Ready to take your garage from drab to fab? We're diving into the nitty-gritty of crafting the ultimate garage space, where dreams of hot rods, workout zones, or even a pet paradise can come to life without the chaos or cash drain. I mean, who doesn’t want a man cave that doubles as a DIY workshop and a dog retreat? We’re dishing out the secrets on flooring, lighting, and all those little touches that can make your garage the envy of the neighborhood. Plus, we’ll share some hilarious tales of our own garage adventures—trust me, there’s a lesson or two in there about what NOT to do! So grab your favorite tool (or snack, no judgment here), and let’s get this garage party started!

Takeaways:

• Planning is key when building your dream garage; start with a solid game plan to avoid chaos later.
• Choosing the right flooring for your garage is crucial, especially if you're working on cars or projects.
• Invest in good garage lighting; it can transform the space from a dark cave to a bright workshop paradise.
• Consider adding a hot and cold water spigot in your garage for easy clean-up, especially in winter.

Links referenced in this episode:

• aroundthehouseonline.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Lifetime Green Coatings
• Microsoft
• Home Depot
• Harbor Freight
• Vivor

Mentioned in this episode:

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Foreign.

Ready to turn your house into the home you've always dreamed of without the headaches or huge bills.

You're tuned to around the House, the nation's number one home improvement radio show and podcast with expert advice that's helped millions tackle everything from remodels to repairs.

Hosts Eric G. And John Dudley have got you covered with the best advice and information about your home.

Now let's get this hour started.

Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining me today.

I'm Eric G. John Dudley.

Great to see you, brother.

It's happening, man.

Happy April.

I can't believe it.

We survived April Fool's day, which is never, never fun out there because you just don't know if someone's playing that your favorite band person is no longer around or something goofy is going on.

Or always that, right?

There's always that out there.

There's always that.

Well, I wanted to talk about today fun for us, building the ultimate garage.

Like dialing the garage in for no matter what you're doing sometimes, like me, it's collector cars, tools, projects.

Some people it's like, hey, I'm putting my pet stuff out there for my dogs.

Or it's the workout room or it's the man cave with the pool table and the in the kegerator.

Everybody's got their own dream garage idea, but I thought, let's talk about building one today.

I've had a few of those actually.

I like.

Cheers.

Let's talk about yours for a second, man.

I love the Carriage House with the band studio recording room upstairs.

That was the best one by far.

Compared to my white trash re salvaged pool table that I refelted myself but just had wood edges all the way around stapled on pockets.

And Yeah, I was 24 and a little bit drunk maybe.

So work a little janky, but yeah, far cry from the studio we built in the carriage House.

But yeah, several.

As a bass player, dude, I did not like those stairs.

You need an elevator.

Well, that's because you guys need an amp that's too big compensation for I.

Don't know, that Ampeg stack was like moving a refrigerator every Saturday when we played a show.

That's why they call them the Fridge man.

Exactly.

But you can't beat them.

Nothing sounds like.

No, it sounded awesome.

So that's why we did it every time.

When the bass player is making the drummer feel bad, you got to too big of a rig.

I just remember trying to get that 2 inch tape machine up there.

I was like, oh, someone's gonna get hurt.

That was tough too.

Not fun.

So first to me, the first thing you need to think about is it's just all planning, right.

It's just coming up with a game plan because I see so many people out there that go about it the wrong way.

They get things out of order and then all of a sudden when it gets out of order, you got to tear stuff out and do it twice.

Yeah.

One of the biggest things that I say is figure out first what your flooring is going to be out there.

Because if you're going to have a company come in and maybe do an epoxy coating or something like that, you got to take everything out of there anyway.

Yeah.

So that's kind of the best place to start.

Now if you're going to paint it first, I'd say paint it, get it all done.

If you got sheetrock up in there, maybe you bought a newer house and it's drywall in there.

Whatever.

Well, get that stuff done so you don't have to worry about getting it on the floor because they're going to grind it off anyway.

But get that kind of plan figured out of what you're going to do.

Because you might need more electrical, you need, you know, you might need some ventilation, you might want AC out there, you might need a little mini split.

What are you doing out there to make this enjoyable?

But the flooring thing is big.

And I'll tell you, the biggest mistake you can make on any kind of a garage flooring situation is going down to your home improvement store and buying the absolute stuff that you see on the shelf for concrete floor coatings.

Concrete paint.

Yeah.

No, yeah.

It will last you days, not years.

Yeah.

It's horrible.

It's horrible.

It is one of those things that I sit there and just.

And I've learned this lesson myself.

When Bear came out with their two part coating system.

Sheesh.

20 Plus years ago, I put new concrete down, I let it cure.

I followed all the directions, talked to the rep, put it down, let it cure.

Let it cure like twice as long as I was supposed to.

First time I rolled a car in there, it peeled up off the floor like it was dinner plate sized and had to follow with the rep, go through all that stuff.

I did that thing three times before they paid a company to come out to strip it off and for me to punt and say, this stuff isn't going to work.

Wow.

It was like a four month process.

It was a nightmare.

And from Then on I went.

I am never going to buy an off the shelf floor coating for concrete ever again.

No.

Well, I spent a couple of years working doing waterproof coatings and huge parking decks.

Microsoft and all those big buildings downtown Seattle and we did a ton of that stuff and epoxy coatings and polyurethane coatings and silica sand and.

Not that.

So you're preaching the choir here.

Yeah.

Don't paint your floor, especially in a garage.

Well.

And there's so many cool things that.

I mean the epoxy is one thing.

That's great.

There's another company out there that I like what they're doing and this is not an endorsement.

They're not paying us at all for this.

But they could if they wanted to call me, of course.

But it's a, it's a franchise out there called Lifetime Green Coatings.

What I like about them is it's a non toxic kind of eco friendly base coat, but it's made out of gypsum and castor oil.

Wow.

It's non toxic but it's an epoxy alternative basically.

And the cool thing is it's food safe so you can put it in restaurant floors.

You can put it in.

And it has some grip to it so it doesn't chip off.

So it's flexible.

So it's really great for stopping or keeping concrete from cracking sometimes because it's causes this kind of membrane over the top that holds it all together.

Yeah, that's exactly how the 3M polyurethane stuff worked.

I mean that stuff was incredibly strong.

I mean.

Yeah.

And still probably is.

And you're talking about the eco friendly piece.

That's really super cool.

Yes.

But it takes a lot of the fun out of it because nothing like,.

Oh, do this right.

Nothing like bathing in toluene to make the job a little funner.

Yes, that.

Yeah.

So no, no harsh chemicals or unpleasant odors.

So no crazy VOCs and all that stuff.

So I think it's a good way to go.

And it's flame resistant as well, which is good.

So I like that kind of stuff out there.

But really coming up with that plan first is key.

And I tell you what, if you're doing a car garage in there, I think it's really important to do that because you're gonna have that oil dripping.

And I don't care if you've got a new car or not, you've got all this junk coming off your car.

You might as well have it where you can clean it up, because otherwise you get those cracks and the.

Just even the.

The snow and road grime that falls off your car on a rainy day is messy, and it's always going to have a little staining to it.

So why not start out with something clean?

Yep.

Yeah.

Stuff's great.

Hose it.

Budget.

They've got the snap together ones too, which are awesome.

They're kind of like those that.

The problem with those is they're hard.

They're kind of ventilated, so they've got some openings in them that are small.

Problem is, is dirt dust kind of falls down through that many times on some of those.

The harder ones are better because it'll just stick in the cracks where they snap together.

But for me, by the time you spend that, why not spend a few hundred bucks more and just have somebody come in and do a durable coating so you're not adding that extra three or half inch to the floor in there.

Yeah.

They both work in their own right, and.

Yeah.

And they both got arguments.

Right, to.

As to effectiveness, as to duration of life, etc.

Etc.

Yeah.

I mean, if you're a renter, the snap together makes sense because you can just pop them back up and take them with you when you go to the next house and not have to worry about it.

Where you better be getting the.

The sign off of the.

Of the homeowner or the rent.

The.

The rental people that are renting that to you, because you might want to get your deposit back at the end.

Of it, even though you did them.

A favor that way.

When you start modifying houses, trust me, I know.

I've had that.

But I say just throw down a bunch of mats and.

And roll around.

Practice your jiu jitsu in there.

And then you just don't have to worry about coding.

Yeah, that works.

Hang a heavy bag, get a squat machine, squat rack, call it a day.

I saw somebody for that that went out and bought off, like, Facebook, Marketplace or Craigslist.

They bought old wrestling mats from the high school.

Yeah.

And cut them to fit.

They're expensive, dude.

I was gonna do it at the last house I was in here, and because I had huge space for it.

First of all, finding actual, like, real old school wrestling mats here in Colombia was very difficult.

But you could find them the big, giant roles just like you had in gym class, right?

Yeah, but, man, they're pricey.

Thousands of dollars.

Yeah.

I was like, whoa, man.

It's just a little spongy mat.

Come on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, they get you good on those.

It's because the school districts will write the check for it.

So you might as well just keep an eye and if somebody wants them, they'll get them.

Yeah, true.

They can't be that expensive to produce.

All right, when we come back, guys, we're going to talk about something that we haven't talked about on the show before.

What if you want to put a lift in your garage to maybe like double the car parking space?

We'll talk about that just as soon as around the House returns.

Playing instruments.

What's up?

This is Sticks it in you and.

Satchel from Steel Panther and you are.

Listening to around the House with Eric G. Yeah, we love Eric G. And you should too.

Welcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining us.

Today.

We've been talking about building out that deluxe garage.

Whether it's your workout room, it's your automotive shop or your hobby place or just a place you're keeping the pets in the wintertime that can be your own fun right there.

But Johnny and I were just talking about before we were going to break here about what if you wanted to store a lot of cars in that garage.

And so many people have a two car garage with an 8 or 10 or 12 foot ceiling depending on what's in there.

One of the most popular things out there that's getting more affordable are those four post garage lifts where you could pull the garage the car.

It looks like you're in an automotive shop.

You can put your, your convertible you drive in the summer, in the summertime up on the top and put your daily driver underneath it.

Yeah.

And works pretty good.

That's great for guys.

You brought it up earlier.

You love working on the old classic cars.

And I, I had a buddy, Carrie Waite that I went to middle school with in Auburn, Washington.

But just always a smart kid.

Ended up being a successful hedge fund guy starting his own firm.

Right.

Long story short, loved old cars.

So he'd buy these old 50s Corvettes and, and just that was his thing, man.

He'd go out and work for hours in the garage restoring them.

And I was like, wow, dude, you're living big around here.

Yeah.

But it was super cool.

Yeah.

And it was for exactly that because he'd have one junker below or one junker above.

One nice one below.

Yeah, yeah.

It's good.

And they make ones that are low lift so if you've got shorter cars, you can put two cars in with a lower garage.

You know, I like the four post lift, I think for most people because it's easy and you don't have to have some crazy footings underneath it.

Because if you think about it, you got to have about 4 inches on average, depending on the model.

Take a look at the specs for each one.

Got to have about a 4 inch pad, which isn't that hard in a garage with those four posts.

And I think it's smart.

Now, there's a lot of debate if you get online, you go down the rabbit hole there, whether you bolt it to the concrete or not.

Most people do because I don't want that thing moving around.

If we had an earthquake or something,.

I want to talk to the people that wouldn't.

Right.

Who would not lock that thing down.

Seen them on YouTube, brother, where they're in there and they're like, oh yeah, I want to move it out of the area.

And they've got wheels that they can jack it up and move it around and rolled around like a big table.

And I'm like, okay, I don't want the legs moving around.

I don't want to have a car over the top of me and have that moving around.

At the very least, create a system, right?

That's maybe you got to turn a few bolts to unfasten it, jack it up and get the wheels.

But yeah, no, you got a lot.

I don't want things out, doing goofy stuff like you got a 500 pound person sitting on one of those plastic Home Depot chairs.

I don't want a 57 Corvette hitting the ground if it's.

Oh, no cargo, man.

Keep it secure.

Yeah.

And so really, I think those are a great way to go.

You can really get some affordable ones.

They're anywhere from like the basic ones are like three to six thousand bucks, you know, and I would get something good.

I would not go over to TEMU or something like that.

Try to order something.

Hey, no, you know what I mean?

Because you want to live with it.

But get something that's rated for the US It's UL listed.

That's actually meant for here.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

I'll stop, man.

I tell you what I.

We had.

I'm not gonna.

We talked about this.

I talked about it.

You weren't in this episode, but we talked about it.

Midweek special.

There's one company out there.

I'm not gonna get into this rabbit hole, but it's Something I think valuable.

It is a company out there and let's just say it, their website's very orange and it's not Home Depot, but this company goes out and they basically knock off Harbor Freight or a lot of the tool manufacturers.

They painted the same color orange and they put it up on there.

Well, when I was doing my research to talk about how they're ripping off other companies, I saw the lawsuits of the 399 or whatever it was.

Air compressor style jack that would lift the car up a foot, almost like a scissor lift.

And it would lift the whole thing up of it collapsing on people while they were under it.

Dude, this is certain things you don't skimp on.

You don't go cheap when there's a car over your head.

Yeah, it's one of those things that I just go.

And I'll just say the company Vivor V E V O R. But I'm like, man, no, I'm not going under something that I bought from the discount automotive site.

No, yeah, no, like I said, there's certain things.

Man, these is tough.

Yeah.

Oh, I saved 100 bucks on my fall protection equipment.

No.

Yeah.

And I say that knowing that there's been plenty of times I've been stupid, not due to skimping, just by being a risk taking derelict.

But yeah, buy the right stuff for the right job.

Yeah, we've all done that.

It's one thing to buy.

But here's the thing, it's different to go buy a inexpensive knockoff hand tool, for instance, than it is to turn around and go, hey, I'm gonna buy something that I'm depending on my life sustaining by using this.

I want to have something that's gonna hold up a good four post lift in the US now for as cheap as 2,700 bucks, which is even cheaper than some of those other discount Chinese websites, which I like because that saves us a little bit of money.

And of course we're not putting something that's not rated in the us it's sketchy in our own garage.

You're not putting your own life at risk.

How about let's start there?

Yeah, that's a good spot to be.

I mean, just saying.

Yeah, you're not wrong, brother.

Here's the thing guys, you might need check the power requirements for each one summer 110.

Some are 220 depending on what you got going on, but really come up with that plan.

So you get the electrical out there, get it dialed in and be ready to go.

One of the things too, that while you're doing this, I think is important is figuring out too, what is how are you going to heat it, Are you going to cool it?

Where are you at in the country?

You down in Florida, where you might want a dehumidifier and a AC unit, or are you up in North Dakota?

We're going to put in a pot belly stove and, and warm it up that way for six months out of the year.

So think about what you're going to be doing in there and how you want to use it and how you're going to make it enjoyable.

Because it's still a garage, but you want to be able to get out there and work or do whatever you're going to do and be comfortable while doing it.

Yeah.

It's usually the last thing you think of is ventilation and air quality in that confined environment, unfortunately, because you're like, oh, it's just the garage.

Right.

We've talked about it on several episodes now.

The importance of airflow, cleaning the air, getting the humidity out of there, mold issues.

There's a lot of that to consider, especially if you're going to, if you're creating a, let's say a living space.

Like even if it's a gym, even if you put a gym out, gonna get hot, it's gonna get humid, you got to get that out somehow or you're gonna have issues.

You can have moldy Christmas ornaments or whatever.

Yeah.

And in, in it, by the way, if one person in your house is the car person, the other one's the workout, the gym garage person.

If you're out doing the brakes and you're spraying brake clean everywhere, you might want to have that ventilation in there.

So someone's not getting high when they hit the, hit the cardio machine out there.

Yeah.

Or just buy a gym membership is probably the best bet if you're gonna do that.

Yeah.

At least when you don't use it, it's just money coming out of your pocket versus space.

That's my theory.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm not one to go out and buy all the gym membership stuff and, and do that, but I do have one now and I'm actually starting to use it with my physical therapy stuff now.

But I'm not one to go out and buy the, the, the $12,000 bike or whatever you see out there to go in your house because I know in six months it's just going to be holding clothing or something else up.

I, I, I've tried it and I am no good at working out at home, but no, I need to go to the gym for the sake of discipline more than the equipment.

That's period like, that's just how it works with me.

All right, when we come back, we're going to talk about a few more things in the garage and some other things like lighting that make a huge difference.

We'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.

Don't change that.

To.

Welcome back to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're just joining us, we've been talking about how to design out that garage space to really make it the most of what you want it to be.

And if you want to find out more information or if you've got a question or comment about this, feel free to hit us on our website.

Website and aroundthehouse online.com.

Well, Johnny, it's funny because we get through all this stuff and I think lighting is one of those things that we forget about because so many builder basic garages had two light bulbs at tops.

Yeah.

Usually one single in the middle.

Yeah.

Just the bare minimum.

And there are so many things you can do.

I love the new, like hexagon light systems.

You can put in with LEDs that go across the whole ceiling.

Yeah.

And they give you that even light in the space.

I think lighting is such a key that we miss in the garage that nearly every builder forgets when they start building.

And the.

The garage door opener companies have done an okay job with it by adding more light.

But I still think, man, when I did my last garage, I put in recessed can lights on a lot of it.

It was so nice to do.

Yeah.

Because it really lit things professionally and it looked good while you're in there.

Yeah.

Well.

And it's just less frustrating depending on what.

Actually it doesn't matter what you're doing if you're working on cars or you're building hobby horses.

Like, finding a screw in the dark is not fun.

Right.

Oh, man, where'd that go?

And just on top of that, it's bad for your eyes.

On top of that, it's bad for your attitude and mental health and like, it.

Lighting is huge.

And I think we don't realize that in a lot of spaces, not just the garage.

Really.

Dude.

And the older I get, the more lighting I need.

You're not kidding.

I honestly, I.

It bums me.

I need lighting or I get bummed out.

I'm like, oh, that's a very Dim light.

I can't stand it.

Depressing.

Well, for me, it's restaurants, man.

I tell you what, I go to a restaurant and I'm like, yeah, my favorite are bars that they have the light underneath the under cabinet light where you can go.

Actually hold your menu down under there and go, oh, there we go.

Right?

My favorite.

But that's one of those things that really makes a difference.

And lighting doesn't have to be.

I did a video when I was down at the builder show with JASCO Pro.

They've got a new light coming out that is a.

One of those hexagon big hexagons you either mount or hang from the ceiling, which is super cool.

And what I like is they've got three different ways you can wire it in.

You could put it into an outlet.

You could put it into a light socket because it's led, so it doesn't take much.

Much electricity there.

And then you can tune it so it's not like the ones you get like on Amazon where you're sitting there and it's.

Well, it's gonna look like a 5,000 or 8,000 Kelvin refrigerator light.

That makes you look like a bad government office space.

Right.

I want it a little warmer.

I don't need it to be super crazy.

Way beyond daylight mode.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Too stark is almost as bad as too dark.

Yeah, man, it kills me, but that's.

What I'm talking about.

See how it affects your mood, how you feel, how you ask anyone who spends their days under fluorescent lighting or just the wrong.

It's so bad.

Yeah, big difference.

Yeah.

And restaurants spend a lot of time on lighting, just like jewelry stores spend a lot of time on lighting.

Jewelry stores are probably the most of putting in the right lights to get the glimmer, to get the.

It's all part of that.

Yep.

Yeah.

No, it's a great reference, actually.

They spend so much money in lighting just to get it.

So you walk in and go, that's the most beautiful thing.

And then you get home and go, that's okay.

Totally.

Big difference.

It's all part of that.

It's all part of that.

So really planning that out.

One of the other things, too, that can be interesting in there too, is that it's depending on your ceiling up there.

If you've got a drywalled ceiling, like many newer homes, they do that as a firewall or something, so you don't have the.

The fire go up.

But you get into homes built before, usually the 90s, and maybe they didn't drywall that up there because they had a little less on the fire code.

But even going through and drywalling a space in there can be really nice just to be able to get you the clean ability and to have a flat surface to mount things to.

Because I tell you what, when you've got that open rafters in your garage, I'll tell you a trick.

And this will put on a dust mask, face shield and safety goggles.

Take your leaf blower and knock that down once out there.

Ah, no.

You want to see what you missed on cleaning day.

Yeah, yeah, that's.

That's everywhere.

Or don't do that and just hang drywall.

That works too.

That works.

I know you're gonna tell me to clean it before I hang the drywall.

You said just.

Well, it's nice.

Yeah, I feel like you clean something.

The other trick is too, is if you're gonna be doing stuff out there, listen to music or you're gonna be, you got band practice out in the garage.

Throw some rockwool insulation in that space.

Yeah.

Because it is awesome.

Said sound deadening.

And you can make that sound like a recording studio in there.

It is that quiet.

Yep.

Expensive, but yeah, mandatory.

It used to be.

Yeah.

Not as bad as it used to be, but yeah, you'll pay a little more over fiberglass, but one, you get the insulating.

Excellent point, excellent point.

But yeah, that's some of those things like that.

And.

And here's another piece of advice from someone that's made this mistake before.

When you get the kegerator, you gotta think, because are you really going to drink in a week or two a keg full of beer if you are by yourself?

There's plenty of programs for you out there.

But let's be legitimate, dude, you're going to be throwing a lot of beer away.

It sounds good.

You might put a better beer fridge in.

Unless you got a lot of friends coming over for fight night or something.

That's a regular thing.

It's cool until you get the tap caps, taps and everything.

And you got to clean it up and you go, this is a lot of work.

I'm going to say.

I'm not sure how to approach that.

But there are certain people that we won't name that could probably drink a keg of beer a week in past instances and points of their life.

Only if it was Corona, right?

Yeah, Certainly you remember the hefty bags full of 12 packs of Corona bottles that we used to have to lug down the studio stairs.

And I can say that I remember going on a walking trip during our break.

It was always 13, 14, I think, for the price of that bottle.

12 Pack.

Yeah.

Around the corner.

Yeah.

And generally speaking, I'd go through a couple of those in a practice.

There are certain people a keg might work for, but today that's not the case for me.

Right.

But you bring up a valid point for the other 98% of the normies out there.

It's.

Yeah, maybe not a good idea, but.

No, that's.

And that's why I got out of brewing beer.

I used to brew beer 25 years ago, and then I went, oh, my gosh, that's way too much to drink of.

Okay, beer.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And you weren't calling me over at that point.

Why?

That's before I moved to Tacoma, so that's before my time, so.

Valid excuse.

Yeah.

And I. I was only making dark stuff because that's all I knew how to make back then anyway.

So it wouldn't have been your.

Your type of beer to drink.

Let's say I'm too thin to be putting that kind of weight in me for as much beer as I used to drink.

There we go.

I like to drink 30 on a light.

Bas 2.

There we go.

Now, one of the things, too, is check your local building code where you're doing this stuff out there, because many times you need to have that GFCI outlet protecting everything out there.

So just be very careful as you're adding circuits out there, whether you're putting in the.

The car charger or the lift.

Follow that local building code so you can make sure you get the electrical right out there.

It does make a difference.

It's a safety thing, and you want to be really careful with that.

One of the other things before we go out to break in a minute is plan a space for where you're going to put your power tool batteries, because those, when damaged, can really light up and cause a fire.

So what I'm seeing people do now is I saw a cabinet that was in Home Depot the other day that was a really nice, pretty thick metal cabinet.

It was a Milwaukee one, and it was pretty much looked like it was made to store batteries in.

And if you can do something like that to contain a fire.

Awesome.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

It's a good idea.

My rule is, is never, never leave the shop space with batteries.

Plugged in, in the charger and usually you'll be okay.

But even a non charging unattended battery can light itself off.

A lot of the better batteries, they won't do that because they've got that built into them.

But be really careful.

Treat them as they're low quality batteries like you got off something off a no name brand on Amazon or your local import store and just treat them right and put them in a safer spot.

You'll be in a much better spot than some of these fires we see out there where they've got the, the scooter catches on fire in the living room and now the apartment complex gets burned down.

So yeah, use a little common sense with that.

It can make a big difference.

Difference, yeah.

The unfortunate part is that's usually the last thing you do before you leave the garage is, oh, better get those batteries charging for tomorrow.

And then you leave them right there.

All right, we go out to break here.

I want to touch about a few more things when we're talking tool storage and stuff when we come back and some of those other things around the house just as soon as we return.

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Well, John and I have been talking about building that ultimate garage and we'll talk about some other things for storage.

But I think one of the coolest things that I've ever added near or outside of my garage was an outdoor water spigot or hose bib that had hot and cold and a mixing valve in it.

Dude, there is nothing like, oh, it's wintertime or it's cool and I gotta clean something up or I gotta go wash something up.

And you can not have to take a bucket in the kitchen sink and get some warm water out to clean stuff up.

Because there's nothing cuts grease like soap and warm water versus cold.

Yeah.

Now in the northwest especially, I mean, it's such a simple thing that that never gets done.

You know what I mean?

Instead you just, you have to go out and wash whatever and you come back in the house, you're like, oh my God, I can't feel my hands.

Yeah, exactly.

No, It's.

Yeah, it's a luxury item.

At that point you're like, oh, this is heaven.

So here was a little trick that I had.

Every two or three months, you'd have to clean out your hot tub.

Right.

And put fresh water in.

Yeah.

What I would do is since I had an 80 gallon heat pump water heater, it was way cheaper to heat it with that originally than to take it from 45 degree water up to 105, let's say.

Yep.

So what I would do is I would take that hose, put it all the way over in the hot, fill that up out there till I was almost out of water.

Especially when nobody was home during the day.

I didn't care if I had hot water or not for a little bit.

So I would throw that out there, fill that up, and I was already cut my reheat time by half on it with cheaper heating water.

Yeah.

And it was way better for that.

Yeah.

It's a smart move.

It saved me a ton of money on that.

Because you'd notice the power bill spike as well as my water spike of putting 500 gallons in there.

It's probably.

I just put.

I just put fish in mine instead of cleaning it.

There you go.

El Natural.

But that's one of those things.

You just kind of think ahead for that stuff.

But I tell you what, there's nothing like that spraying, spraying your boots off with mud coming in.

It's just nicer to hit it with warmer water and you can just get that grease cut a little bit better.

So just don't get any crazy ideas if you live where it's freezing.

Because if you go out and try to hit your windshield with your car, for instance, with the hot water and you want to break, that's a good way to do that.

So, yeah, it's not a de icer.

Don't use it as that.

That or the windows on the house for that matter.

That.

Either way.

Either way, no need to cold shock things with hot stuff.

But.

But it was nice for cleaning stuff up.

We had somebody drop something out on the.

They're leaving.

I think they dropped their food dish and had stuff all over in the wintertime.

And I was like, this will work.

I'm not going to create an icy mess right here.

Yeah.

I'll tell you, man, I wish I would have thought of that.

And it's easy.

When I was living in the Northwest, oh, man, I was always out there, just.

Yeah, you come in, your hands are just bright red.

You're like, oh, yeah.

So yeah, that's one of those.

And especially if you got like the hot water heater in the garage or close to it, it can be really easy because you can just take a line right off of it.

It's not hard to do and it's just a sweet deal for that, so.

Makes life so much easier with that.

And the other thing too is garage storage.

I'm a fan of totes because you can seal them up a little bit for putting stuff away.

I love the big, heavy duty, almost hardware store metal shelf systems that you can put in there to really hold things and not have.

I've built wooden shelves and they hold up because I build them stout.

But then you're like, oh, if I could only move this shelf two inches.

Yeah.

There's so many major remodeling project and.

There's a ton of great systems out there now that you can.

You're like, oh, I want a bigger space here.

Pull this section out.

Move the.

It's like Tinker toys now.

And they're super strong.

You can put a five gallon bucket of paint on them.

You can.

Yeah, yeah.

Big.

I love the Packout system for the Milwaukee.

Packout system for hanging stuff on the wall and stuff for tool storage.

Yeah.

They have got that dialed in.

Other companies have their own versions of that, but Packout really was the one that came up with that storage system because it's meant for trades people to put it in the van and store and drive around with it.

So it's perfect.

A little expensive.

It does add up when you're talking about, well, that that container is a hundred bucks or this is that you can spend some pretty penny out there.

But if you start just kind of going along with it and if your spouse is.

Will you just clean up the garage?

Sometimes the answer can be, I know, but I gotta go spend a thousand dollars on storage stuff.

And they're so tired of the garage being dirty, they're like, let's go to the store.

Do it.

Yeah.

And you got a bunch of new toys.

Yep.

I throw that one in there, brother.

Like when you are gonna start to build that new deck and your spouse is going, hey, let's get that deck project going.

Awesome.

Well, I need a new first.

I need.

Yeah.

Figure out when you budget the project to make sure you get the right tools in the project so then the next project's easier.

Yeah.

Not only that, as long as you do get the deck built, there's no complaints about the new chop saw you bought.

Absolutely.

You just kind of slid it into the project price.

If you get the deck done to 80% and leave it there, you're gonna be in fire.

It's gonna be a problem.

Yeah, don't do that.

You bought that new saw.

Yeah, absolutely.

So everybody out there knows that goes.

A long way with that.

But if you got the kegerator in the garage and you had a few too many, you kind of forget that and the priority falls and then you're then.

Yeah, then you're in deep twice.

And don't be using the kegerator and the power tools at the same time or after.

Yes news are you're drunk and the deck's 80 done.

Your Airbnb.

And yeah, you hope you put a couch out in that garage because you're gonna need it and a divorce lawyer at the same time.

That's how that works.

Another thing that is getting really cool out there is garage doors.

They have come to next level.

Dude, the one you showed me from the convention was ridiculous with the.

Yeah, clopay.

I tell you what, those guys have just gone next level on garage doors.

And what I'm talking about.

If you haven't seen the video on our around the house HQ, I got a video over there on YouTube.

But this garage door has what looks like clear glass in it until you hit the light switch basically next to it that you wire in, and all of a sudden it's like an LCD type screen.

So it's like, it's clear and then it's like you turn the TV on and all of a sudden it goes opaque.

Yeah.

And what a great way to do that.

So cool.

It is awesome.

Hey, I want to see what's outside.

I don't want to see my neighbors.

And you can turn it off and on from opaque to clear.

And I think that really opens up with them, the future.

Because now I think what they can do with that is they're going to be able to put your holiday decorations.

If you want to have a Santa Claus garage door or something.

I see that coming down the road.

Because now they absolutely had a panel that.

Yep.

And make it so you're gonna be able to do what you want on there.

I think you're gonna be able to make it so the garage door will glow wood grain if you wanted to,.

For instance, or your family crest or.

Yeah, yeah, whatever you want.

That's the next step on that little venture right there, for sure.

The other thing I love about that idea is working in a dark, cold garage isn't fun.

Working in a warm garage Is fine, man.

But if it's still dark.

And again, I'm back to the northwest.

Right.

When you can not have to leave the garage door open for that extra natural light.

Yeah.

And just switch.

Keep the door closed, keep the garage warm, but still get the natural light coming in and not feel so in a box.

Nah, that's huge.

And they've done such a great job of insulating.

Fifteen years ago, they were throwing in styrofoam panels.

And I'm going, oh, it's insulated right now.

They're putting spray foam in these things when it's being made, so there's no voids.

It's not something that's rattling around in the door.

It's just dialed in, ready to rock.

And it's quiet.

And literally it's like a 2x4 wall that's right there.

As far as quietness, you won't hear what's coming through that door.

You'll hear it through the sidewall of the garage before you hear it through the door.

Which is another cool thing.

And it's impressive.

They're building these things.

Hell for stout as well.

My garage door that I had had double rollers on each panel because it was so heavy duty.

So instead of just having a roller, they had two rollers right next to each other that would glide that thing.

And it was like the stealthy garage door.

When you hit the button, you could just barely hear it going.

Yeah.

And that's cool.

And the other one that they have too is if you've got a garage door that you don't want to have the big tracks over the top.

They now have them where it's the versa stack.

So the panels go up and then stack over the top of the header and they drop down so you don't have that big track.

So if you had a car lift in there or something, you didn't want to have to worry about.

It's all self contained on the exterior wall.

So there's no over the top.

Save yourself at least a foot of clearance by getting rid of that.

Oh my gosh.

Right, so now if you've got a chain hoist in there or anything else, you're not messing with that track.

And yeah, that's a huge deal there as well.

Honestly, I'm surprised it took that long to figure something like that out.

That's one of those.

How did we not have that at least 20 years ago if not?

Well, I mean, they had the.

The roll up like storage unit doors, shall we say?

Right, right.

Roll ones.

Yeah, which were about as good as it got, but they still.

But you're not gonna put that on your house.

I mean.

That's right.

Looks like a storage unit.

But the.

The vertical stack vibe is smart and should have been thought of earlier.

In fact, you should have thought of that, Eric.

And we'd be on the beach right now.

Absolutely.

I like it.

Speaking on the beach, we're gonna have to call this a show here, brother.

We blasted through garages faster than we thought we did.

Hey, guys, if you want to find out more about us, head over to aroundthehouse online.

Com.

I'm Eric Jeed for John Dudley.

You've been listening to around the House.