Remodeled garages

George Weissgerber feels right at home in his Rockville garage. By day the director of research and development with District-area Case Design/Remodeling Inc., Mr. Weissgerber loaded up his garage with a computer, TV set and insulated walls to keep his family comfortable.

“In our garage, we do store some stuff, but mainly it’s a workshop for us. We’re into soap box derbies. I’ve never had a car big enough in there for me to fit in,” Mr. Weissgerber says.

Not everyone uses the garage so extensively, but many of us would like to use our garages more than we do.

An April survey by Harris Interactive shows that half the men interviewed called the garage “the messiest room in the house,” and 28 percent said they wanted a better-organized garage. The survey was sponsored by GarageTek of Greater Washington, which custom-designs and installs garage organization systems featuring tongue-and-groove walls placed over existing garage walls.

Mr. Weissgerber made some common-sense adaptations to create more room in his garage. When he remodeled his kitchen, he used the leftover parts to help clear valuable space in the garage.

“Instead of the cabinets hitting the dump, we installed them in the garage. They make great counters and workbenches,” he says.

Mike Wixted, Home Depot’s mid-Atlantic trainer, says the modern homeowner sees the garage chiefly as a storage area for seasonal items such as Christmas ornaments and lawn-care tools.

Homeowners can install shelving units to help stave off the clutter, says Mr. Wixted, who admits with a laugh that his own garage could use some straightening.

Shelves keep everything from power drills to paint cans off the floor, which makes for a more visually appealing garage and prevents mildew in damp spaces.

If the homeowner is concerned with metal shelving rusting with steady exposure to moisture, plastic shelving runs only between $40 and $50 for a 6-foot-high ensemble.

Such shelving doesn’t require tools to assemble and is a “fairly strong” support system.

He says many homeowners don’t bother to use their garages to store the family car. It’s common in split-level houses to close the garage off and use the driveway as a parking pad, he says. Then, the homeowner opens the wall between the garage and the home’s interior to create more living space.

“People run businesses out of their garages, raise tropical fish in them,” he says.

Mostly, garages serve as a “catch-all storage area,” says Peter Belman, president of GarageTek of Greater Washington.

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