It’s no secret that my garage itself is a bit neglected in a lot of ways. I try to keep it relatively organized for how much junk is actually in there, but a lot of it could certainly be much tidier and nicer than it is. I’m fortunate to have such a space to enjoy my hobby, and it’s a fairly large garage all things considered. A three stall would definitely be nice, but it gets the job done.

I recently decided to spruce the garage up a bit by way of making some improvements to the door itself. I ended up getting a couple of items for Christmas from my in-laws that I had been researching as of late- the first being a new rubber seal for the bottom of the door. I noticed a while back that my seal had become flattened, brittle, and even torn in a couple of places. When we get blowing snow, I would find miniature snow drifts at the corners and in the center of the garage from snow getting blown in under the cracks in the seal.

It was simple enough to remove the old seal- it simply slid out. The new one, however, was much more of a hassle. I ended up finding that lubricating the track and the seal itself with WD-40 helped immensely with getting the new seal to slide into the metal track at the bottom of the door. It was a tedious process and not the easiest thing to do by myself, but I was able to get it done. It’s very satisfying to shut the door now and have a proper seal with the cement floor.

The other item I got for Christmas and recently installed was an insulation kit for the back side of the door. My home was built in 2003, so it’s got a bit of an older style door on it that isn’t insulated on the inside. I watched a couple of YouTube videos on how to install the kit and got to work. I ended up breaking up the install over two nights, but it wasn’t too bad of a process at all. I definitely should have done it in the summer, but I ran my space heater to ensure that the tape was tacky enough.

I was pleased to find that the material is very lightweight. Someone had mentioned their garage door motor burning out due to the added weight of their insulation kit, so that had me a bit concerned. I had to trim the sheets both vertically and horizontally, so it’s not perfect- but I think it turned out well. I ended up unbolting all of the hinges and reinstalling them over the insulation to help hold it in place should the tape fail.

I can’t say I have noticed a massive improvement from these changes, but hopefully it’s doing something. It’s been crazy cold this week, so I guess I don’t expect it to stay too warm in the garage. I suspect my walls are not actually insulated behind the drywall which is unfortunate- that’s definitely something I would love to do, but the cost would probably be out of reach. My oldest daughter’s room is above the garage, so it would help a lot with the temperature swings in her room if I could insulate the garage better,

One aspect of my garage that people have teased me about for years is the lack of paint on the walls. It’s just one of those things that I have never prioritized from a time or cost standpoint. The drywall was crudely mudded and sanded when the home was built, but it still needs some work to be decently nice. I don’t really have experience with this process and I’ve just never managed to make myself do it. I would love for this year to finally be the year that I get some paint on the walls, but we’ll see if it actually happens.

But before I can paint, there’s another issue I need to address- the ceiling. I’ve had a leak in the ceiling for a few years now and have tried caulking various areas on the outside of the house to no avail. We’ve even had the entire roof replaced a few years back, but the leak persists during heavy rain from the North. I’m told this is a flashing issue, but I haven’t pinpointed the exact origin. I’m at the point where I am ready to pay a contractor this spring to repair the leak once and for all, as well as install a new piece of drywall.

The other thing I really want to do is have my floor coated. This has been a dream of mine for a very long time, but the lack of paint on the walls has kept me from ever moving forward with it. I’m hoping to finally look into this a bit this spring as well and see if I can manage to get it done. It would be amazing to finally have a nice looking floor.

I briefly considered building a workbench, but I really don’t want to sacrifice the space. I suppose I could build some permanent shelving and integrate it into that at some point down the road, but who knows. For where I currently find myself in life, this just sort of works. I would really like to build a shed in the back yard someday to house all of our lawn and garden tools as well as the girls’ toys, but that’s probably just a pipe dream for the time being. As the kids get older, maybe the number of toys will diminish a little bit… but we’ll see. All things that I often think about but never really address.

I had planned to spend some time working on my cars this week, but as the free time rolled around it was in the single digits at night and I just didn’t want to drag myself out there. I do plan to tinker a bit this weekend though and take care of somethings that have been on my list, so I’ll share some of that work with you next week! I need to install my NeXt Miracle Cross Bar on the hatch as well as the freshly powdercoated valve cover and gaskets, so expect some details around those projects soon.

I hope you have a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by.

Damon