I installed the first of three overhead storage racks along the back wall. This one is 2’x8′ since it has to clear the attic stairs, but the ones in the other two bays will be 3’x8′ to give us a little more storage room. The other two are still on their way, so I’ll have to get to those next week.

My dad and his friend came over and helped me install the new garage cabinets. These are really well built and very solid, and will be a great addition to the garage.

I added a couple of long power strips to the wall above the work bench. I had to open these up and rewire them so that they’re connected together and the cord is super short. I also mounted one of the Craftsman C3 chargers on the wall to the far right.

I had a local epoxy company install a 100% solids epoxy floor. I’m super happy with how this turned out.

Here’s a closeup. You can see that there is 100% coverage of the epoxy chips and we added some refractive chips that produce small specks of color across the surface. Everyone who’s seen it loves it.

I fabricated a cover plate for the lift base. This is made out of 1/2″ thick steel, so cutting it to fit the hole and surround the lift column took several hours with a grinder. It took several more hours to weld on supports underneath and shim it to be flush with the concrete. It’s absolutely rock solid now.

The installer came out and finished up the new side garage door opener. Despite my request to watch the new paint, he managed to get his grubby hands all over the walls and ceiling, so I’ll have to clean and probably touch up the paint.

We tried a couple of times to fish a wire down the wall to the outlet behind the lift, but since this is an outside wall, I can’t get close enough to the top of the wall to make it work. We ended up installing a new 20A circuit in the ceiling and running it back to the subpanel.

I also added a new 20A circuit in the wall and ran this back to the subpanel so I have a dedicated 20A circuit with nothing else on it. I picked up a Hobart 140 welder to use on the project, and it needs a dedicated circuit to avoid blowing the breaker.

I also jumpered from the switch up to the horizontal outlet at the top. The undercabinet lights will plug in here so that they can be controlled by the switch.

I also added a new outlet and ethernet jack at the top of one of the walls for the TV that will be installed here. My dad gave me an old flat panel TV he no longer needs that we’ll use until we upgrade one of the TVs in the house.

The old wall controls for the garage doors had the wires just stapled to the drywall. They ran up the wall and then rather haphazardly across the ceiling to the openers. Since we’re trying to make the garage look pretty nice, I decided to run the control wires through the attic. The installation looks so much cleaner this way.

I added a key switch to the car lift so that we can cut power to the lift when we aren’t around. With young kids in the house and especially their friends around, we really want to be able to prevent the lift from moving. After raising the lift and then setting it down on the mechanical stop, you have to raise the lift slightly to release the safety catch. With the power off, you can’t pull the safety catch, so there’s no way to move the lift up or down.

I finished painting the garage this weekend. I sprayed the ceiling white and then painted the walls a two-tone gray with a red stripe down the middle. I’ll be adding some vinyl pinstriping at the top and bottom of the red stripe. Hopefully the vinyl will stick to the walls well enough.

You can also just see the new outlet I added at the far upper right of the wall for the new side opener that will be installed on Tuesday.