Hey guys. Thought I'd post a timeline/transformation of my build.
April 2016
Moved to a new house. My wife and I wanted to move, but we were barely looking and hadn't even listed our house yet. Well, I found a house that hit a ton of our wish list points and one of main selling points was a 36 x 30 detached garage w/ two double garage doors, plenty of windows, second floor loft, etc. It had a 100amp feed and was even wired for phone and cable. It's way better than the garage attached to the house! I was sold! I really have no idea why the previous owner built it. It would be awesome for classic cars, a workshop, or in my case - a gym. Original plan was for the gym to take up half the garage, so 18x30. Yeah right. My wife never steps foot into this garage - so MANIFEST DESTINY! I won't stop until it's a full gym!
Outside
Blank Canvas
Moving Stuff in from Storage
Thanks to STR8OUT and his 26' box truck, we were able to move everything in one trip from storage! I was pretty relieved not to have to make 10 trips to and from storage with my pickup.
Thanks to Cleveland33 for helping me put together the absolute brute of a rack. 3x3 7ga UCS. Even a single upright is heavy as all hell.
2016-2018
Over the past two years, I've accumulated a lot of equipment and sold off a lot. Here's where I stood at the end of 2017:
My daughter watching Goldie & Bear on my Hoist CF-2165:
Hammer Strength featured the gym on their social media accounts in 2017 - this was posted on IG, FB, etc.
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03-30-2018, 08:20 AM #1
Bench905 Home Gym Build/Transformation Thread
Last edited by Bench905; 03-30-2018 at 09:22 AM.
Garage Gym Owner
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03-30-2018, 08:21 AM #2
Early 2018
Last photo taken before I decided to finish the garage. Forgive the horrible stitching on the panoramic.
There were some days during the winter of 2017/2018 where it was just brutal. I'm in SE PA, so I'm sure there are MUCH colder climates with garage gyms. But it was getting not enjoyable to work out in the teens.
The Plan
The overall plan was to get the garage over 55° in the winter...that required insulation and heat. The first step would be insulation. Spray foam was too expensive and I wanted to DIY to keep costs down, so I went with faced batts. R19 for the walls and R38 in the ceilings which have 24 OC joists. Saved a good amount ordering in bulk.
The Plan Revised to Include Lighting
I'm starting to realize at this point that I really need to do it right. The entire first floor of the garage had 4 measly light sockets and I had 100w equivalent LED bulbs in there. It was usable, but pretty dim. If I was doing all that insulation, I might as well put lighting in before the insulation goes in.
I considered bigger garage/shop lighting, but I kept coming back to recessed lighting. I just love the look.
I also started to think about the summer and putting a fan in. I have a Harbor Freight 24" drum fan, but it kinda gets in the way, is very loud and kinda just pushes air across the floor.
Lighting Plan
The new plan includes 18 recessed lights, 200'+ of wire, dimmer switch, ceiling fan in the center of the room, etc.
I did quite a few diagrams in Excel trying to get proper coverage and not have much strobing (ceiling fan chopping up light coming from the recessed lights).
Heating Plan
The best solution would've been a mini-split. We don't have natural gas in my area unless I want to pay $30k to run it to the house. Break-even is probably when I'd be 220 years old. So my options were heat pump mini split, forced air electric, propane, kerosene/diesel, etc.
I really did NOT want to deal with refilling, so I narrowed it down to mini split and forced air electric. As costs were already getting up there, I decided to go the much cheaper route and revisit it in the future. I picked up one 5000w garage heater (ceiling mounted), but planned on getting a second.
These heaters are 240v and pull 20.6 amps, so we'd need a 30A breaker for each heater run.
Last edited by Bench905; 03-30-2018 at 07:25 PM.
Garage Gym Owner
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03-30-2018, 08:21 AM #3
First Step - Baffles
My plan was to treat the garage like a normal house - unfinished attic space and then living space below. That would require insulation between the two spaces (ceiling). For proper ventilation, I needed to be able to vent to the soffit. I installed attic baffles that went up pretty easy.
In that photo, you can see my new banner. I decided to name the gym because....why not? I had a logo designed and my wife had a banner made for Christmas. The crest in the center is the O'Brien crest.
Second Step - Light Housings and Wire
Ordered 18 IC rated recessed light housings and 18 daylight 6" LEDs, 250' of wire for the lights.
Lighting Complete
Honestly, this took longer than expected. I'm pretty much OCD, so they had to be perfectly straight. I also needed to staple all the wire runs.
Last edited by Bench905; 03-30-2018 at 09:14 AM.
Garage Gym Owner
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03-30-2018, 08:22 AM #4
Insulation
As I said before, did R19 in the walls and R38 in the ceilings. I originally bought an Arrow hammer tack and that thing jammed like crazy. Went to a Milwaukee M12 stapler and that thing was awesome. I also insulated the side of the stairs with R7.5 1.5" foam board cut to fit. I was able to keep almost all the equipment in place while doing the insulation and lighting with minimal obstructions. I was still able to fully work out in the gym up until this point.
Last edited by Bench905; 03-30-2018 at 06:58 PM.
Garage Gym Owner
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03-30-2018, 08:24 AM #5
Drywall Part 1
Before deciding on recessed lights, I considered a metal ceiling. But with that many holes to cut, drywall was the way to go. Before insulation was finished, I grabbed a Biljax drywall lift off eBay (local pickup). I knew it would take me a long time to finish, so didn't want to rent. I got a great deal, so should be able to resell for what I paid. I also picked up a Dewalt screwgun (for hanging the boards) and dewalt drywall cutout tool (for the large amount of cutouts I'd need to do).
At this point the stuff was getting in the way. I started moving as much as I could into the other garage - cybex plate loaded pieces, some benches, log splitter, etc. I tried moving my crazy UCS rack and it shattered a Harbor Freight dolly. All weight was off the plate storage and the other side was already on a dolly...so this was half the weight of the rack. 1k pound capacity my ***!
I also got my first delivery of drywall. 30 sheets of fire rated 5/8". I needed 5/8" for 24 OC ceilings. For added help against sagging, I glued the drywall to the ceiling joists using construction adhesive. At one point, I was doing this overhead and a big gloop must've fell in my hair without me knowing. It wasn't until the next day that I realized it - what a mess.
Using the drywall lift, I hung every ceiling board solo - but it took forever. I was doing this part of the weekend and after 8:30pm at night (after my kids went to bed).
Getting some of these boards into position was such a pain. The legs of the drywall lift were so wide that I had to clear a big spot. In some cases, I had to slide the boards over the cable crossover, over the lat pulldown, garage door tracks, etc. I pulled down the garage door tracks, garage door opener, etc. solo. Supported the opener with a ladder opened right beneath it.
Last edited by Bench905; 03-30-2018 at 07:19 PM.
Garage Gym Owner
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03-30-2018, 08:25 AM #6
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03-30-2018, 08:25 AM #7
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03-30-2018, 08:27 AM #8
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03-30-2018, 09:20 AM #9
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03-30-2018, 07:25 PM #10
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03-30-2018, 08:57 PM #11
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03-31-2018, 06:38 AM #12
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03-31-2018, 06:51 AM #13
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03-31-2018, 09:30 AM #14
- Join Date: Apr 2007
- Location: Pennsylvania, United States
- Age: 50
- Posts: 2,544
- Rep Power: 12955
This is fantastic. Pumped to see it all done. What's really cool is that when you finally do get decent weather you can open it all up which I can't ever really do in the basement.
I'm Western PA and this winter was brutal by our standards. I was valuing having my gym in the basement. Would have been a tough winter otherwise.▪█─────█▪ Rogue Barbell Crew #27 ▪█─────█▪
▪█─────█▪ Mech6 Crew #26 ▪█─────█▪
▪█─────█▪ Equipment Crew #83 ▪█─────█▪
Haven't been able to "rep" many of you for a year or more...not for lack of trying.
Home Gym: https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=175136471&p=1615740991&viewfull=1#post1615740991
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03-31-2018, 01:02 PM #15
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03-31-2018, 02:16 PM #16
- Join Date: Mar 2011
- Location: North Carolina, United States
- Posts: 3,176
- Rep Power: 20491
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do, than by the ones you did" Mark Twain
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats" H. L. Mencken
[]---[] Equipment Crew #42 []---[] ()---() York Barbell Club #18 ()---()
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04-02-2018, 08:05 AM #17
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04-02-2018, 08:11 AM #18
I guess posts can't be edited after a certain time.
Drywall Part 2
Close to finishing hanging the ceiling. Lot of cutouts...18 recessed, 2 garage door outlets, 4 junction boxes, ceiling fan box, etc. Took a decent amount of time.
Admittedly, I've never drywalled before, but I did watch a lot of Youtube videos. With 9' ceilings, I should have special ordered 54" drywall (rather than 48") and hung horizontally. When ordering the walls, I kind of messed up and ordered 10' sections and was going to hang horizontally. Proper hanging is still horizontal (up for debate) with the 1' section in the middle. Since I'm going to get mirrors for the center section, the crappy finishing there will be obscured. But by ordering 10' and not 8' or 12', I had to cut each piece to end on a stud...so that was a mistake.
So after doing ~50% of the walls horizontally, my buddy said that since you already have 10' sections and 9' walls, why don't you just hang vertically? Made sense. Based on what I'm reading, hanging horizontally gives a slightly stronger wall. But if I hang vertically, I'll only be finishing tapered joints and it should be cleaner. I switched to vertical.
Garage Gym Owner
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04-02-2018, 08:17 AM #19
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04-02-2018, 08:27 AM #20
ouch shots fired. lol
While we very rarely ever get along I know just how hard it is to find anyone to help you move something heavy so I can appreciate that about him.
Bench your space looks awesome. The only problem I can see with it now is that its gonna be so nice and heated in there your gonna loose some of that to your wife. When it was cold, dark and gloomy she wasn't as interested as she will be now.Best Lifts
BP 255
SQ 425
DL 435
OHP 195
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04-02-2018, 09:27 AM #21
Not that it mattes now, but any reason why you did not go for drop/false/tile ceiling instead of dry wall ? Is it cost or loss of height or both
Having installed drywall my self 10 years ago in the basement, yes, it is not fun . Mounting to ceiling is a b***ch.[M]===[6]▪ Mech6 Crew #35 ▪[M]===[6]
[]------[] York Barbell Club #80 (DD)[]-----[]
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04-02-2018, 09:41 AM #22
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04-02-2018, 10:39 AM #23
I didn't give them much thought honestly. I probably didn't really know enough about them to consider. I was just focused on drywall vs. corrugated metal. I was originally going for metal because they will reflect a ton of light, they don't need painting, taping, mudding, etc. But they were a good deal more expensive than drywall and cutting the 20+ holes in metal would be a lot harder than a rotozip through drywall.
Thank you. Honestly, my wife has no interest. She didn't even realize I moved from 50% of the garage to 80% and I did that like a year ago. She likes group classes and instructors. She's one of those people that thinks that if a group class "kicked your butt," that means it's working...which I think has been disproven.
Thanks - appreciate it. I also could have taken the photos at favorable anglesGarage Gym Owner
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04-02-2018, 11:02 AM #24
- Join Date: Aug 2008
- Location: Ohio, United States
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Much respect Bench, but NO THANKS!
I HEAVILY suggest you contract someone to do the mudding/sanding. Especially the ceiling, the size of your space is seriously giving me nightmares just thinking about it. I watched a crew of Latino-murican's do the ceiling of my garage and it was incredible, would have taken me weeks and they had it knocked out in a couple hours. So many holes to fill there, may god have mercy on your soul▪█─────█▪ Equipment Crew #58 ▪█─────█▪
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04-02-2018, 11:16 AM #25
I am getting quotes. So apparently now that I learned some DIY skills, my wife has a laundry list of spring projects. In addition, my class for the Spring just started up, so I'll have a lot of schoolwork for the next 6-7 weeks (I'm going for my MBA at night). With my job being a little crazy lately, school, additional projects, etc., it's all a little too much.
Those last pictures I posted are where my progress has stalled. I haven't done a single thing for the past two weeks due to work/school.
I'm planning on hanging the last bit of drywall I have and then hopefully get a crew to look past all the equipment in there and mud/tape/sand.Garage Gym Owner
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04-02-2018, 11:26 AM #26
- Join Date: Aug 2008
- Location: Ohio, United States
- Age: 41
- Posts: 7,281
- Rep Power: 39229
Very wise my friend, I'm 100% sure you have the skills it's just not worth the headache. When I did mine I picked out a crappy tape apparently and then compounded the issue by putting the mud on too thick, which resulted in HOURS and HOURS of sanding followed by never ending cleanup because I still had stuff in the garage. The crew that finished the ceiling had specialized tools and literally zipped right down the seams. The mud was so incredibly perfect we didn't even have to sand it before painting, it was like watching drywall circ-du-soleil LOL.
▪█─────█▪ Equipment Crew #58 ▪█─────█▪
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04-02-2018, 11:27 AM #27
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04-02-2018, 11:42 AM #28
Now THIS is a garage gym. I have huge respect for you and the amount of time and effort you're putting into this build to do it right. Urban is right though, finishing that drywall is going to be a huge PITA on your own... then again, you did mount all the lighting, run and staple down all of the wiring, and mount all of the drywall on your own. Maybe you're just a sucker for punishment.
Good thing you've got some BB.com friends who can help with the tedious stuff like mudding.. right Cleveland? lol▇ ▅ █ ▅ ▇ ▂ ▃ ▁ ▁ ▅ ▃ ▅ ▅ ▅ ▇
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04-03-2018, 06:28 AM #29
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04-03-2018, 06:12 PM #30
Thanks. If anyone is curious on an equipment list, here it is:
Legs
Hammer Strength 45° Linear Leg Press
UCS Glute Ham Developer
Cybex Plate Loaded Kneeling Leg Curl
Cybex Plate Loaded Leg Extension
Legend 6008 LeverEDGE Unilateral Trap Shrug/Lunge/Deadlift
Icarian Seated Calf
Back
Hammer Strength ISO Row
Hammer Strength ISO Low Row
Hammer Strength ISO Front Lat Pulldown
Icarian Lat Pulldown
Chest/Shoulders/Arms
Cybex Plate Loaded Converging Chest Press
Cybex Plate Loaded Converging Shoulder Press
Cybex Plate Loaded Advanced Incline
Hammer Strength Seated Bicep
Streamline Pec Dec/Rear Delt
Misc
UCS SPS X-40 Power Rack w/ Plate Storage
Streamline Cable Crossover w/ 200lb stacks
Iron Grip IGX Rubber Dumbbells 5-120lbs
2x Life Fitness 2-Tier Dumbbell Racks
Nebula Skullcrusher Bench
Hoist CF-2165 FID Bench
Rep Fitness FB-5000 Flat Bench w/ Thompson Fat Pad
Rogue Dog Sled 1.2
~3500lbs of Troy GO Interlocking Plates painted Black w/ silver letters/numbers
Bars
Rogue Ohio Power Bar - Black Zinc
Rogue Ohio Bar - Stainless
Rogue Curl Bar
Rogue SSB
CFF Keystone Bar
Troy 5' Bar
York 1980s Split Sleeve
Recently sold my Streamline Chest Supported T-Bar Row, my StarTrac Airforce and some odds and ends.
I'm currently probably going to go to a half rack and sell my UCS. Will be curious to see how everything fits once I reload the gym...hopefully I'll be able to add at least another piece.Last edited by Bench905; 04-03-2018 at 06:26 PM.
Garage Gym Owner
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