Presumably, no one is more concerned with the condition of his garage than a car collector, since this is where he keeps at least some of his prized possessions. But that’s not necessarily the case, says David Brynan, a specialist for the Gooding & Co. automotive auction house in Santa Monica, Calif., and himself a collector of cars. "It’s interesting to see the different ways that people store their collectible cars," says Brynan. "Some people just shove them in a corner and cover them up with a tarp. Other people keep them in a pristine setting. I guess your personality is reflected in how you store your car."
Mitch Silver’s idea of the perfect garage suggests that he is organized and has an appreciation for aesthetics. Silver is the founder and owner of Silver Auctions, an auto auction company in Spokane, Wash. "You’ve got to have your mechanic’s corner, with a lift and all your tools lined up," says Silver, who has a personal collection of more than 100 cars, and whose company displays from 75 to 80 cars in a 30,000-square-foot facility that once was a Tucker dealership. In the Silver Auctions facility, Silver has installed flooring that, he says, accents the cars. It’s black and green, 2-by-2-foot checkerboard squares. "The colors are kind of a pastel, kind of an avocado green," he says. "The floor screams ’50s, and most of the cars in the shop are from the ’50s."
Silver also likes the idea of decorating a garage with automotive memorabilia—or automobilia—such as porcelain signs, neon signs, and gas station pumps. "The original stuff is the best," says Silver, whose company conducts automobilia sales, "because it goes up in value, sometimes faster than the cars do."
The following companies offer products—storage systems, flooring, parking lifts, and garage doors—that may or may not increase the value of your garage, but they certainly will improve its functionality as well as its appearance.
Cut the Clutter
One solution for a cluttered garage is to transfer the contents into a dumpster. Another, more palatable one is to install a storage system. Storic Storage Systems, a company based in Austin, Texas, makes a wide range of adjustable wall storage panels and cabinets designed for organizing workshop tools and sports equipment. The company offers nine different storage options for sports equipment and 16 for tools. It also has more than 60 storage-related accessories. The cabinets and wall panels are available in five different colors, including two wood tones.
At its manufacturing facility in Bend, Ore., Baldhead Cabinets makes 18-gauge, rust-resistant metal cabinets for its Custom Series, a modular system consisting of nearly 100 different types and sizes of cabinets. They range from models that can accommodate a flat-screen TV to ones that can hold a pair of skis. The cabinets in the Custom Series collection feature ball-bearing drawer slides capable of supporting 150 pounds, self-closing hinges, concealed magnets that hold the doors closed, kick-plate bases, leveling legs, 1.5-inch-thick maple butcher-block tops, adjustable shelves, and foam pads in the drawers that prevent the contents from moving around. The cabinets are available in six standard color combinations, including the popular black and red. Custom colors and stainless steel fronts also are available. "We had one customer who owned a lot of yellow Corvettes," says Baldhead owner Eric Fleming. "So we made his cabinets with blue bases and yellow doors to match his cars.
"With most of our customers, the cabinets are an image thing," continues Fleming. "When you own a multimillion-dollar house, you don’t put a Kenmore refrigerator in it. You get a Sub-Zero or a Viking, though they all keep your food cold. It’s kind of the same thing with the cabinets. Our customers like that their garage is organized once the cabinets are installed, but that’s not the main thing. What they really like is having the high-quality cabinets in their garage."
Moduline cabinets are made by Gill Metal Fab, a sheet metal company in Brockton, Mass., that uses CAD and computer-controlled manufacturing processes to ensure precise construction. In addition to storage cabinets, the company also makes drawer-unit tool cabinets and countertops. All of the cabinets feature a modular design that allows you to create a configuration that best suits your space and needs. The cabinets are made completely of aluminum, so they won’t rust and they won’t attract dust.
Fixing the Floor
By clearing the clutter, a storage system exposes the floor of your garage. That can be an especially welcome result if you have a tile system or floor coating from GarageTek, which has franchises throughout the country and also designs and makes complete organization and storage systems for garages. GarageTek’s ProTek plastic tiles are slip-resistant and stain-resistant, and they "float" above the floor (they’re not attached to it), so that air flows under them and prevents mildew from forming. The tiles are available in a number of sizes, colors, and patterns, including game boards such as hopscotch and shuffleboard. The company’s ProTek floor coatings, which can be applied in a single day in any season of the year, saturate the concrete, instead of just covering it, as epoxy and other coatings do. The coatings are UV-light resistant, so they won’t fade, and they are resistant to oil, salt, and gasoline stains. The coatings come in eight standard colors and 100 custom colors. GarageTek also will produce custom patterns or logos.
DiamondLife's top-of-the-line XFloor system consists of interlocking tiles with aluminum diamond plate tread surfaces. The company says the tiles won’t scratch, scuff, or dent. The tiles can be connected or disconnected quickly, and they don’t attach to the floor; their weight keeps them anchored. The tiles are available in silver, black, red, and blue.
Over and Under
What do you do when you have, say, four cars and only three bays, or you live in a city neighborhood where a multicar garage is as rare as a front lawn? American Custom Lifts’ array of residential lifts includes the PhantomPark subterranean line, a two-deck underground parking system that can simultaneously lift a pair of 7,000-pound vehicles. When lowered, the lift is completely concealed, offering no indication that a second car is sitting under the car that’s parked at garage level. The company, which is based in Escondido, Calif., and has service centers throughout the country, also offers a selection of four-post and single-post lifts that will add an extra parking space to your garage. The Maximum One single-post lift, which can accommodate a vehicle weighing 6,500 pounds and has a lighting height of just under seven feet, offers some advantages over the four-post lifts. You have unrestricted access to the driver’s side of the bottom vehicle, and you’re less likely to catch a side-view mirror or ding a door than you would be with a four-post lift.
A car turntable from Los Angeles–based Carousel USA won’t create additional parking spots the way that a lift will, but it can make existing space more convenient, or even safer, by eliminating the need to back out of a narrow driveway onto a busy street. In fact, the story goes that company owner John Thomson founded Carousel USA after determining that a vehicle turntable would address a parking problem at his home. The house had a narrow driveway and a big oak tree growing near the front of the garage, both of which made it difficult for him to maneuver his SUV in and out of the garage. Thomson was dissatisfied with the turntables that were being sold, so he established Carousel USA to build better ones.
Grand Openings
A finely crafted entry door can make your garage’s exterior as inviting as the new and improved interior. Hahn’s Woodworking Co., in Branchburg, N.J., has been making custom garage doors since 1984. Its founder and owner, Scott Hahn, has been involved with garage doors since he was a child: His grandfather and then his father ran a business that sold and serviced overhead garage doors. "So by nature, when I was a kid," says Hahn, "I spent most of my summers around the business."
After graduating from college with a degree in industrial arts, he changed his mind about becoming a teacher and went into the garage-door business, as a manufacturer. His company’s construction method includes a meticulous sealing process that prevents any moisture from seeping into the wood. In fact, Hahn’s doors come with lifetime warranties.
In addition to garage doors, Hahn’s Woodworking Co. also makes all other types of exterior doors as well as interior doors.