How-To: Make a ‘Green’ Garage

Chances are, you’re either driving a ‘green’ car or interested in stepping up to one. Why not create a ‘green’ garage to park it in? Custom garages of all types are all the rage these days and products for creating them are as close as your local do-it-yourself center or the Internet. Green Car took on a project to create a suitable garage environment for parking test cars and handling all the usual maintenance tasks that go along with car ownership. It’s a project that can be duplicated by anyone.

We started with a good foundation for any garage workshop project: freshly painted walls, ceiling, and floor. There are many ways to go here, from conservative to wild. We selected light gray for the walls and ceiling with a darker gray back wall for contrast, with a black painted and concrete floor for a dramatic effect. Our project uses eco-friendly paint with zero VOCs (volatile organic compounds) so fumes would not contribute to air poor air quality.

Concrete garage floors use paint made specifically for application over concrete that’s stain resistant, durable, and resists pick-up by hot tires. That’s a real issue. The first garage floor we coated many years ago didn’t do a good job of staying in place, evidenced by the tire tracks on the floor where our cars were normally parked overnight. Our painter for this project, David Wilson, made sure we wouldn't have that issue with this floor. Modern garage floor paints are much better formulated to overcome this problem. Once painted, garage floors eliminate the staining problems experienced with workshop project spills or cars that drip fluids. Concrete coatings seal the concrete so it’s no longer porous, so clean-ups are simply a matter of wiping up.

There are many concrete paints on the market so choices abound. You can choose an epoxy concrete floor paint, polyurethane paint, or even soy-based paint. Each has its own advantages. Some concrete paints allow sprinkling in color flakes during the application process to create a unique finish. We chose a water-based epoxy floor paint with zero VOCs for the job.

Concrete floors have to be cleaned prior to applying paint. New concrete floors must be cured for at least 30 days. If the concrete floor is older and oil stains exist, you’ll need to spot treat them with a non-toxic biodegradable degreaser. The concrete should then be thoroughly cleaned and etched with a product specifically made for this job. Etching prepares the concrete so the paint will have a good bond. Once dry, the painting itself is simple: Cut the floor edges along the walls with a brush and then roll paint on the concrete. Drying time will vary with the product used so be sure to follow the directions.

With the walls and floor painted and dry, we took on a challenge faced by many homeowners – what to do with an exposed water heater. In our case, it was a water heater and a central heating unit with all the attendant ducts, pipes, and unsightly accompaniments.

What to do? We opted to create an enclosure with a framework of studs and three hinged panels that would open up to allow easy access to the units for repair or future replacement. The entire enclosure was covered with pegboard and painted white and gray to accent the overall garage paint scheme. The pegboard worked well here because it not only allows hanging tools and other items with readily available hardware, but also provides air flow to the water heater and central heating unit. Be sure to check codes and standards in your area for proper clearances and air flow if you follow our lead.

Storage is an issue in any garage, and far too often garages are filled with unsightly boxes and gear that just seem to pile up over time. Plenty of affordable solutions are available on the market. We chose to go with ClosetMaid Maximum Load cabinets as our solution. The Maximum Load line includes two-door base and wall cabinets, base four-drawer cabinets, tall four-door cabinets, and accessories.

Along the left side of the garage near the water heater enclosure, we installed a pair of four-door 80.5-inch tall cabinets with two fixed and three adjustable shelves for versatile storage. Like all Maximum Load cabinets, these feature gray hammer tone doors protected by a unique powder coating finish and large brushed steel handles.

A pair of two-door ClosetMaid Maximum Load base cabinets flanks two four-drawer bass cabinets on the right side garage wall. These come in flat boxes and require straightforward assembly. We assembled the cabinets on scrap carpeting to prevent scratches.

After the six cabinets were together and their fiberboard backs nailed in place, we decided to bolt the four base units together to create a single rigid bank of cabinets. Then two sections of 3/4-inch thick ClosetMaid bench tops were attached to finish things off. A pair of two-door cabinets was also mounted to the wall for additional storage.

Since these cabinets were placed along a side garage wall, we made spacers for the adjustable legs on cabinets closest to the garage door to compensate for the slight fall (downward angle) of the concrete floor. This allowed our cabinets to be perfectly level rather than follow the fall of the floor.

Unlike the inside of a home, a garage floor is typically constructed with a slight fall so water will naturally flow toward the garage door and out the garage. We found that adding spacers is not necessary if you’re dealing with just two cabinets along a fall since there’s sufficient adjustment in the cabinet legs for the 63 inch span. There’s also no need for spacers when installing a large span of cabinets along a back wall or if you don’t care if cabinets running along a fall are not perfectly level.

Creating a stylish and functional garage requires one or more workbenches and tool storage. If you’re into style, then color scheme is also important. In our case we chose to complement the black floor and grays of the walls and cabinets with a pair of matching black-framed workbenches and a black rollaway tool chest. Other accents are in bright colors like red, orange, and blue to give life to the garage palate.

Lighting is an important part of setting up a functional garage workshop, so we added a modern fluorescent fixture above the workbenches and a ceiling fan with spotlights in the middle of the garage ceiling. The garage door opener adds to overall lighting with its two 100 watt bulbs that can be switched on and off as needed during projects. These all have red, black, or nickel accents to complement the overall color scheme.

We went the extra mile to fully coordinate all the elements in this garage project. This even included matching the workbenches to existing colors. The natural wood workbench surfaces, shelves, and pegboard backs – which would work for most decors but needed just a bit of attention for ours – were painted to match the darker back accent wall.

After that, it was just accessorizing. There was no shortage of interesting items to add here from years of being a car enthusiast. In fact, we had to stop ourselves from adding too many license plates, antique signs, and the like before things got just too out of hand. If you don't have such items tucked away, you can always order old license plates and vintage metal signs online.

Our final touch in this garage project is something we would recommend to anyone – a durable vinyl floor covering. In this case we added large roll out G-Floor mats from Better Life Technologies (www.bltllc.com). This company makes an array of large floor protectors in varying colors, patterns, and sizes, allowing you to cover everything from well-traveled areas to a complete garage floor. We chose a pair of 10x20-foot Race Day mats to accentuate the existing black concrete … a great touch. We’ve found these mats to be durable and easy to clean. In fact, when dirt and grime build up it’s easy to pull them out of the garage, hose them off, and pull them back into position once they’ve dried during the day. Couldn’t be simpler.

As you can see, all this effort paid off. Our ‘Green Garage” is very cool looking, functional, and ideal for our ongoing automotive activities. In fact, we’re even using it as a set for videos these days as we share the benefits of advanced vehicles and low-emission technologies on sites like eHow, Expert Village, and YouTube.