Garage Makeover and why I am not happy with Home Depot

Our garage wasn't terribly awful but it was still embarrassing to have anyone walk through it. It was definitely an area my husband I wanted to organize. It was pretty far down on our "to do" list. When our vacation got cancelled this summer, we knew that we would have the time to focus on our garage. Now, August in the Houston area is stinkin' hot. We are used to it. We did most of our work in the morning when it was bearable.

We started out by removing everything from the garage. That was no small feat. The big quandary was, where in the world would we put everything? We ended up putting a great majority in our guest room. The rest fit on our back porch and the side of our house with a tarp thrown over it in case of rain.

my hard-working hubby

We painted the walls first. We chose a green we had used on the inside of the house that we both loved. We purchased an exterior paint from Lowes in this color and went to work. We put Kilz on the wall first. We ended up putting two coats of the green paint to ensure that the walls were properly covered. When we moved in 15 years ago, the garage walls were finished and painted. Unfortunately, the paint they used was watered down and sprayed on the wall. It was just awful. When applying the Kilz, some of this original paint started to come off in big pieces. We think it was a result of the cheap paint application and perhaps the heat and humidity. Slowing down when applying the Kilz seemed to help.

Lookie - one of my young men helping out!

Next we tackled the floor. We just wanted a plain grey floor. Nothing fancy. My husband cleaned the floor and then applied an etching solution to prepare the concrete to receive the paint. He then applied a base that would make the paint adhere to the floor even better. That was followed by two coats of the special grey paint. We had to allow it to dry for 5 days before we could even pull the vehicles back in. Unfortunately, we noticed that some of the grey paint adhere to my front tires and we had a little removal of paint. We will touch it up when it gets cooler. Other than that, we are very pleased with how it looks. We have plans to purchase some floor protector mats to put under the car and motorcycle to further protect the floor.

We purchased a beautiful Gladiator storage cabinet from Lowes for my husband's motorcycle gear. It is very sturdy and I love the silver diamond plate finish on the doors. My husband is adding lots of motorcycle decals to customize it. No, I did not steal the sign from the side of the road!

I also ordered a large custom designed sticker for the wall of the garage. It is a diamond plate Suzuki "S" with black wings.  Love it!

We ordered some Husky shelving units from Home Depot. They were the perfect fit and just what we needed! They look awesome with the grey storage boxes from Wal-Mart. These boxes come in five different sizes, so we were able to get just the sizes we needed for each item.

Here are my categories:
Three open top boxes that hold: 1) spray paint cans, 2) car cleaning tools and 3) things we use most often (flashlights, hammer, pencils, measuring tape...)
Shoes (with no top on the box so we can just slide it out to get the shoes)

open containers: one for car
washing items, another for
items we use most often

Garden
Pet
BBQ
Nails, Screws, Drywall anchors
Tapes, glues, sealants, ropes & string
Automotive tools - fix a flat
Automotive - Brake fluid, WD40, Carburetor Cleaner
Automotive - Inflater, Battery Charger
Miscellaneous - Chalk line, knife sharpener, chisel, caulk tools
Painting tools
Plumbing
Patio Pillows
Small Paint Cans (I put all those little quart jars in one box for easy access)
Bug sprays & traps
Extension cords
Electrical
Skil Saw
Drills & bits
CostumesEaster/Valentines
Easter/4th of July/Memorial Day
Fall

We pulled the shelving units away from the wall
so that we could slide our folding tables here

Christmas (I'm embarrassed to say how many)
Flowers


Before - oh the horror!



After - I love it!

Warning - Gripe fest ahead. We had to special order our storage racks from Home Depot. The floor area designated for the storage racks is a strange size (23 1/2" inches instead of the standard 24" - thanks Mr. Builder) and the racks we needed were not carried in the store. Hugest mistake of the project. I have never cared for Home Depot or their terrible customer service. Their handling of this order has further cemented my dislike. I usually order everything from my beloved Lowes. Unfortunately, the racks carried by Lowes didn't impress me. We ordered them on August 17th. I called customer service on August 23rd to check the status of my order. They couldn't tell me anything. I asked to cancel the order and was told that I couldn't do so because we were too far into the order. What??? They hadn't charged our account for the racks and they showed that they hadn't even shipped. Nope. They refused to cancel the order. I called back on August 29th to once again check on status. Again, the customer service lady had no idea what was happening with my order. It was past the latest date estimated I would receive my order. It hadn't even shipped to the store! She assured me that I would get a call back from "Brandon" that day. No call back that day or through the afternoon of the next day. I finally called back on the afternoon of the 30th and asked to speak with a supervisor. They refused to connect me with a supervisor even though I asked to speak to one three times. I was polite ya'll. This poor customer service lady didn't deserve to receive any of the frustration I was feeling. It was so tempting to just let her have it. I didn't. She put me on hold and placed a called to "Brandon" herself. She came back on the line (not a supervisor) and told me she was on hold with "Brandon" and was trying to find out the status. She said her supervisor didn't want to talk with me and asked her to handle it. Seriously? Come to find out, the shelves were not even in production yet. They wouldn't even be made in the factory until the 4th and they would be shipped out on the 6th. Ridiculous.

My order was placed on August 17 and was ready for pickup on September 6. The website stated that the longest it should have taken was 12 days. It took 21 days.

So, I picked up my order from Home Depot on September 7th that was supposedly "in production". Look at the picture to the left to see the "hot mess" we got. Some old returned boxes all taped back up. One of them had "1 of 2" scrawled on it, so it was obviously the part of an old order that was returned. I was seeing red after the Home Depot guy brought the boxes to the front. After we opened the box at home, we discovered that several of the pieces were bent. My husband banged and bent the pieces back into shape. We just didn't want to have to go through this reordering nightmare again.

Home Depot will NEVER get an order from me again. Their shoddy treatment of me is the last straw.