Converting Garage to Usable Space Questions

Hey all,

I have a million questions about this. Here's the first one:

I'm using the garage as a woodshop. It measures about 25' X 21'. It's just for me. We also have another garage/shop that measures about 25' X 30' (belongs to LOML). I am planning to convert it into more of a room and less like a garage. We are never parking cars in there. We don't care about home resale value. We have no plans to leave except in a box.

So we've talked about taking one garage door down and walling it in. I think we should take out both garage doors and put in a double door or sliding door.

Here's my thinking.
1) if we leave one garage door, that door is difficult to insulate and seal well.
2) I lose a lot of wall space, not just for the door, but all around the door because of the rails the door rides on.

LOML says
1) it will be more difficult for me to move big machines in and out of the shop to work outside.

Do you think I should lose *both* doors or keep one?
 
It is a difficult question to answer there Cynthia as it all depends on what you are wanting to do. You could take both doors down and install a set of exterior insulated french doors on one side (or both) that will still give you the most opening space availible. I would stay away from sliding glass doors as they are a huge heat loss and limit the size down to one door width to move things in and out and you have to move over a track that is a pain to deal with.
 
I would insulate the doors with Styrofoam and install new insulated rubber bottoms. Also run garage door insulators on the side of the doors. With the help of a space heater.....you can do the whole job for under $100. You will also have the benefit of opening up those doors in case a big machine, project, lumber etc, has to be moved
 
I also work out of the garage, but my Wife still thinks it's for her car. She has given in to using it only in the winter. It's about give and take, I give and she takes.:)

Seriously though, I'd love to get rid of the garage door. It's SO much wasted space. If it was me I'd loose the doors and put french doors to one side off center. I also put windows centered in the walls perpendicular to the garage door. I wish now I wouldn't have. I wish I would have found some long narrow windows and put them high on the wall. I've got a lot of wasted space with those two windows. Live and learn I guess.:dunno:
 
I also work out of the garage, but my Wife still thinks it's for her car. She has given in to using it only in the winter. It's about give and take, I give and she takes.:)

Seriously though, I'd love to get rid of the garage door. It's SO much wasted space. If it was me I'd loose the doors and put french doors to one side off center. I also put windows centered in the walls perpendicular to the garage door. I wish now I wouldn't have. I wish I would have found some long narrow windows and put them high on the wall. I've got a lot of wasted space with those two windows. Live and learn I guess.:dunno:

You mean it's like at my house? Glassman gives me a good listening to? What's mine is mine and what's his is mine? :rofl: :rofl:

The point about the windows is a good one that I've thought of. I have one door to the side yard that has a window in it, and I have one window on the North wall. I figure if I have 2 french doors that open wide, that will already be a lot more light. No extra windows for me. I want every inch of space.

One question I have is when it comes time to put in a real floor (instead of concrete with an epoxy paint on it) am I going to have to take down this massive lumber rack that I just put up? I'm going to go out in the street and get run over. :bang: :pullhair: :tantrum:
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The current floor is solid--no cracks--and in good shape but there is a slight slope from the house to the garage doors. Gonna have to level that? I'd like to put down linoleum or cork.
 
I have always been one for putting shop windows up high to let light in but not let others to see in.

I would close up both doors & build one door 5' wide you should be able to get anything you want or need in or out through a 5' wide doorway. Make it so the door swings out for 2 reasons it's supposed to be harder to pry open & the door & items in the shop won't be competing for the same space.
 
Cynthia, you should check out Fine Woodworking's latest issue which is their special Tools & Shop issue. There is an article about this very thing, converting a garage to a shop. Really turned out nice. He closed off the one of the garage doors making a man door (or women door) and some windows. The other garage door he removed and replaced with a larger swing doors for moving in lumber and equipment. He also installed wood floors over the concrete.
 
My shop is in an extral deep one car garage with an overhead door at the end. The door is not insulated but I choose to keep it. In nice weather I open and enjoy the fresh air and sunlight. The rest of the shop is, essentially, underground with no windows. The large overhead door is handy for moving big stuff in and out. I acknowledge that in winter the shop is hard to heat. And I don't live in BC where you know what real cold is.
 
When we bought the current house, there was, luck for me, a separate shop already. It had a 10' wide garage door on it. I took that out and built 2 5' wide doors. Used the torsion box method for the doors. Made them swing out, no windows on the doors. I do have a 2 piece threshold for them to swing into. The top part is easy to remove with 3 hex socket bolts which leaves the wider bottom portion that is only 3/4" tall. Delivery man had no problem wheeling my new TS over it on his pallet jack last Jan. It's made out of Ipe. Hope it didn't dent the wheels on his pallet jack.:rolleyes: I still have a couple issues on sealing the edges off, but since I don't heat or cool the shop, I haven't worried about that yet. It will be easy to do and I'll only lose a couple inches of door space. Jim.
 
Cynthia, you should check out Fine Woodworking's latest issue which is their special Tools & Shop issue. There is an article about this very thing, converting a garage to a shop. Really turned out nice. He closed off the one of the garage doors making a man door (or women door) and some windows. The other garage door he removed and replaced with a larger swing doors for moving in lumber and equipment. He also installed wood floors over the concrete.

Bill, I bought this magazine today, and it is a good article. I have one question about it though. When he puts in his new floor, first he puts in sleepers with hard insulation, then a couple more layers over that. He doesn't say anything or do anything to level the floor. Surely it wasn't level when he started if it's a garage....so is it not necessary to level it? I know mine slopes to the big doors. I was figuring I'd need some kind of leveling compound first....Can you correct the slope just with the sleepers?
 
Short on time this morning. FLAT is better than level. 90 degrees comes into play after that. Now if the slope is something you can't stand on that would be bad. But a garage floor aint that bad.
 
Hi Cynthia...

I'm new on this forum and this is my first post here. The article in Fine Woodworking is probably your best bet for your doors. Do you have a man (woman) door on the building or do you have to raise the garage door for entrance to your shop? If you have one, then I'd close off the one garage door completely and build in the remaining door with the torsion box design so you'll have access for larger tools/lumber etc. This would eliminate the tracks that get in the way on the wall and overhead, too.

I recently built a new shop and had a concrete floor poured and then put in the wood subfloor using the same method described in the FWW mag. What a difference on the feet and legs at the end of a day! Unless your current floor is sloped so bad that the tools want to roll around on their own, I wouldn't worry about leveling them. I doubt you would be able to tell much difference. The real difference is in the warmth of the floor...makes the shop easier to heat, too.

I just stumbled across this forum yesterday and really like it. Seems like a good bunch of fellow woodworkers and a fun place to hang out.

Good luck on your decisions.

Jeff
 
"But a garage floor aint that bad."

This is true Dad built cabinets for years on a garage floor with no problems at all. Yes you can level the floor by snapping a level line to the foundation or wall & ripping the sleepers to match the height of the line off of the concrete floor.

Unless you have problems with working on a concrete floor & using rubber mats where you stand the most I wouldn't bother with putting in a plywood floor over sleepers. A good pair of shoes & mats works wonders & is a lot less expensive. There are other things tool & fixture wise that you could purchase with that money. On the other hand if your going to put in a wood floor do it now before you get to many tools & other shop stuff stuffed in there.
 
I would think that if the garage floor is sloped it is for a reason. To keep water out and to allow any water to drain out the door.:dunno: Mine is sloped so when the snow melts off the cars it doesn't puddle up.
If the floor is uneven instead of leveling the floor just cut the sleepers so the floor you lay is level. You can determine how much slope your floor is and how your sleepers need to be cut by using a line level and string.
 
How tall are your ceilings and how far down is the step out of the house into the garage?

If you have room, a raised floor of 6"-8" might be beneficial, can add runs for electrical and dust collection under them as needed and leave the walls for hanging cabinets. Depending on how tall the floors are over the concrete, you may need to leave a section by the door or outside the door to be able to place a ramp to move tools in and out.
 
When he puts in his new floor, first he puts in sleepers with hard insulation, then a couple more layers over that. He doesn't say anything or do anything to level the floor. Surely it wasn't level when he started if it's a garage....so is it not necessary to level it? I know mine slopes to the big doors. I was figuring I'd need some kind of leveling compound first....Can you correct the slope just with the sleepers?

The key to his method that you must keep in mind, is that the sleepers are the same thickness as the insulation that he installs between them. This is important in that the entire sheet of plywood is supported by both the sleepers and the insulation. He makes mention of this in the article. So if you start correcting the floor by trimming the sleepers, you will need to install more sleepers to ensure that you fully support the plywood sheeting. If you do it just the way he does, I would install "cross sleepers" to support the 4' edges of the plywood sheeting. I would not just rely on the insulation to support the two butting joints of the plywood. I think there could be a problem rolling something across that joint, with one edge of the adjoining sheet sticking up above the other.
 
I agree with Bill. In the article in FWW the author spaced the sleepers on 24" centers and used the 2x4 laid flat. I ripped my 2x4's in half (1-3/4") and spaced them at 16" O/C. I still had a wider area to nail, which was nice. I thought about placing cross members for the ends of the sheeting but, after installing, using and moving heavy tools and carts across the floor hasn't been a problem. You definately need to keep the sleepers flat to the floor to make this style of floor work. I am very satisfied with mine...been down for about two years now.
 
Very interesting points, gentlemen, things I hadn't thought of. Okay so flat is more important that level. Yes, it's flat and the slope is slight. And yes, as a garage it's important that it slopes away from the garage, but if it's never used as a garage, I doubt I'll have rain or snow puddling under my equipment ;).

Yes, I barely notice the slope--I don't think it's more than an inch or 2 from the house end to the driveway end. So if I'm laying flooring, then I guess I can ignore it.....or cut the sleepers to compensate.....Bart, you're right, I'm sure I could get away with doing nothing with it....but I'd really like to make it cozier/warmer/more homey.

Building a door? Jeff, you flatter me. Not sure I have the skills to do that, although that would be great. You're right that the main garage door problem is the rails that take up so much space. I'm smarter than I look, so maybe some of you could talk me through it when the time comes.

Darren, LOVE your idea--I've always hated the cords and pipes and stuff overhead....I went out and measured. Right now from the house to the garage is flat--no steps. The first 5' from the house (inside the garage) is 100" high and then it steps up to 115". The house is split level, so I guess that's why. I guess I could raise the floor, and then have a step up into the garage.

Open to all suggestions and ideas. Welcome, Jeff, glad to have your input!

Thanks guys. :wave: :thumb:
 
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