Hoarders here I come!

I have finally decided to finish the walls in my garage. I looked it over and figured I could do the shop area first. I was just going to push all my stuff that I have there into my garage bay where the bug usually is. That didn't work out so well. I have so much CRAP that it didn't fit. I was blown away at all the stuff I crammed into the little shop area. Here are some pictures of the mess. This is what I started with. Funny thing is, it didn't look too bad this morning until I started moving it.

 OK here is the shop area. I wanted to get this part done first so I needed to remove everything so I could have lots of room to mud and do my texture on the ceiling. When we bought the house I told them not to put drywall in the garage. I was planning on wiring and insulating it the way I wanted to so I figured it would be easier to have them not put the drywall up in the parts they didn't have to. I walked in one day during the time my house was being built and I saw that they had put drywall up in the garage but they had not mudded it yet. I figured that was OK so I told them not to mud the garage. It would be easier to take the drywall they had just put up down if it wasn't mudded. Well, the very next day I checked on the house and they mudded it. Argh! So after we moved in, I removed all the drywall on the walls of the garage and wired it with lots of plugs, 2 telephones and cable TV. I then put the drywall back up and so it's in pretty rough shape.

Here I have started taking out some of the stuff. My plan was to get the shop cleared, and get a 2nd coat of mud on the walls and finish putting tape where I didn't put any on the first time around. I also wanted to get the ceiling in the shop textured. I figured if I could accomplish that , I would only need one more quick mud job, and then a quick sanding and it would be onto prime and paint.

 Here is the one side of the wall. I put up a lot of signs and stuff in the 7 years we have lived here. I removed all that stuff. The slick on the wall is Dale Earnhardt Sr's from California Speedway. I went to that race with my Dad and Brother many years ago.

Here is the other wall with more crap that needed to come down.

So you can see how quickly the one bay of the garage is getting filled up. I swear when everything was moved I totally felt like a person from the show hoarders. I am actually quite embarrassed about the mess. I guess it's almost spring so I can count it as spring cleaning.

 So, here, almost everything is moved out. It's almost ready for some actual mud to go on the walls. I really butchered the window area when I removed the Sheetrock from the walls. If you look closely, you can see where I needed to tape and mud it. It was the worst part of the shop area.

Here is where my bug usually stays. Not for a couple weeks now.

 Here it is after I spent a few hours mudding it. I think it's looking a ton better. I got everything taped and I started texturing the ceiling way in the back left corner. I was a little intimidated about texturing the ceiling because I have never done it before but that turned out to be the easiest part to do. I have actually never mudded before except for little patches. If you have any tips or tricks, I would be glad to hear them. I have been picking my buddies brain for a week on his techniques and stuff. It really helped. This definitely won't be perfect but it will be plenty good for my garage.

 Here is the other wall. The area around the door was pretty rough also. I spent a lot of time there. I didn't meet my goal to have the whole ceiling textured but it took a lot longer then I was planning to get everything moved out. Oh well, there's always next week.

So check out the blog in the future to see how this whole mess turns out. I have lots of big ideas. I am hoping to paint some flames on the wall that currently has the nova hood on it. I also am going to paint that hood so it looks good and it will end up being hung on the ceiling of the garage. I am also going to paint my flammable cabinet with some cool old style hot rod flames. It's a flammable cabinet, shouldn't it have flames? Can you sense that I like flames? There may also be a VW symbol that gets painted on a wall somewhere. Time will tell. In the mean time, please don't call hoarders on me.