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From Garage to Football Den
For many Americans, the arrival of fall means one important thing. Football season is back. If your home does not feature a giant plasma screen television, or a man cave for your football viewing pleasure, you may be wondering where you'll be watching the action this season. Rather than fight for a seat at the bar, and be forced to sit next to obnoxious fans of the other team, take a look at the space within your own home. Many homeowners do not get much use out of their garages during the winter. Do not let that prime space go to waste. This fall is the perfect time for you to transform that cold, unused space into the football watching den of your dreams. Here's how:
Prepare Your Space
Initially, your garage may seem like too rough of a space to be converted into a comfortable lounging area. Many garages feature dirty concrete floors, unorganized tools and junk, and paper thin walls and doors. You do not want to invite your friends into a dirty, drafty space to watch the game. Instead, start early with garage organization. If you are like most people, your garage may have become the junk collecting space of your home. Start by sorting everything within the garage. Toss anything that does not have a purpose. Find simple storage options for your tools, kids sporting equipment, bikes, and anything else in your garage. Look for options that are easy to use and easy on the eyes. Nobody wants to relax and watch football in a cluttered space.
Garage Doors: To Insulate or Not to Insulate
With winter quickly approaching, many families across the country are readying their homes to be cozy and warm. Power and heating costs are consistently on the rise, so it's no surprise that many families turn to insulation as a method of retaining heat and lowering energy costs. Many heating experts would recommend insulating windows, doors, and sealing any less than airtight entry way that cold air could possibly use to sneak into your home. Many people attempt to insulate what is often the coldest room in their home, the garage. This can be tricky, as garages are usually the least airtight space in a home. Add in the fact that garage doors are typically lousy at keeping the cold out, and you are left with a chilly work space each winter. It certainly seems like a good idea to insulate your garage and garage door, but is it worth it? We will run you through what you need to know about insulating your garage door this winter.
Cold Spaces
Is Your Garage Child Safe?
Many new parents take extra precautions to ensure that their home is safe for their little one. Parents cover up electrical sockets, block off risky flights of stairs, and store dangerous substances out of a child's reach. Not many parents, however, take the extra step of child proofing their garage.
It is no surprise that a garage is not a friendly place for a young child. Full of potentially flammable substances, dangerous tools, toxic chemicals, and even garbage, childproofing your garage is not just a precaution, but a step that's absolutely necessary in ensuring the safety of your child. Below are a few steps that you can take to prevent dangerous garage situations involving your child.
Keep Them Out
The easiest precaution when it comes to garages is installing proper doors and locks to prevent your child from accessing your garage. Children are often drawn to areas they are told are dangerous, or areas they find mysterious, so put proper obstacles in place to prevent your son or daughter from accessing what is most likely your home's most dangerous location. Consider a self-locking door to provide peace of mind. You do not want your child wandering into your garage without you knowing about it.
Protecting Your Property from Raccoons
While it is hard not to find these mask faced, ringed tailed bandits adorable, raccoons in and around your home can be a real problem. Sure, they have a cute appearance, and look more like little cartoon characters than real pests, but they carry with them the possibility of disease and the destruction of your home and garage. If you have raccoons in your home, or are simply looking to fortify your property from them, below are some tactics to employ to remove raccoons from your home and keep them out for good.
Native to North America, raccoons live nearly everywhere in the United States. They are resourceful and intelligent, and are commonly drawn to human areas looking for food and shelter. If you have raccoons in or around your household, you have reason to be concerned. Despite their cute appearance, they can become easily irritated and aggressive, leading to safety concerns. Their bites could transmit parasites, or worse, rabies, which is why it is necessary to handle raccoon interactions with caution. Not only are they dangerous health wise, they can cause extreme damage to your home or property if not driven away.
Brightening Up Your Garage with Fluorescent Lighting
If you are the type of person who does a lot of handiwork in your garage, you will want to be sure your workstation is well lit. With poor lighting, it is difficult to make precise measurements and accurate cuts. If you do a lot of painting, you will want to be sure your colors look good in proper lighting. There is no reason to strain your eyes when there are better, inexpensive lighting options out there. Florescent lights provide brighter, more consistent lighting with a color rendering index of at least 85. While many garages and garage door openers come with built in bare bulb lights, the fact of the matter is they often are not powerful enough to get the job done.
To take on this simple project, all you will need is a cordless drill, wire cutters, metal bushing, screws, nuts, and the florescent fixtures and lights. First, remove your current lighting with the drill, wire cutters and any other tools you may need. For safety purposes, make sure your power is turned off. Now put in your florescent fixtures that will hold your new bulbs. You will want to make sure to buy 8 ft. fixtures that can hold 4 ft. bulbs. Using sets of 4 ft. bulbs is typically easier to maintain than the longer 8 ft. ones.
How to Deodorize Your Garage
Musty smells can make your garage an unpleasant place to be. Because it acts as a home to grease, oils, yard supplies and other chemicals it is inevitable that your garage will develop a stench over time. Even after removing these smelly items, your garage will hold its stink due to lack of ventilation. Follow the steps below to remove the stench for good and make your garage an enjoyable place for your whole family.
Put Your Smelly Items Away
It is impossible to get rid of all the smelly oils and chemicals in your garage, so the important thing to do is limiting the area they cover. Keep all of your odorous items in one place, ideally in a sealed cupboard or shelf. Make sure all the items are sealed. It also helps to store an open box of baking soda alongside them to help combat the smells.
Clean Your Floor
The garage floor is where most of your garage's smell comes from. For this reason you must thoroughly clean your floor with a solution of bleach and water. Use a broom and brush vigorously. Be sure to target any specific stains and neutralize the odor with coffee grounds or kitty litter.
Garage Pests: Carpenter Ants and Termites
Termites and carpenters ants are threats that we do not often think about until it is too late. Homeowners often neglect to check for these devastating pests during the summer months when they are most active and swarming. One of the main places that these pests nest in is a house's garage. Garages attract carpenter ants and termites because they have wood frames and areas of the wall that are not sealed properly and can provide easy entry. Garages also have higher levels of moisture than other parts of the house which attracts the insects.
Unlike termites, carpenter ants do not eat wood. They nest in it. Carpenter ants get their name because they dig through wood for their colonies and turn wood planks into piles of sawdust called frass. If you find strange, small piles of sawdust in your garage, that typically means you have a carpenter ant infestation. The longer these are left untreated, the more damage is done to your home. Carpenter ant colonies grow quickly, as they use the garage's wooden frame to build new nests and tunnels.
Turning Your Garage into a Home Bar
Something a lot of people have dreamed of at some point in their life is owning their own bar. Rather than trekking across town to pay for overpriced drinks, you could host your family and friends and avoid crowds. While owning a bar is not a possibility for everyone, building a bar is a project that almost anyone can tackle. And the perfect place for this project is the most underutilized room of the house - the garage. While your garage might not initially seem like the comfiest place to have a drink with your friends, after a little clean up and paint job it will soon become your new favorite hangout.
Step 1- Clean Up
No one wants to drink in a room filled with dust and cobwebs. Take time to clear out any unnecessary junk from your garage. After that, be sure to do a thorough sweeping and mopping of your floor. Make sure you wipe down the walls of your garage as well. Your garage should be clean and inviting for your future guests.
How Garage Insulation Can Make Your Home More Energy Efficient
In the hot summer months, we all depend on our A/C to keep us cool. However, constant A/C usage can cause your energy bills to skyrocket. One key to keeping your bills low, but also staying cool, is to ensure your home is energy efficient. One way that many homeowners waste energy is through interface problems with their attached garages.
When built, a house's outer walls are insulated with materials to prevent heat loss and air flow to the outdoors. Homes with attached garages, however, often lack this insulation on the walls facing their garage. These walls may have holes or gaps in them, unintentionally left over after construction.
In the winter, the temperature in a garage mimics the outside weather, and in the summer, that temperature can sometimes rise even hotter than the outside air. These temperature differences cause air conditioning systems to overwork to compensate for the air that seeps through these holes. Additionally, these gaps are a safety concern. Garage fires (which we have previous discussed on the blog) can spread to your house through these small holes.
Converting Your Garage into a Guest Bedroom
If a home office, gym, or bar is not your thing, but you are still looking for a way to overhaul your garage, consider converting your empty garage into an extra bedroom for your home. An extra space to sleep is ideal if you have family members visiting often, teenagers who want more space, or want to start renting out rooms for additional income. Additionally, adding an extra bedroom will increase the value of your home. That being said, converting your garage from a dusty, car storage to a cozy accommodation is a lot of work. Depending on the type of room you want, this project will cost anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000. You may want to hire a professional contractor for some parts of the process as well.
The first step to creating a new bedroom is insuring you have the necessary permits to convert your garage into a living space. Every town has different zoning laws for these types of things, but typically you will need a permit from your city or town to start the project. After that, you will want to start the conversion by removing your garage door and all its parts, and replacing it with a wall. Unless you have some sort of background in construction, this is the part of the process where you will need to consult a professional. When the new wall is put in, be sure its siding matches the aesthetic of the rest of your house. With the new wall put in, you will also want to be sure to insulate and drywall it, and ensure the other walls of the garage are properly insulated.
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