Chris Finally Finished the Garage

We had the garage built by professionals but left the inside unfinished so that I could do something that didn’t involve a computer. It’s been a real learning process with these tips that I can pass along:

Specify the exact electrical service you want. The contractor installed a 15 A service that left our house panel with #12 AWG wire, was spiced to a #6 AWG wires above the backyard, back to #12 AWG and used a 20A light switch as a disconnect switch. Lina and I cut it down and ran a 50A service underground which leads us to tip #2.
Always make sure the cable you are running through conduit will fit through all bends before you try and pull it.
The roof should be considered the reference when hanging walls and not the floor. The floor is crooked. Hello moulding to cover up gaps. Also, I had to make custom wall plates for all of the electrical because some of those holes were waaay too big.
When you tell the contractor that you are going to put storage above, make sure they add the correct support structure. The support beams looked like the hull of a ship after I added the storage floor and our books. When I aksed the contractor, he said “Oh, we add support if you want storage” This took me 2 days to add because the ceiling was half finished when we found the problem. It probably would have added $20 of material and 1/2 an hour to the contractor’s time to do it right.

The walls and ceiling are plywood because I read a book on drywalling and figured that that was too much work. Now I don’t have to worry where the studs. It was Lina’s idea to stain rather that paint the walls.