With the epoxy floor completed it came time to clean up the rest of the garage before I can really get to work on the 968. As mentioned in the Epoxy Floor Application, I did not paint the curbs with the epoxy paint as they were too rough and not recommended by Ucoat-it. The plan was to have them painted in the same color as the wall. Before I can do any painting I felt it was necessary to at least knock off the high spots of the rough concrete.
Many tools would work to get the job done but I decided to use my oscillating multi tool that I just bought. With the grout removal tool attachment I went through and smoothed out all the curbs in the garage. The porter cable multi tool did heat up a bit but never overheated or felt underpowered. A respirator and a shop vac were definitely necessary with the concrete dust that was being thrown up.
To further help smooth out the curbs I found a block filler primer made by Rustoleum that will bond well to the concrete and fill in the pinholes. This primer is super thick and really did fill in the holes.
To further clean up the look of the curbs I caulked all the gaps between the drywall and the drywall with Loctite PL adhesive.
For the paint on the walls I went with a light gray color to help reflect more light and contrast the medium gray floor. Even though I did do paint swatches, the paint went on much lighter than I wanted. Since the paint was already purchased, I went for it anyways. The previous owners never painted the garage so the wall texture has been exposed to the garage environment for 10 years. I had several locations near areas of possible moisture where the texture would stick to the roller when painting which made for a bit of a mess. I had to scrape off any suspect texture and redo the texture from a spray can. It wasn’t as hard as I expected to match the new texture to the old. After this painting experience, I believe wall texture should not be left unprotected for such a long period of time as it will absorb moisture and degrade over time.
For the ceiling I used one coat of primer and one coat of white ceiling paint, Clark Kensington Ceiling Flat. I have found this ceiling paint to work really well and does not drip or spray much, if any, when rolled with a lambskin roller. I have come to love the lambskin roller and now use it for everything. For the walls I went with Behr Premium Plus Ultra exterior satin paint, color 790E-1 Subtle Touch. I went with the exterior paint as it will help with cleanup in the garage when things go wrong. The paint is very thick and does emit some fumes but the hassle I think was worth it. I only primed areas of concern; the rest was two coats of the exterior paint. The first coat did soak into the wall texture very quickly and dried much quicker than expected. I found that in the areas that I overlapped the ceiling paint on to the wall, the final wall color turned out a little deeper and darker. I suspect this is because the wall paint did not soak into the texture at these locations like the rest of the wall. Primer prior to applying the two coats, even though the Premium Plus Ultra is considered a primer/base, would have been the best option to achieve the desired color.
To protect the walls from the unavoidable car door hits I installed black vinyl dock edging at the common point where most car doors will hit. The dock edging, Dimex EasyFlex Plastic D-Profile, is complete overkill for wall and door protection but it adds some aesthetics by breaking up the large wall surface. I used Kreg wood screws as I liked the look and size of the heads.
I also added a black vynil cove base at the transition between the floor and curb. I bonded it on using Dap Weldwood Cove Base Adhesive. Oddly enough, that was the only cove base adhesive I found that can be applied to a painted surface. All other cove base adhesives I saw did not recommend using on painted surfaces claiming the adhesive needed somewhere for the moisture to go as the vinyl will not let it permeate and cure.
The cove base is easy to install except for the locations where it needs to make a turn. At sharp corners I had to locally thin out the material on the back side and use a heat gun to soften it. Then once in place, weights helped ensure it stayed put until fully cured.
Next came the very important lighting. I wanted the work area of the garage to be as bright as a professional garage. I went with Hyperikon Hyperselect Utility LED shop lights at 4000k. These lights have a very sleek look and were very affordable, especially as a lightning deal on Amazon. I have found the 4000k light temperature to be the perfect balance of accurate color and comfort for the eyes. The 5000k is supposed to be the most accurate for color correctness but it can fatigue the eyes. I installed three bars directly onto the ceiling and one dropped closer to the workbench. I hard wired all the lights into the location of the previous single bulb. I concealed the wiring using Legrand Wiremold non-metallic raceway wire channels, (NMW). The NMW series looks reasonably professional with a good selection of wire boxes. I also added a double light switch on the ceiling in the event I only want the workbench light lit. A word of advice, step back several feet when aligning all the channels as I made the mistake of not doing so. Now I have a slight skew which I will probably go back and fix when I get bored.
For the narrow section of the garage I used the Hyperikon LED T5 single fixtures. I did not use raceways for that setup since I had all the lights wired to an outlet. To control those lights I used a wireless remote light switch from GE. I placed the lights in the edges of the ceiling so that the lights are not blocked but the garage door when open. With 4 of these lights in this section the entire garage is equally well lit up.
To make air and power more accessible in the garage I mounted an air hose reel and power cord reel, both of which I bought at Northern Tool. The air hose reel is high quality and works great. The power cord reel is good given the lower price but does occasionally have issues coiling up as the cord jams against the housing. I mounted the reels to a 2 by 8 with T nuts and bolts, and the 2 by 8 was mounted to the ceiling using lag screws.
The next larger garage improvement I will be making will be adding storage in the form of cabinets and overhead storage, but that might not be for some time.
