Wood Paneling in a Garage: Loss of a man card??

Functional and cute.  That had been one of my priorities listed in an earlier post for the garage project.  Well, the paneled wall project, I must admit, has no function.  It's just there for the cute factor.  Right at the beginning when planning the project, I asked Aaron how he felt about an accent wall in the garage.  He told me he would officially "lose a man card" if I painted the back wall a different color or something.

And I can't be responsible for something so serious as him losing a man card.  But, that wall would just look so good if we could distinguish it in some way.

So, paneling the wall was the compromise.  An admittedly "useless" feature in a garage, but the end product was something we both really like.

Here's the process:

We considered a few different options and decided on wood paneling that already had a tongue and groove so that they would easily fit into place. Aaron's dad came to help. 

Measuring first was key.  Especially to fit around the light switch. 

A nail gun and a nine year old.  What could go wrong right?

This is our nephew Michael.  While video games did beckon every once in a while, he had a great time helping.

Michael was thrilled to be trying out the miter saw

Fits like a glove!

And here it is complete! 

So, a couple of things to note:

1. See that tiny garage door opener with the wire above it? --- That's something that you should think about before you panel your garage.  That little wire annoyed Aaron like crazy and he later had to painstakingly get it down behind the paneling.  Not fun to do afterwards.
2. I had no idea that the paneling would look this good unvarnished.  Which was a problem.  Because I had intended to paint it.  "Light and bright" was the goal and cream paint was in the plans.  

And that's when the biggest design dilemma moment of our garage project came for me.  Paint or don't paint?  You see, I knew a barn door was in our future.  To hide that rear alcove (aka tool corral).  And I wanted to showcase it.  Without, of course, making it an accent wall. :-)

Ultimately, after looking again at some of the original "inspiration pictures" below, we decided to paint the wall.  And yes, I realize that all these examples are of interiors.  But, why can't a garage have style too?

Now, when I came in to see a first coat of that paint, let's just say it didn't quite match the beautiful ones above.  I did wonder if I'd made a serious mistake.

I'd intentionally turned this:

Into that:

But, as a sneak peek of a little later down the road, here is the nearly final product complete with barn door.  What do you think?  Good decision to paint?

Aaron's dad, George after the barn door hanging project

Complete with lights, door and cabinets!

Barn door, butcher block counter, epoxy floor and painted wood paneling.  Pegboard project underway!

So, what do you think?  Can Aaron still maintain his full collection of "man cards" with a garage like this?

Garage - Renovation Project

"So, what would be at the top of your list for our next project?"

I'm sad to say it took me about a year of being in our house to ask my sweet husband that question.  While making steady progress since our move-in  day on painting, window cornices, window film, laundry renovation, chair re-upholstery and more, I hadn't stopped to ask him what he'd like to do.  Very bad wife and yet again a reminder of how I definitely married up.

And the answer surprised me.  Top of the list for him was the garage.  Which, now that I think about it was totally logical.  First, because of the state of our garage.  We had a mishmash of cabinets from previous houses and this current one.  Every time he did a project, he'd have to rearrange because things weren't in logical places.  He didn't have room for a table saw because of the jumble of stuff. And second, because of who Aaron is.  He's the only engineer I know with a spotless desk.  Every night before leaving he clears off his desk so he can start fresh in the morning. If he wants to think through a problem, he clears off the clutter around him so that he can think straight.  And for a year, that organized guy had been plowing through home projects in the midst of chaos.

Now, we've had garages before.  Brilliant white, super organized garages planned by Aaron.  Everything with a place and hidden behind cabinets.  Utilitarian and ready to work.  But, for the first time, after multiple houses and 10 years of marriage, this was the first house where I think we just might stay.  Not make a plan to move.  But, finally nest.  So, I decided to get involved in this garage renovation and approach it like all my other interior projects.  And to create something that felt like Aaron.

So, we made a plan.  We are really good at planning.

We had a couple things going for us in the garage.

1.  A pitched roof with open trusses.  The ceiling was actually the shakes of our roof.

2. An arched window that let in great natural light and was a fun architectural detail:

3.  A rear alcove and a slightly larger than normal 2 car garage.  So, we had some space to work with:

And we had a lot of bad things in the space:

1. Random shelving that wasn't an efficient layout
2. One single light in the center of the garage and a second in the alcove.  Definitely insufficient light
3. A wall outlet in the whole garage.  And a crappy electrical set-up that would blow fuses constantly.  
4. An old garage door that (besides being ugly) hung down low enough to not let us drive in with our ski racks or bike racks on the top of our SUV.

5. Oh, and the fact that we both work crazy hours at our day jobs, so it's tough to find the time to work on projects.

We had some priorities for the space:

1. We needed to still be able to fit both cars in the garage.  Aaron has a fundamental, unshakeable belief that garages are made for cars, not storage.  Clean cars, like clean desks equate to life's priorities being aligned and balanced.  Cars must fit in the garage.
2. Light and Bright - Aaron wanted paint, lighting etc that made this a bright place where he'd want to spend time.
3. Bike Storage - We live right near a beautiful bike path and have 3 bikes.  Convenient bike storage was important.
4. Smart storage - Being able to access storage while the cars were in the garage was a goal.  And also hiding storage inside cabinets instead of opening shelving.  We wanted a clean look where everything was behind doors.
5. Re-use what we have - We had cabinets from previous houses and some organizational stuff.  As much as possible, we wanted to re-use everything.
6. Functionally cute - Ok, this was mine.  I wanted to make a place where every element had a purpose but that it didn't have to look like a typical garage.
7. Classic, vintage kind of space - Aaron is a small town kind of guy living in the Bay Area.  He loves classic cars, music and simple things.  So, I wanted to garage to feel that way for him.  We live near an old military base, so I took colors from that and incorporated barn doors and other elements to make it feel like him.
8. Budget friendly - Ok, this ended up being expensive because we hired an electrician, a painter and bought a new garage door.  It's actually the first time with our home projects that we've hired someone, but with our jobs it just would have been too long otherwise.  But, without those labor/garage door costs, we're coming in under $2,000 for all the materials, lighting and paint.

We're still a work in progress, but here is the current result!  I'll do some other posts on the specific projects to get us here.