Affordable Garage Updates

We’ve all seen the million-dollar garages that include vehicle turntables, elevators, museum-quality lighting and other fancy, expensive luxuries. Well, since none of us here at CarStuff can afford those extravagances, we’d like to share some inexpensive tips-and-tricks we’ve found to make your garage a more comfortable, and more functional, place to spend some quality time with your vehicle.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
and Welcome to car Stuff. I'm your host, Scott Benjamin,
and I'm Ben Bullin and I am Kurt Garen. Hey, guys,
you know what, today, let's do something just a little
bit different than what we normally do. I know, we
like to you know, dig into uh you know, like
maybe a make or model or you know, something like that,

(00:22):
or we talk about the history of a person. But
today I would like to kind of talk about our garages,
if that's okay with you. Oh, this is interesting to me, Scott,
because you know, my friend that I like seventeen percent
of the US population currently live in an apartment where
I do not have a garage, but I have some plans. Yeah,

(00:44):
I'd love I'd love to talk about this because you
know what, I miss my garage, having a living in
a house. The best thing about it was that space. Yeah. Yeah.
And it can be a nice place to go sometimes.
I mean it can actually be kind of laxing. It
can be calming, and it could it could be the
other as well. It can also be infuriating. And I

(01:06):
had a garage for a while that was infuriating to me.
It made me just kind of tense to be out there,
and it was because it was so crowded. It was
like the lighting was terrible. Um, just it was not
a great place to be. I was cold in the winter,
it was hot in the summer. I still got a
couple of these issues going on. Don't get me wrong,
But I've done some things recently that I think we're

(01:26):
really you know, some fantastic improvements and cheap you know,
things that I could just do simply that helped out
a lot. And I think if you know, anybody out
there has got a similar situation where you know, it's
not the most comfortable place in the world to be
out there in the garage. But if you have something
like that going on, there's some things that you can
do to make it a better place for you and
make you want to go out there and make you

(01:47):
want to take on those projects you know that you
might not have done in the past. So I don't know,
I just find it very therapeutic to go out there
now and just kind of, you know, spend a little
time sorting, organizing, straightening, you know, working on some things.
You know, whatever it happened is to be it's a
nice place to be now. And again, I've got some
things that I you'll need to do, and we can
talk about what I haven't done yet versus what I
have done. But there's a lot of really simple things

(02:09):
that just about anybody can do with either zero money,
which is you know, the best price or um, you
know you can find yeah, you know, real bargains, I
guess bargain ways to do this. So what we're not
doing today is we're not talking about, you know, these
million dollar upgraded garages that we've you know, we've all
seen on um, you know online. Of course you do

(02:30):
a keyword search for you know, expensive garage options or
you know whatever. You're gonna find people that have elevators
to a second level in their garage, you know, and
they're gonna have um, I don't know, they're gonna have
priceless works of art hanging on the wall, you know,
with I guess art gallery lighting all around it. And
I think we're at Another example would be those really

(02:51):
cool parking spots that recess into the ground. Yes, that's
what I'm talking about, and we're not talking about those today.
Oh they are, they're really those are really cool and
I think We've done another episode on some some outlandish garages. Yeah,
we have that type of thing. So what I'd like
to do is maybe talk about making your garage a
a functional place versus you know, having kind of like

(03:13):
a show garage. I guess where you know you have
friends over and you've got a couch out there and
stuff like that, you know, a big screen TV on
the wall. We're not talking about stuff like that. We
want to we want to make it something that you know,
you're comfortable to go out there and work on your
projects or whatever. You can even take other stuff from
the house and work out there on your workbench, and
you've got space to do it. A workspace, a workspace, yeah,
comfortable workspace. Yeah. I proposed that we start at the beginning.

(03:38):
When most people move into a house, you know, you'll
find several areas of the house that tend to be
a little rough around the edges, where they tend to
be unfinished. You know, sometimes in the suburbs, these are
called like bonus rooms. Right, We'll have an unfinished attict,
you'll have a basement that still has a dirt floor,
things like that. Yeah, the garage is often one of

(04:01):
those spaces. The garage is the most likely to just
be a room, and who knows what condition the door
is in. Right, So for a lot of people when
they move in, if they're gonna start building their garage
from the ground up, they look at two huge things,
the door and the floor. These can get expensive, right,

(04:24):
But there are some very reasonable things you can do,
even a little bit kind of d I Y style,
to give your garage some insulation. Because that's one of
the things that stuck out to me when you were
talking about this in the beginning. You said, sometimes garage
is too hot, too cold. It's weird because I've seen

(04:45):
more kind of clutter stuffy garages that I have operational ones.
Kurt and I were talking about this earlier off air,
of course, we were talking about how it seems like
a lot of garages don't really get a car parked
in them ever. I mean a lot of people just
simply use it for storage. I mean, or there is
a car under there somewhere. Uh, you know that that

(05:07):
at one time was a project or at one time
was driving or you know whatever, it's grandma's car or whatever,
and you parked it here, and you left it there
and you just started piling stuff on top of it,
and it became the most expensive show. It became it
became a storage area, right, instead of instead of, instead
of a car storage area, it's a it's a stuff
storage area. It's like an extension of your basement or
your attic or whatever. It's where all the things that

(05:30):
you didn't like enough to have in your house but
you couldn't throw away end up. You know, that's exactly right,
the limbo. It's the holding area. Yeah, like stuff that
was in your yard that you know you want to
bring in from the weather mowers or at least these
days more and more garages seemed to be just like
a catch all of storage. And I have a I

(05:52):
have a point I want to make about that real quick.
It's a larger philosophical point, and it doesn't have a
huge role to play in today's episode. But I think
a big reason that a lot of that clutter begins
to acrete is it's twofold. First. Many of us, unfortunately,

(06:13):
when we are doing a task at home, whether it's
auto repair, whether it's yardwork or something like that, we
tend to think of the task just as us accomplishing
the thing so you're tilling the yard, right, or you're
changing the oil. Then once you screw that oil filter
back on and once you put the new oil in
the system, then a lot of us tend to think, well,

(06:35):
the job is pretty much done. Let me just you know,
seal up the container I have for the old oil.
Let me just put it somewhere because I'm quote unquote done,
So I'm going to take care of all this stuff later.
And then that's how we end up just throwing stuff
willy nilly into a garage. And then once you have
a small pile of crap somewhere, it becomes so much

(06:59):
easier to make more small piles of crap. Yeah, that's
exactly what happens. And you know, one of the tips
I guess that that I've kind of picked up along
the way here is that, you know, it's great to
organize your garage. Sure, I mean that, I think we
can all agree that, you know, a well organized garage
is it's it's any room actually is better off when
it's well organized, right, it really is. But I have

(07:20):
recently reorganized my garage and kind of figured out where
everything goes and got things kind of you know, clustered
together where they should be. The chemicals in one area,
you know that, the electrical stuff in one box over here.
You know, I know where everything is and I can
I can easily lay my hands on everything. The problem
is that if you don't do that about twice a year,
you're gonna fall behind. And it's the truth. I mean,
it's just what you said. Like where you know, you

(07:41):
start gathering more things and putting things in front of
other things, and it blocks your view, it blocks your
access to those items, and you know, things get a
little dirtier because you don't pick it up to you know,
clean underneath it or whatever, and you know it's just snowballs.
The whole problem starts to snowball. But you have to
if you do maintain garage that is well organized. I mean,
I really do feel like it's just an easier place

(08:04):
to go and access whatever you need because you know
right where it is. I mean, it's it's it's been
so helpful to me to be able to do this
recently that I had some time that I was able
to straighten everything up and again I can just go
in there right now and I could access anything that
I need. I know, exactly where it is. And that's
so helpful because before it was kind of scattered all
over the place. It might be in the basement, it

(08:24):
might be you know, out back on the porch, might
you know, who knows where it would be. Right, So
now I can go in there and I feel like
I can put my hands on anything that I need
to right away. And it's very very helpful. So you know,
I think I derailedy here on the on the installation.
We were talking about installation, right, Yeah, this is a
very easy d I Y project. This is for the
giant door, right right. This is for the child door.

(08:47):
First off, make sure the door works. You know, there's
there's just nothing sadder than driving by a house and
you see the busty garage door because it's one of
those things that people don't really want to fix because
it can be a pain. Right. It's the it's isn't it.
I think the garage door is the largest movable object
in your house. I think, yeah, I think it is. Yeah,

(09:07):
it weighs a ton, right, I mean it's it's and
it's all resting on that one little motor that's up
there in the center of the center of the ceiling. Yeah,
so that thing gets a lot of work, it does. Yeah.
So garage door manufacturers have found that if you insulate
your garage door, it's gonna be about twelve degrees warmer fahrenheit.

(09:29):
It's nothing crazy. In the winter months in about twenty
five degrees cooler. In summer cooler. I could use cooler
out there, yeah, yeah, because weird Georgia. Yeah. So one thing,
one thing that sneak about this is that unlike installing
a garage door, it's pretty easy to insulate a garage
door on your own yourself. Well, it's very easy actually,

(09:51):
and they make kits even for this if you want
to buy a kit, or you could just simply do
it yourself, right, I mean, there's there's like three types
of installation that you can buy. Can either do the
bat type, which is kind of like the I don't know,
I guess that's the stuff that you see on new
build homes, you know, like the stuff they roll out
in between the walls. It's flexible, it's you know, they
got the paperbacking. It's the least expensive option out of these,

(10:12):
and these are all very low dollar things to it.
There's also a foam board that you can buy that's
that's cut for the panels specifically, or you can cut
it yourself, custom cut it. There's also reflective, is that
the yellow foam with the reflective film over it? Yeah,
it's like silver looking off to me. That would be
crazy distracting in the garage, you know, to have something

(10:32):
that's like reflective like that, especially if you have a
work light on and it's bouncing off the work like. Yeah,
I mean, but hey, maybe that works right, Maybe that's good. Yeah,
maybe it's maybe it's a benefit to have a reflective
garage door on the inside. But either way, I mean,
like you said, Ben, I had no idea that the
temperature swing could be so great just by insulating the door.
I mean, it makes sense. It's just a piece of

(10:52):
metal that is between you and outside, and it doesn't
count the windows, it doesn't count any other installation. Just
doing that to the or will end up saving money,
Yeah yeah, I will. I mean, but it just makes
it again, like everything else that we're gonna talk about today,
I hope, I will just make it more pleasant to
be out there, a little bit more pleasant time. Now
I've in my own garage, I haven't done insulation yet.

(11:14):
That's one of the things that I haven't done. I
haven't changed the lighting or anything like that yet. I
haven't done anything really big yet. But these are all
low dollar things that we can we can talk about,
you know, the ones that I'm still missing. But I
will say this that, you know, when I'm out there
in the summertime, I bring a small fan just to
like a box fan helps out tremendously, just to have
something like that in the in the space. And that's

(11:34):
one thing that I think everybody can do that just
to make it easier on yourself out there. Just it's simple,
simple thing. Bring a box, Get a little box fan
from your local department. Go crazy, go crazy, get get
get a twenty five dollar box. Find one at a
thrift shop or you know whatever. You can get it
for three bucks. I don't care. But that's one thing
you can do. And then I've got Also this is

(11:55):
also effective. And it's a two car garage, so it's
it's a bigger space. Just a tiny little ceramic heater.
It's very very small, like it's I'm holding my hands
out like everybody can see this, but it's it's only
like about you know, eight or twelve inches across, and
and you know it's like a little cube, right, it's
a ceramic heater, and the thing really cranks out the heat.
I mean, it's it's fantastic to use in the garage

(12:16):
in the wintertime because you can put it right near
you without the fear of having you know, kind of
like an open flame anywhere nearby, or any kind of chemicals,
like if you have a kerosene heater or something like that. So, uh,
it's it's beneficial to have something like this on hand
if you're in a colder climate, just a really simple
plug in ceramic heater, and it makes your area so
much better. It takes a little while to to get
it warmed up in there. You don't you know, you're

(12:37):
not gonna be blistering hot or anything like that. But
it beats back the cold enough that you're able to
work and you can keep your hands functioning because you know,
when it gets really really cold and your hands don't
seem to want to work the right way, That's what
I felt like anyway, when it gets really really cold,
like you just can't get your fingers to do what
you want them to do with you're so cold. And
you can't wear gloves because you need yeah, yeah, either

(12:58):
or you'd wear those little thin mechanics gloves and those
aren't really meant for like warmth or anything. I mean
they they sell insulated ones. But again you've lost all
tactle sense, you know, so sometimes you need that. But yeah,
I mean there's just too simple, really really inexpensive things
that you can do that that help out a lot
out there. I am going to say though again and

(13:20):
I totally agree with you on this one, Scott, but
I must point out that before you buy any new
thing for your garage counting a car, clean your garage,
oh yeah, get rid of all this stuff you don't need.
Because for most people, if you if you look through it,
you'll find things that you you just don't need. You

(13:41):
just put them somewhere and you forgot about them. A
lot of people have a half finished project, you know,
and it can be tough to swallow your pride and
be honest with yourself and say, well, you know, I
guess I actually don't care as much about building this
what magtiic airplane? Yeah, building this stick or whatever? Right, Yeah,

(14:02):
it's just somehow like if you had a hobby or something,
and you've got, you know, all the stuff associated with
that hobby, but you no longer do the hobby, then
maybe it's time to get rid of it. You got
old skis laying around, but you know, like we're here
in Georgia and rarely when you use skis unless you
you know, travel with them obviously, But things like that
just you just use common sense. I got rid of
a ton of stuff in my garage, you know what

(14:22):
I find? You know what I finally got rid of.
It made me feel so good. It's like it just
helps you feel better, lighter, to get rid of all
this stuff. I know. So do you remember, many many
years ago we we tore apart that old mg Yes,
oh boy, yeah, it was a long time ago, right,
and I think most of our listeners have seen photos
of us in that thing, you know, kind of you know,

(14:45):
we were elbow deep in that thing for long, right,
crawling all over it. It was great, though, to completely
dismantle the car without worrying about putting it back together.
Funny because like broke, Okay, fine, you know, it's all right,
But all we're doing is to get to the parts,
so we could then describe the parts and see them
and you know, like and do that kind of thing. Right.

(15:05):
We the project ended up going nowhere really, I mean
it was a lot of it was fun. We spent
several days doing this, but it was kind of a junk.
It was a junk card up with a ton of parts.
I got bins and bins and bins and parts, you know,
like pistons and rings and the crank shaft and cam
shaft and you know, all the stuff. I got all
these like heavy metal parts I've got. I've got the

(15:26):
head sitting in a bin. But all that stuff has
been in my garage for years and years, almost a
decade almost, Yeah, it's been. It's getting close, and um,
I finally got rid of it. I just took it
to I tried to get it, you know, to somebody
that had an MG, and they didn't want it. No
one wanted the parts. I don't know if they thought
they were hot or what. No, that wasn't that wasn't it.

(15:47):
It's just you know, it's very specific and you don't
know the quality, you know, the condition of all the shore.
It was actually was remarkably well preserved all that stuff
because it's all oily and you know, so it's it's
all plain and it's usable. But I could not get
anybody to take that stuff. So I just finally had
to scrap some of it. And you know a lot
of it was beat up in old and bad anyway,
so I didn't feel too bad about it. But I mean,

(16:09):
years and years of that stuff sitting around and just
taking up space. Again, it just feels so good to
get rid of stuff like that. And I got rid of,
you know, like a power washer. I got rid of,
you know, a bunch of stuff that was just clutter
that's not working anymore. I have to ask, did you
go did you go to your neighborhood rushing landfill to

(16:30):
get rid of those parts? I did, and it's changed hands. Yeah,
I don't know. Have we talked about this again recently,
not on air? Okay, I went back. I went back
again to this. I did go to that place, and
I made several trips, not for just the car parts,
but for other stuff I had laying around, just you know,
scrap metal type things. One thing was from the garage door.

(16:50):
I had a great big greasy bar that was you know,
like the main bar that the track was on. You know,
stuff like that I just had a bunch of little
things laying around an old gas grill, you know, it
kind of falling apart as a rusty um. But I
went there and it was it was owned and operated
by someone new. Now it's not that it's not it's
not the Russian mafia or whoever was running this place before,

(17:12):
because I really had that strong feeling that that was
what was going on there. I really did, and we
I know, we talked about but it's completely different now. So, um,
it wasn't quite a uh, it wasn't. It wasn't as
much fun as it used to be, you know, like, yeah,
it wasn't. It wasn't as exciting, Like it wasn't as
thrilling to go back, you know. But um, I don't know.
I'm still still good though. Oh can I tell you

(17:33):
one thing that I think maybe I talked Ac Curd
about this off air, but um, you see crazy things
at a junkyard, right, So I go there and I
threw all of my junk, you know, including like an
old water heater and a gas grill. Like I said,
all these engine parts and everything, I throw them on
this pile that is like it's the size of like
a four story house. It's huge, giant junk pile. Right,

(17:56):
So I back up to it and I, it's gonna
heave all this stuff over there. And after I had
driven away and I got up to the you know
the area where you get paid almost nothing for your parts, right,
you're for you know, the weight of your parts. Yeah,
I get my my check for ten dollars or whatever
it was and twenty cents I think it was. And

(18:16):
this is like hundreds of pounds of metal. Right. So
I look back and I swear to it looked like
I could hardly even see my pile of stuff there.
That was you know, it's it's taken up so much
space in my garage, but on that pile it looked
like nothing. It looked like a you know, another grain
of sand on the beach. It was like that. It was.
It was amazing how small that pile of stuff was.

(18:37):
And then I was thinking, okay, well this is got
kind of a rough edge to it, you know, like
it kind of gets strung out over the over the lot.
So a guy gets in this uh, this this crane,
it's almost like not a I guess maybe not a
front loader, but it's like a crane and it's got
a grasping arm like a like a pincher, and so
they can pick up things and move them. So he

(18:57):
goes over and and kind of motors this thing over
to the side, and he picks up this ball of
iron that's like all twisted and tangled up. It looks
like a Brillo pad, only it's like a Brillo pad
like the size of like too minivans. It's that big, right,
and he and he like puts that on the on
the ground and he starts like wildly swinging the arm

(19:18):
left and left and right, and he's using this big
massive metal as like a broom, and he's like sweeping
the stuff up onto the pile and he would like
drag it across and then give it kind of like
a little up lifted end and it would like pick
stuff up and kind of throw it on the top
of the pile. But he was just bizarre. It's like
it's like they're getting to play with these massive toys

(19:39):
like that. It looks like it looks so much fun
to be able to do that, and and this this
way of doing it. I'm sure that other junk heards
do the same thing. I had never seen this before,
and that that tangle of metal was so it looks
so dangerous. So you know, it looks like if you
got near that thing you would get cut. Maybe, yeah,
because imagine it's moving at speed. Oh yeah, he's like no,
I mean even even like I didn't even want to

(20:00):
approach it, like when it was just sitting still, like
I didn't want even because it looked like um, just
like a tangle of weeds almost. But it's but it's metal.
It's like jagged metal, you know, and that probably makes
it lighter to swing. Yeah, So how about this man,
how about the next time you dropped some stuff off there,
instead of taking a check, you ask if you can
take a swing with the broom. It's not a bad idea, yeah,

(20:24):
Like you can keep your ten dollars, But let me
drive that crane for just a few on the crane,
it looks like so much fun. I mean, it looks
like it would be a blast. I'm sure it's just
another task for them, you know, but sure looks that's
a crazy thing. How quickly the coolest stuff becomes normal,
you know what I mean? Like I was, I was,
you know, I've been traveling a lot I was recently

(20:46):
in a plane flying over the Pacific last week and
I got irritated because I was trying to work on
some stuff and I thought, man, this WiFi is being slow,
and I had to pause for a sect it. I
was like, Hey, I'm flying like thousands and thousands of
feet in the air at this crazy speed. You're going

(21:08):
like six right, And I have the audacity to be
like to be like, oh no, this page is loading slow,
you know what I mean? It is funny, isn't it.
How you get like so you you jaded, I guess
and stuff like that. Yeah, you know, and it's really
remarkable that you're able to do it at all. Really yeah,

(21:30):
Oh my gosh. Before it waxed to philosophic about how
ungrateful I am as a person in general, I want
to go back to the point you made about getting
rid of stuff, because I know it's it can be
tough for a lot of people to hear. And also
we're all familiar with Tetris, and Tetris is such a
useful game because it shows us the value of organizing

(21:54):
space and putting things where they fit. For a lot
of people listening today, the problem isn't that there's a
bunch of stuff that they could get rid of and
they just haven't. The problem is that there's stuff you
have to keep and you have nowhere else to put it.
So I want to say, you don't have to throw
everything in your garage way, really, why not just invest

(22:17):
in some organizational tools? Yeah, and you know what, Online
is a beautiful place to be able to do this
because you can you can go and to kind of
lay out your plans or lay out your ideas. And
it doesn't have to be expensive. I can tell you that.
I mean, there there are some ridiculously expensive cabinets and
countertops and all. There's there's the opposite end of the

(22:37):
spectrum for all this stuff. So you can get affordable cabinets,
you can buy pre made shelving, or you can make
your own. You can you know, d I y this thing?
You know, so send your blocks into two by fours,
I mean really, milk crates and and you know boards.
That's all you need, really, I mean, honestly, that's all
you really need. It's so simple. You can you can
do a lot with what you have already, or you

(23:00):
can just kind of make what you have work. A
little bit better for you. I mean think about storage,
like maybe storing things. You know, if your garage door
goes up, but you've got you know, like a nine
foot ceiling, you've probably got unused space above the garage door.
You know that one interfere exact or stuff up there,
like you know they have hanging racks. You can do that,
or you can simply I saw the coolest idea you

(23:21):
just make. It's almost like like wouldn't eye beams almost
and you can slide your bins onto those things and
you can slide you know, I guess you can put
a stop on one so they don't slide off. But
you can access all that stuff really easily. I mean
you're not pulling down that you have to pull the
whole bin down, but think about putting stuff up there.
Like I think the recommendation was, like, you know, stuff
you don't use very often, like seasonal things, camping gear,

(23:44):
things like that that you know you only need a
few times a year or even once a year, but
it's a great place to put it. I mean, if
you don't have a basement, or you don't have an
addic storage or something like that that you know that
that space above your door is valuable space that's being
you know, left unused and and a lot of people
just kind overlooked that one prime real estate. On this note,
I want to show you guys something. This made me

(24:05):
feel like a genius when I read that someone else
had done this online. When I was a kid growing up,
one of the dumbest parts of our garage was the
corner where we just had to throw all like the
rakes and the shovels and the pics and the hose
and stuff because we didn't have a super great place
to put it, and we didn't have room to you know,
make a corkboard hanging wall. But we had this idea

(24:29):
where we had small palettes laying around and we put
one up on its side and we did this. I'm
showing Scott the picture here. Uh you want to describe that. Yeah,
it's just it's it's up against um um exposed studs
on the wall. But it it gives you a space.
It like carves out of space there if you put
the palette up against the wall vertically and nail in place,
scrutin place, or whatever gives you a place to put

(24:52):
those long handled tools that you know, are oftentimes either
just leaning against the wall or you know whatever. I
made my own tool rack, not like that, but the
kind with like just hooks that you can hang things on,
you know, like you'd buy them for like maybe uh,
you know, hanging a bike on the ceiling or something
like that. You make all different shapes, and I got
some that are shaped like, um, almost like a y

(25:12):
that has a little bit of a lip to it.
And I screwed it two by four to the wall
and into the stud so it's really really solid. And
I hung up my tools on that you know, on
these rats on these spaced everything out and you know,
measured it all out so everything goes right where it
should so that you know, it doesn't interfere with the
tool next to it, doesn't knock it down every time
you take it off. And then I did this cool

(25:32):
thing where, um, I think this is cool. Anyways, I
hung up just an eye hook and I put a
carabeener through it with a little loop on the end.
And then on every power tool that I have, like
my leaf blower it's an electric leaf blow or trimmer,
you know, electric trimmer, I tied a corresponding loop on
that object that stays on there all the time. It's

(25:52):
just a little maybe like a foot long piece of
rope that I tied into a loop and then all
I have to do is just hook it on the
carabeener and that hangs dead. Then those hang down below
in that in that void space in between the tools,
so like it's all it's all like, it's really, it's
sorry toot my own horn here, but it's it's it's
really I feel like it's well laid out. And I

(26:13):
tried to like use that idea or that that way
of dealing with things to organize the rest of the garage,
and it's gone pretty well so far. I mean I've
been able to figure things out and place things accordingly
so that you know, it all fits. Like you said,
like tetris, you know it gives you, um, I don't know.
It just gives you a um, a much more open
feel to it, and it allows you again to access

(26:36):
anything you want right at you know, a moment's notice,
and you know right where everything is. And the good
thing about something like that, a lot of people will,
you know, they'll think like, well, big deal. You can
buy it an old bucket and throw your tools in that.
That's fine, but that takes up a lot of floor space. Yeah,
and so so that's a smart way to do it,
like you and your family have done or did in
the past. I don't know if your dad still does

(26:56):
that or what, but still using the old the palette
there against man, he's he's retired, so that means that
the garage is getting this crazy, crazy mop down. Yeah. Yeah,
he went through Gosh, I guess starting about a year
and a half ago, he started getting rid of stuff,

(27:16):
and uh, I thought that was cool. But you know,
anybody who has had parents or family members start cleaning
stuff out of the house, you know what happens. I
was getting calls like once or twice a week just
just to pitch me on whether I wanted this ridiculous item.
And he's like, you know, hey, I've got this this tiller.
Do you want a tiller? And I'm thinking, well, that's

(27:37):
I don't know where I'm gonna put that in my
two bedroom apartment. But I appreciate the thing is like,
you hate to see stuff like that go. Yeah, exactly.
It's like he doesn't need it anymore, but he doesn't
and he doesn't want to just give the thing away,
and he's got two tillers you don't need to with
like my gas girl. Okay, gas girls laying around, but
it's a it's a pile of garbage. But eventually just

(28:00):
had to just get rid of it for you know,
the scrap metal, and no one wanted it. I mean
and no one. I probably wouldn't feel good giving it
to somebody even you know, it's just that in that
pour of condition, and I had another one that had
replaced it, so why not get rid of that one?
It just makes sense, like if you can just kind
of pair things down a little bit in there and
give yourself some rooms, some elbow room, because now I've
got a a small it's a modest size work area.

(28:23):
It's not very big at all, and I've I've even
got some things on there that I still want to
get rid of, you know, some bench type things that
I kind of want to get rid of and clear
out the area. But it's so nice to have a
functional space to work in again. And I really do
appreciate that, you know, having that space to go to
and you know sometimes after I'm done, you know, working
on the yard or whatever, just kind of hang out

(28:43):
in there. It's it's not a bad place. I put
a stereo in, yeah, you know. And that's another thing
like this is so simple, you know when it cost
me to put a stereo on my garage, like less
than forty bucks probably, and it's it's pretty cool. It's
like a ken Would sound system that I went and
got it. I got it like a goodwill or thrift

(29:03):
store or something like that. It's a great receiver. Um.
I was looking for one of the old dial in types,
you know, with like the the old real old school
silver front you know, I think I couldn't find one.
They were too expensive when I did. This one is
a you know, a really nice system. I don't know.
I have to model a number in front of me
right now. But um, I was able to get some
floor speakers, you know, like those old floor speakers, the

(29:24):
big ones, um killer speakers. They're really really cool and
they look cool. And again I think they're I think
they're ken Would. I think it's a matching, said, I
can't remember now, um, but I just put them on
top of a shelf somewhere. I've got four of them.
I've only I only put up two and that's more
than enough. You only need one really and barely turned
the volume up on the thing because in the garage,

(29:45):
you know, it's pretty that goes, yeah, it does, so
you know you just have it on soft. But um,
it's nice and it and it passes the time, and
it's something it's so simple to do. It is so
inexpensive to to move like an old stereo out there
or just something cheap. You can get them anywhere really
for just a few bucks. It just makes it that
much more pleasant to be out there for a longer

(30:05):
period of time, whether you're working on something, you know,
just kind of tune everything out and and get to work.
It's it's nice. Yeah. I think that's when you know
you're going in the right direction. It's when you reach
the point with the garage where you walk in and
you think, yeah, I get just hang out here for
a second, you know what I mean. That's when you
know that you've done something right. I do also want

(30:25):
to add to that excellent point about using the ceiling
is real estate. It's depending on the type of ceiling
you have and the type of type of hooks you're
able to get in there. It's a fantastic place to
put ladders. Oh yeah, yeah, that's another thing to get
all that stuff up off the floor if you can. Yeah,
because it just takes up space. It's just usable real

(30:47):
estate that you're that you're losing if you have, you know,
especially a ladder, big ladder, you have it kind of
leaning against the wall takes up even more room if
it has to stand out from the wall and lean
against it. Um if you understand, I mean, the footprint
of it becomes bigger because of that. I mean if
you can somehow get it up against the wall or
even off the floor, all the better. You know. Again,
just simple hooks. I mean, hooks have saved me so

(31:09):
much space in my garage. Is it's unbelievable. And I
don't even have like a big fancy wall system or
anything like that. It's just an open shelving unit and
it's like very industrial looking. It's very it's just you know,
very functional. But it's not like covered. I don't have
everything like concealed or anything like that. In fact, I
wish I did. I wish there was a you know,
I know, I could just put up like a piece

(31:29):
of cloth over it or something and that would conceal it.
If you wanted a cleaner look to it. No man,
go crazy, get like a Murphy bed type mechanism, you
know what I mean, It pulls down. Yeah, that's That's
one of the things I'm probably gonna build when I
get a garage that is my own again, I'm gonna
build some fold down tables. They're super simple to build
and they're great for space management because the last garage

(31:52):
I had was from a house built in the nineteen
sixties and the garage was just smaller than a lot
of garages you'd seat now, so so I had to
do stuff like that. It's very narrow, right, Yeah, it's
pretty narrow. It's like it was. So it was essentially
a car poard where someone had put some just enough

(32:13):
of a wall up that you could say it was
a garage. So it wasn't insulated. It's probably like the
you know, the the bottom half of the wall was
brick from where the car poard originally was, and then
the rest was like would and would That was that
was treated, you know, anxiety on the outside. It wasn't
It wasn't just straight up plywood, like it didn't look

(32:35):
like I lived in a in a drug dealer's house,
but it was so small that it was it was
crowded to parks like a Honda Civic in there, you
know what I mean. So I needed to have those
full down shelves whenever I was going to do anything.
And I also had to going back to being ungrateful,
I used to complain when I would have to back
the car out and work on it in the driveway

(32:56):
because I had to set up everything else inside the
actual garage. But man, that is way better than replacing
stuff in a parking lot. Oh yeah, it definitely is.
And you know some people do have to do that.
I mean, that's a that's the thing we and again, Kurt,
we talked about this off air. Maybe we should talk
about it right now on area. I mean, what we're there,
um portable garages. People buy portable garages. This is crazy. Now.

(33:20):
I guess it wouldn't be a place you'd normally want
to kind of go hang out or anything, but I
think it's it would be uh smart to mention these
right now. So what did what did you find? Well?
I was just thinking, you know, sometimes you have a
project going on. It might be a two day job,
or it might even bleed over into the next weekend
and you don't have a garage, so you would want
some covering for the car elements so you can't leave

(33:44):
things as they are as well, you don't want to
have to button everything up just to take it back
apart again. Yeah, exactly. I've seen some, you know, there's
some real basically tents. Yeah. I don't know how well
they work, though, I get the idea that they're not
too stable. You want to check the weather before you
did this type of activity. I've looked into these because

(34:04):
of our discussion, so I looked into these, and you know,
these these portable or temporary garages are a thing that
people do want. Typically they'll have like a steel frame
with a fabric cover. Although that covering that's where a
lot of this changes. I mean the the the sturdiness
of the frame and the fabric that covers it. So
you know whether it's a weather proof, whether it's you know,

(34:26):
um it's opaque enough that you know no sun like
gets through, or if all the sun like gets through,
you know, like like you think about like a tent
or something. You know, there's every variation, there's everything in between,
so um, you can find one. I mean like they
come in like barn style or you know whatever. They
have like a little pitched roof on them so that
you know, if there is weather, rain or snow, that

(34:46):
it would kind of like rush off the eaves. I
guess off the roofline, I should say, so it doesn't
get you know, heavy weight up there and collapse, because
I think that would be a real danger with something
like this um or even high winds. I mean, they're
not for everybody, and they're not for are all situations.
But you can get one that's like twelve by twenty
by I think about nine ft tall for you know,

(35:07):
a ballpark around a thousand dollars and that's pretty pricey still.
But if you don't have an area to do what
you were describing, Kurt, where you can you know, tear
something apart and leave it apart for a day or
two if you have to or exposed or you know
whatever you're happy to be working on. You know, you
want it protected or you want to you know, you
want to protect yourself. You don't want to be out
in the in the the elements doing this. It's a

(35:27):
great solution and they can stay up for extended periods
of time. I mean with some level of confidence that
it's going to remain in place if you anchor them
correctly and weigh them down and all that, you know,
and if you get to like the big ones. There
are some big industrial size ones that are you know,
like forty ft or more. I mean we're talking like
twelve thousand dollars for some of these. I mean, at
what point do we stop calling those things portable garages

(35:50):
and started calling them portable barns because there's really big ones,
like some of those are the size of a small shop.
Well sure, yeah, some of them. You see, like you'll
see a photo of the one that I was just
talking about, the twelve one, and someone's driving a forklift
into it to store lumber or you know whatever it was.
It could be a temporary outbuilding for a company. You know,

(36:11):
they're that they're that big, like a pre manufactured garage. Yeah,
but yeah, yeah, exactly right, Yeah, it's like exactly and
it's something that's they say it's portable. I mean it's
that's that's kind of an iffy term for something like
it's big, right, But I mean it's more portable than
a garage that is attached to a house. I guess,
I guess it is more portable than that. Yeah, So anyways,

(36:33):
I think it's a good solution for some people, but um,
it doesn't work in every situation, and they are kind
of expensive. But like this is a good place to
mention this anyway, for the parking lot type or the
out in the street type that does their work in
that environment. You know, how many times do you get
involved in a project that takes you longer than you
thought it was gonna be kind of like wrap everything

(36:54):
up real quick and then go back home for the
night or whatever. How many companies now are doing like
dent repair and things like that in parking lots, you know,
like they'll come to your office and do that, or
wheel repairs. That might be a decent use for something
like that where you want to keep you know, like
bugs and debris and stuff like that off of it,
or if it's raining that you can't do that work,

(37:15):
and if it's raining, but you could set up a
temporary shelter around the vehicle if you have that, you know,
that luxury of space to do it. Going back to
your point about how portable are these things, Like I
think we've all seen maybe an emission's shack or something
that is pretty much one of those. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I mean yeah, like we're like, it's just in a

(37:35):
parking lot somewhere and right you drive through. Yeah yeah,
I know there are laws and stuff, but I treat
emissions the way you like to treat landfill. Scott want
a little bit of edge in there, a shape, I
will have to look too hard. I want to know.
I don't want to know rather whether that emissions place

(37:57):
is going to be there tomorrow. I just want to
cruise in, you know, ships in the night. I'm a ghost.
Just hand me the paper, put me in the system. Right.
It seems like it seems like most of them are
that way. Do they really want to even do the
test or do they just wanna want some exchange. It's different.
It's different now in Georgia. You guys remember when you

(38:17):
used to just get the physical badge instead of the
paper and electronic entry into a system. Sure, man, corruption
was rife. No I'm not saying I ever did it,
but I was in so many situations where you'd be
hanging out with like a mechanic acquaintance, because you know,
almost every solid mechanic has the garage they work at,

(38:41):
and then they have their house, which also slowly over
time turns into another garage. And so I can't tell
you how many times I had somewhat like I was
fixing the car of a girl I was dating or
trying to get it up to the snuff for emissions,
and that I would have one of my mechanic buddies say,
you know, we can just get a sticker. It's like, dude,

(39:02):
I think that's pretty illegal, and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but uh but uh, we can just get a sticker.
And for the record, again, I never did it. I
never did it because I don't think that's a good move.
But where was I going with this? I'm not sure exactly. Yeah. Yeah,
temporary buildings that you that's right, soon, that's what it is. Yeah,

(39:27):
I mean, temporary buildings are a great idea. You guys know,
there's also this thing that popped up that I had
never heard of before, communal garages. Oh yeah, yeah yeah.
So if you don't have the space that you want
for something like this, so you know, we're exactly the
right set up, go to a community garage where you
a communal garage, I guess where you rent the space
for a certain amount of time. Now you have to
bring and I think most of those you have to

(39:49):
bring your own tools. Um, they might have some for rent,
or you can borrow some. Somebody that you know is
there using the communal garage. I guess if if there
are more than one bay or or something. I've never
used one before, but I've heard of them. I don't
even know if there are any operating around here or not.
I'm just not even sure. But yeah, if you don't
have the space, you can read it. Yeah. I do
want to add one other thing. I've heard about this

(40:10):
and I've never run into someone who's actually done it.
I want to see if you guys have heard about this.
Let's say you have a major repair, you know how
to do it, and you have the tools, but you
don't have the garage. I have heard that it's possible
to go to an auto mechanics school and use their
garage with the understanding. I mean, you're going to do

(40:33):
the work and you're going to bring your own tools, right,
That's what I've heard. I've never seen it confirmed. I
did not know that. That's interesting. I have to look
into that too, and I know that UM. I long,
long time ago, there was a community college near me
that had an UM automotive program, and I know that
students would bring their cars in and it was kind
of their project, you know, for the term. They'd be

(40:55):
able to kind of work on their own car as
there as there. You know that they're learning tool I guess,
you know. So they had cars over there, you know,
they had specific problems that they would teach you how
to fix and repair and all that. But UM, if
you let's say that you're taking a painting class and
you've got an old car that you want to paint,
there's your project. I mean you can you can do
it on that and learn on your own vehicle, and

(41:16):
you'll be graded on it. Of course, you know, as
you would, but it's but it's your own thing at
the very end, you know, of course, you're also more
likely to treat it with care. Yeah, you're right, you know.
It makes me think of though. I like the fact
that everything I've read about taking it to a mechanics school,
everything I've read about it emphasizes you doing the work yourself.
You know, you're basically renting the space. Yeah, because otherwise

(41:40):
it would be like another weird life hack I've heard
of but I've never seen officially confirmed, which is saving
money on a haircut by going to a cosmetology school,
which feels like a real trust pull, you know what
I mean. I think that you can do that. I
do think that they have that. Yeah, definitely, Yeah, have
you done that? Okay, maybe got the got the beard

(42:00):
trimmed up there so you can tell, right, yeah, I
just I mean, yeah, do you pay extra to get
a like a week three person? I think, isn't it
the thing? Like, I don't know if you pay. I
think that maybe you go and maybe there's varying degrees
of this, but you might pay for the supplies if
you have to have your hair diet or something like that. Maybe,

(42:21):
but I don't think that you pay, and it might
take you a long time to get your hair cut
because I think they're learning, you know, they're they're they're
teaching somebody when you're doing it. But um, yeah, that's
an interesting idea though, to take it to an automotive
school and uh and rent the space. But you have
to do the work yourself. So if you if you're
knowledgeable with that kind of thing, or you have the tools.
That's a smart thing to do. We should probably buzz

(42:48):
through a couple more of these real quick. Just because
we're a little bit behind on on my list. I
guess we're not gonna get to everything on the list.
We never do right, um, because we have always I
love oursel conversations, So talking about the junkyard, talking about
the hair college or whatever you want to call it,
the GUI the whole time. No, that's all right, I

(43:11):
like that stuff. But um, I guess overall, really, I mean,
the the the lesson here, if there is a lesson
to be learned, is get rid of the clutter, get
rid of the junk. Hang stuff up off the floor,
you know, get it off of the off the ground there.
If you can that way, you've got more real estate
to use. And once you do do that, then maybe
flooring is another thing that a lot of people kind
of neglect or or overlook. I know there's been recently

(43:32):
kind of not maybe not even recently, a big push
to use like those epoxy systems you can do at home.
I mean there's kids that you can buy and the
materials come practically ready to go. I mean you just
have to do the cleaning yourself, and you know, there's
step by step instructions about how to do that, and
it's non skid and all that. But there's a ton
of flooring options and one of these on this list
really surprised me and I was shocked by I'll just

(43:55):
quickly go through the list and we can if you
wanted to stop and talk about any of them, we can.
But there's I don't have any of these. By the way,
My floor is painted, which is one of the cheapest
ways to do it, and it's peeled up a little
bit here and there, but it's it's held pretty well.
It's not the epoxy, but it's definitely like a harder paint.
I think it's an outdoor paint that they used, and
it's it's okay. It does the job. It keeps the

(44:16):
fluids from going right onto the concrete, which is nice.
You know, you can clean them up pretty easy. So
that's one of the cheapest things you can do, is
paint the floor. Also not the best option. I'll tell
you that you can do any variety of coatings. Of course,
you can do you know, epoxy, or you can even
do just concrete sealer. If you have a nice clean
floor already. You can't do that if it's already stained
and you know, kind of a mess. And that's the

(44:38):
same thing with concrete stain. If you do concrete stain,
which by the way, it looks really cool when it's done.
But if you have a dirty floor, crack floor, you
know it has imperfections. You're going to see that through
the stain. Even if you try to cover it up,
try to patch you to whatever, You're gonna see those
cracks and things, you know. So you've gotta have a
floor that's in decent shape to begin with to do that. Okay, Now,

(44:58):
there's like other surfaces that you can add to your
garage floor that I know a lot of people have done.
I'm a little area of these, but um, like what
like the interlocking tiles, I don't know why. I just
feel like they'll be slick um, you know, like they'd
be like if you've got any oil or grease on
them or if But again that's concrete as well, so
I don't know. Maybe that's maybe there's something to that,

(45:19):
but they look like they're they'd be slick even in water.
To me, it just don't seem and they're they're a
little bit pricey. I mean, you know the interlocking tiles,
they're they're designed for heavy load and you can put
them on an uneven floor or semi uneven. You have
to kind of do a little bit of work ahead
of time to get it ready, but it can be
a simple fix. It can make your garage look really
nice if you want it to look really nice. It's

(45:40):
functional because I guess some of that stuff does drain away,
you know, underneath, as long as you can access below
it to clean it up. Eventually, you don't just have
fluids and laying around and you know, of course one
gets damaged or you want to change it out. You
can do that pretty easy with tile. Instead of being
one solid piece or paint or you know whatever, it's
it's harder to come back from that. There's also, you know,
the option you can put down like you know those

(46:00):
titles real heavy duty tiles they use in a lot
of elementary schools use those tiles, you know, like the
um then I think it's vinyl flooring, but there the
vinyl tiles, the you know the one they have the
oh it's not corrugated, you know what I'm talking about,
the surface is like a non slip surface. Yeah, that's right. Yeah,
so that's a decent thing to do. I mean, you

(46:22):
can you can do that. It's again, you can get
them really cheap. You can also get them very expensive
depending on the surface treatment that you want. You know,
the colors and all that, and all this stuff is customizable.
So if you buy you know, a pattern that you
want to put down on the ground, you can do that.
That's kind of cool. Um, a lot of people have,
you know, there's a variety of ideas for flooring, you know,

(46:43):
what you should do, what you shouldn't do on this.
But but one thing that that really stat with me
that now, actually, you know, I'm gonna wait for just
a second. I'm gonna say two more that I think
are interesting, but then I'll get to the one that
was the most interesting to me. Right. Uh. There's also
peeling stick tiles that are kind of like what I
was just talking about, but they're vinyl, so it's you know,
self adhesive type thing that you know, you put on
put them down. That's an okay, fixed a little cheaper,

(47:06):
but um, you can still do it. And then there's
also a solid one piece vinyl role that you can
put out like um, think about linoleum, you know, like
the old linoleum only made specifically for garages, and it
might have a texture to it. The problem is if
you damage it or something, you know, it's harder to
patch in and replace something like that. And by the way,
that's one of the benefits of it is that there

(47:27):
are no seams, so that you know, stuff won't gather
and seems stuff won't build up, and and if you
start cutting holes to patch in that, you know, that's
where the problems start. Really. Now, the most interesting one
on this list that I found for for flooring options
for garage carpet, and I thought, okay, that's a little crazy, right,
I mean, you think like this is like we're getting
into that million dollar garage territory, right you put down carpet.

(47:49):
It's not the case. It's it's stuff that's called and
I've got a brand name here for it, because I
saw a lot of people talking about the specific brand.
And again we're not selling it or anything like that
or getting any kind of money kicked back this thing.
But the brand of the product is called Tough Carpet.
It's t u f F carpet, all one word and
apparently the stuff is like peeling stick squares like you

(48:10):
would find, you know, like in an office or something.
You know, if you you know, put down carpeting in
a small room or something like that. This stuff is
really really durable. You get this. It can be like
power washed if you need to. Uh yeah, And it
still has the give and the feel of real carpet.
It doesn't have, um, I don't want to put this.
It's it's like what they use on pro football stadiums,

(48:32):
like you know, the turf, only it's not like you know, AstroTurf.
It's it's not like all you know, prickly and pokey
like that. It doesn't feel like plastic. It feels like carpet.
When you put your hands across it. It It feels like
it's got the give. It's got the plushness to it,
just a little bit, not a lot. It's not real
thick shag or anything like that, of course, but it's
got like a low I guess you call it a

(48:53):
low nap carpet. I don't know carpet really, but I
think that's what they call it. Low nap. And again,
you can you can hour watch the stuff. It's supposed
to resist petroleum products. So you know, you're thinking, like, well,
if my car is leaking a while, I'm not going
to park it on this carpet. But apparently that's no problem.
It'll just wipe right off. So I thought it was
a cool solution. And they've been around for a long time.
I've I've seen articles about this product for many, many

(49:17):
years since, you know, at least eight nine years ago
now at this point, so there, I think they're still around.
The latest reference to it I found was right around eighteen.
I think, Um, so who knows, you know, maybe they're
maybe they're still there doing it. Maybe they're not. I don't.
I don't know, but I thought carpeting was an odd
thing to include in this list. But you know, again,

(49:37):
if it's built for it, why not. Yeah, I guess
you're right. I'm not. I'm still kind of I shouldn't
be skeptical. I'm just so used to a bare floor garage.
It just seems like the simpler solution. Yeah, I know.
I mean, and again all this, I feel like you
can almost make like pathways to your car, like you
could like the area that you step out of your
car onto, like that could be carpeted or maybe like

(50:00):
I guess, a runner on the side you know where um,
you know you could put your shoes or whatever, you know,
keep the garbage cans over there or something whatever, um,
but maybe not where your wheels are actually parked. I
don't know how much more I have to add it.
I mean, of course there's gonna be lighting option. You

(50:21):
want to have good lighting in your garage, and a
couple of things that that I want to mention here,
like you could. It doesn't have to be expensive. I've
got I'll tell you right now. In my garage, we've
got like two bare bulbs in the in the ceiling.
That's terrible. It's terrible lighting. But I want to change that.
I want to change it too again to be a
little bit more. I don't know, just it'll look better.
It will also provide better light, I guess, because the
placement of them is not exactly right for me. It's

(50:43):
just kind of where they they where the builder wanted
to put them. You don't this there's the thing. I
just found something. I know this has been around a while,
but have you've seen these tape l E D s as?
I think are pretty cool and I don't know if
that really would be a good option for me. I know,
you can dim them, you can get just you know,
the white ones there there's something that you can change

(51:03):
all different colors um and that's cool too. But like
these tape L e d s are such an interesting
idea that you know, they run off of like a
low voltage power supply, doesn't take a whole lot to
to operate them, and you can put them anywhere. I mean,
they're they're intended for you know, well for anything really,
but you know under cabinet type lighting, that type of thing,
you know, to replace the old fixtures that you'd have
to bolt up there. But yeah, if you've never seen

(51:26):
tape L e d s, look up, you know, look
look it up sometime and might be surprised by what
you find if if you're not already hip to that
type of thing. I'm not crazy about the quality of
fluorescent lighting. And I know that's one thing though that
you can you can buy a lot of fluorescent lighting
cheap relatively. You can buy the fixtures. You can get
the fixtures that you know, like again Goodwill, thrift store

(51:47):
places like that, same place you can go to get
you know, an old cabinet. It doesn't have to be
a cabinet that was built for the garage. Put an
old cabinet out in the in the garage, you know,
there was an old bookshelf or whatever. That's great storage.
I mean you could even find a way to put
a door on it if there isn't one. Use an
old armore if you want, you know, put that out
in the garage's story. Like, just repurpose things and use

(52:07):
things in a smart way that is useful to you
where you need the most. So you know, even if
you have old furniture around your house you're not using,
see if it'll be if you can repurpose that thing
in your bride in some way. Yeah, yeah, it just
it makes sense. There's a lot of really affordable, i
mean even free ways to do things to your garage

(52:27):
to make it just a better place to be. And
I think I'm getting to that point with mine. Like
I said, I haven't done insulation or lighting or anything
like that. Trying to think of what else I haven't done,
like flora POxy yet or anything like that. But the
paint is holding up. Okay, it's not fantastic, but it's
all right. The survival is slash Pepper in me wants
to point out that you can, like I know your

(52:48):
garage pretty well from way've described over the years, you
probably have room for a deep freezer in there. Ian
consider that. Uh, maybe maybe get one of those portable
garages that Kurt hip just to start smoking some meats
because you never know, you know, sure to be prepared. Yeah. Uh,
let me see what other ridiculous things can I suggest?
A pinball machine? Well I might as well, like you know,

(53:11):
etch out an area on the floor and then start
digging the shelter. Yeah you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
one thing, you know what I saw it. Just I
know we're getting tight on time, so so we'll wrap
it up pretty soon. But um, I was thinking when
I was talking with Kurt, you know, like let's not
talk about like car lifts and like you know, elevators
and things like that we said we started out this podcast.

(53:33):
But I'll tell you, like if you want, I mean,
I'm not going to discourage anybody from doing this, but
you can put in a lift in your garage. It's
not as expensive as you might think. It's it's expensive,
but it's not as expensive as you might think you
look at it and think it's like, well, that's fifty
do not at all know? The home versions of these
are relative and I'll say relatively affordable for something, you know,

(53:54):
and I would say comparatively comparative comparatively, And you've got
to have the right set up. You gotta have a
high seat, high enough ceiling. I think it has to
be like eleven or twelve feet tall to safely operate
one of these things. Really, I mean with the post
and everything. There's a there's two post versions, there's four
post versions. You can get a two post version. You
know where you're the posts are on the side next

(54:14):
to the doors. I guess when you pull up you
kind of pull through this thing. Then there's the four
post versions, which sometimes will have ramps you can like
fully secure the vehicle on top of it and then
raise it up. And then there's also the versions where
you know you can block those in park another car
below it, which is really cool. Yeah, that's the one
I would go for. But you know those are I mean,
and you might think that again really really expensive, like Bucks,

(54:38):
maybe less one. I saw one Bucks you can get
see the only thing with that, And I say, this
as an avowed cheapskate. The only thing with that is
I would be very careful about how thrift y I
was I'm buying on especially because because you want I
want the kind where I'm going to have living people

(54:59):
under it, yeah, doing repairs, or ideally the kind I
might have another very expensive vehicle under it, and I
don't want to wake up to that going wrong. No, no, no,
no one does. No one wants to hear that noise.
That's not the kind of a long clock I want
in the morning. One of your cars crushing the other
one of your cars. Yeah, that'd be a terrible noise,

(55:20):
and you know, one last quick. So it's not out
of the question to do something like that in your garage.
If you've got the means to pay you know, bucks
for a four post lift, do it. And you've got
the place to do it. One thing that I thought, Okay,
there's no way we can we can do this. It's
just too expensive. I've seen do it yourself pits dug
in garages, and I have mixed feelings about this, but

(55:44):
it is. But I've seen some really nice ones, really
really are they like are the is the property on
a hill? And they're built into it or so it's
it's yeah, nope, this is someone chiseling right through the
floor of their garage as long as they're you know,
right through the concrete, putting some steps in. Yeah, they
put steps in, and so they don't have to like
you know, you don't have another access in another play

(56:05):
part of the building or anything like that. Nothing fancy. Um.
But like the guy that I saw doing one, he
had dug a hole in his garage, a very narrow garage. Um.
They call it an inspection pit, but really it's for
like weel changes and things about how deep would say
it was, well, you know what you'd want to be
either sitting on a stool, you know, so you're comfortable
underneath it, or standing if he wanted to stand underneath there. Um,

(56:27):
So you have to kind of like you have to
measure everything very carefully. Of course, he had tiled his
in with stone and the stairs, so the way he
gets into his is he um uh. Since this one
person operating this, he'd drive in right to a set
point and then kind of like almost like kind of
worm his way underneath there onto the stairs to get
underneath the car. So it didn't look very comfortable to

(56:48):
get into because you know, it wasn't If it was longer,
you could just stand up right and walk right in
go into the car. But he had a smaller garage area,
so you know, even though there are stairs there, it's
great to help me climb out, but you're doing that
on your hands and knees. Probably, I don't know, man,
I felt a way of a claustrophobia just hearing that description. Yeah,
I mean it's not. But again, the thing is like
it's not out of the reach, and it's not something

(57:10):
for the ultra wealthy. It's not something that you know,
you have to have a pile of money layer on
to do. You can do it, I mean, it's not
You should definitely have all this stuff inspected and checked out.
You know, if you're not comfortable doing something like this,
you know, please have somebody come in and install that
lift for you. Of course, I mean you want to
be safe about it, but and you might even have to.
You might have to have somebody install, um, you know,

(57:32):
a safety inspection. I would bet the company that sells
these things, you know, make sure that there's some kind
of a certified um individual that comes over and check
things out to make sure it's bolted down correctly and
all that, because so yeah, you don't want to, you know,
want somebody putting something like that in their house and
it's be just like this huge re liability for the
company that built it. You know. Yeah, I just I look,
I just don't want to be sitting under a car

(57:54):
on a little stool in something that's slightly larger than
a coffin. Yeah, you know, yeah, that's that's the way
that these look to they look like, um, they're very
very small. It's not like the big ones that you
see at the oil change place, you know, like and
you always will have an open hole in your garage.
Then of course that's another danger factor is you know
if somebody uh you know pulls in and they've got

(58:15):
their you know, they're gonna make a sharp turn to
get out of the garage or something, you know, to
maneuver around something, and a wheel goes in there. That's
gonna be expensive. I mean, no matter what kind of
you could put a metal grade or something over it.
But again you're starting to get more and more expensive,
and you know, like you know, it's just it's it
becomes more and more complex. There's something is still a
little nerve racking about crawling under a car that's up

(58:35):
on a jack or up on jack stands. Yes, there is.
I take the whole Yeah, take the would Yeah yeah, okay,
I mean if I if I had my druthers, yeah,
I'm with Kurt on that I would, I would want.
I would want like a hole with an L shape
at least that you know, it goes out from either
the back or the front of the car and then
curves around so you have a workspace under there and

(58:57):
you can walk down the stairs like a man instead
of a worm. Like. Yeah, but see, I mean you're
just you're just opening up a larger hole in your floor.
Every know, it's a great plan. Yeah, it's well, yeah,
you're an idea guy. That's it's you know, it's it's
the thing is like, it's just it just becomes more

(59:19):
and more complex as right as you think it through.
And and yeah, these are great to have, and it's fun.
It's fun to say it and everything, like, it'd be
great to have a pit, you know, it would be
so much so much easier to do this oil change.
You know, if I had to pit down there, but
just think of having that pit around year round for
you know, a couple of times you needed or um,
you know, not being able to do certain things. I
think they would be frustrating too. It's like if you

(59:40):
had if you had a great pit that was already
dug in the bins basement, and there's certain repairs that
you can't do in the pit, you know, like you
have to do the above ground just because of acts
you know, you don't have access to it. So, um,
there'll be that frustrating side of the whole thing too.
But I mean the lift would take care of a
lot of that. I mean, it would take care of
you know that's yeah, lift under the way you had

(01:00:01):
access above you have four posts. Yeah, I mean it
to be safe, I guess it would be safest. Um.
But anyways, I think that, like again, I hope this
this whole show didn't like just come on glued when
I started mentioning all this other stuff. But I really
do feel like there's just a lot of really smart,
affordable or even free things that a lot of people

(01:00:23):
could do to their grudge that they're just not thinking
of right now. Are they don't have the time to
to put to it. If they did, though, they might
find it to be a much more enjoyable place to
be and they might actually get more work done on
the vehicle that they want to work on. You know,
it might just be more pleasant place to to go
in and hang out. And I hope that message is
getting through to a lot of people, you know that,
you know, just spend a little time decluttering and cleaning

(01:00:46):
and thinking things through a bit if you can, you know,
and have have somebody that's good at organization take a
look at it with you and that helps too. You know,
if you have a friend that's good at that type
of thing, have them look at it. And there's a
ton of information online and a lot again a lot
of pensive ideas, but a lot of really clever ideas
for storage and um you know, just simple like simple
garage makeover ideas. A lot of them do get into

(01:01:07):
the expensive cabinets and you know, stone countertops and that
type of you know, stuff you don't need, um, but
but look within your budget, you know, make it, make
it work, and I think you're gonna be happier with
it in the end. Really, I mean, I really do
I think that that that's what I've learned through this
whole process, and again I need to get mine in
much much better condition. But I'm already seeing progress and

(01:01:29):
I'm happy with it. Oh. I would also say, I
think it's so cool to have a sound system in
a garage. Uh maybe maybe not a TV. I'm still
kind of torn on the TV. You know. I'm not
big on the TV because I don't spend that much
time out there, you know. I mean I do go
there and hang out occasionally, just you know, sit on
a milk crate in the corner, you know, and and uh,
you know, listen to music and work on something that

(01:01:51):
can hold in my lap or at the at the um,
at the desk or the not the bench top, um,
goof around stuff out there. It's it's just a nice
place to do that. And yeah, I'm not crazy about
like just going out there and hanging out. I don't
have a couch. I don't have It's not like a
like a den or anything like any like you don't
have like a cooler, a yetie cooler or something. They

(01:02:12):
don't have anything. Like Some people do that kind of
thing though, like they bring you know, they stock a
you know, refrigerator, full of beer and they pick a couch,
like a couch they picked up again at a thrift
shop or something, you know, throw throw a rug out
there and you know TV on the wall, and you
know they're watching the game out there, but it's not work. Yeah,
that's transformed into something. Yeah. That that's what you just

(01:02:33):
don't do the work you plan to do. Yeah, that's
that's that's that's that's really that's that's pretty funny. Yeah,
that's a that's a good point. Yeah, and mine's not
to that point. And I don't even think I wanted
to be at that point. I just wanted to be
functional and I wanted to be comfortable. And I think
I'm getting I'm getting there. Well' getting the lighting probably lighting, yeah,
I think lighting, and maybe even the door instulation now

(01:02:55):
that Ben's convinced me that that's the way to go. Hey,
got beat that summer heat somehow. Yeah. And you can also, uh,
you can get some pretty easy solutions if you want it.
I don't want to say it's lazy, but if you
feel like time is it a premium for you, you
can pay someone else to do it too. Yeah. You
know that's another thing that I found is that. You know,

(01:03:16):
people are treating their garage space now like they treat closets.
Like when you get a custom closet made. A lot
of people have you know, someone come in and consult
them and say, here's what you need. You need these shelves,
you need this many like crazy, Well I know, but people. Yeah,
they have people come out and kind of consult them
and tell them what they need. And you know, you
you tell them what you want out of the out

(01:03:37):
of the space and they will provide it. I mean
it's expensive again, but um, that's the way people are
doing this now. There's there's garage reorganization tricks that people
are using, and you know they're also sharing them online,
which is nice. So like if you if you have
some ideas, get online sharing with with other people in
the community that are excited about that type of thing too.
And yeah, who knows, maybe you know, some of the

(01:03:58):
stuff will be something that you can see yourself doing,
or maybe some of the stuff is just so outlandish
that you don't want it. Um, like I'm not crazy
about like customer, you know, the lighting and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah,
I don't need anything like that, And I'm not I'm
not really sold on like epoxy floor coating or anything
like that yet. UM paint is fine for now, you know,

(01:04:18):
just an outdoor paint, but something durable. But yeah, there's
certain there's like different levels that everybody's comfortable with. And
just find your own level, find your own budget and
uh and do it and you'll be happy with it.
And let us know what improvements you have made to
your garage. Let us know what you got hilariously wrong
if you're in that situation, so that we and your

(01:04:40):
fellow listeners can learn from those mistakes. You can send
your garage war stories to us directly. We are car
stuff at I heart radio dot com. We also, you know,
we'd love to see any pictures you have. If you
are one of those people who got a wild hair
and dug your own inspection pit man, I want to

(01:05:00):
see that. Yeah, I would too, before and after photos.
That'd be kind of cool. That'd be super cool. That
would be in the meantime, let's see, Uh, I'm going
to start a shady emission stand. You're moving into the
Russian landfill turf and and and Kurt, I guess you're
gonna you're gonna be selling secondhand portable garages. Yeah, so
we've got stuff to do between now and then. So

(01:05:23):
I guess we'll have to get reports back from each
one of us about what's what's up right, that's right,
all right, let's do it all right, See you guys,
see guys next week. Thanks for listening. Car Stuff is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for
my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

(01:05:45):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.