finishing this space as part of the One Room Challenge, I would have quit. Many times. Thank goodness for public accountability!

As you would predict, now that the garage makeover is reveal-ready, I am beyond glad I pushed through. What a joy to have a huge flat work space for smaller projects and a big open space near the tools to bring larger ideas to life! Thank goodness for IKEA keeping the garage storage and workbench area on budget.  Throw in new lighting, easy access to tools, and organized supplies and it really is a dream. There are no words for the copper floor or the wall art my husband came up with. When the neighbors want art for their nursery based on your GARAGE, you know you’ve done something right.

As a reminder, here was my floor plan from week 1. 

Are you ready for some mind-blowing before & afters?

Before:

During:

After:

The rolling shelving units were placed perpendicular to the wall to create two separate spaces – a workshop and a “shed” for storage of things like the lawn tools.

All the car related supplies were grouped in a separate area, along with fishing gear.

I know shelves aren’t that fun to look at, but the new wall art sure is! My husband knocked it out of the park again. It’s pretty amazing to open the garage and see the huge art.

As much as I love the art, the organized work bench adds even more skip in my step.

Remember the disturbing before?

And my plan…

And the “I can’t believe it’s REAL” after:

UPDATE: There is now a full tutorial on building the workbench here. 

The vintage toolbox staying was my husbands only request, which worked out well because I would never have gotten rid of it. Shh, don’t tell him that! The toolbox was his grandpa’s. I love that we kept some history to balance out the newness of everything else. Even a garage design needs balance! 

I seriously can’t believe I have 115 inches of glorious counter top to create things on! It’s so great that I can spread things out during projects, but also know that all the tools have a home when I am done.

I’m sure you’ve all noticed the REAL star of the garage makeover – not the cool art, not the fab work bench, but that FLOOR. I talked about it in week 3,  but it deserves some serious praise. We used the Rust-Oleum RockSolid Metallic system in Copper Pot. When I reached out to Rust-Oleum about the One Room Challenge and talked about doing the garage floor, I had no idea it would steal the whole show. But I’m okay with that. Because it’s AMAZING. I think I’ve said this before, but it looks like you could dive in and swim in it. The level of shine is unbelievable. Everyone who has seen it in person thinks it is still wet.

I’ll be doing a whole tutorial post on the floor in June. We saved one small section so we could take our time and do a great tutorial for you guys. We’ll show the last unfinished corner then too (it’s the area I’m standing in to take the above pic). It is the perfect spot for the golf gear!

I’ve also got a post scheduled showing how we hacked together the workbench from IKEA parts (post is now live!). AND another with tons of tips for organizing a garage on a budget.  Obviously I was fooling myself when I thought this post was the end of the garage talk around here.

Make sure you are on the email list so you don’t miss these follow-up posts!

Also, don’t forget to visit Calling it Home to see the rest of the One Room Challenge linking participant reveals. I can’t thank Linda enough for organizing these events. If you happen to be a blogger, I encourage you to start planning now for the fall session. It is a painful, stressful, and FABULOUS process!

Special thanks go out to all of you who commented and cheered me on along the way, all of you are what make these challenges doable. And to my awesome friend Ana for stopping by to help with photos!

And with that, the spring One Room Challenge garage makeover is in the books!

Make sure you check out my Fall 2014 (pantry) and Fall 2015 (master closet) ORC reveals next!