For the last few (bunch of) years, I’ve cycled through 4 houses, each with a garage dedicated to woodworking, crafting, and modeling pursuits. The recent Plastic Model Mojo podcast episode included a discussion about tricking out a shed space and using a HVAC mini-split to regulate the temperature. I thought it might be worthwhile to share my winning formula for creating a great hobby space in the garage.

In short, there’s five main things to do to your space to make it absolutely rock. Here we go!

Drywall

Many garages don’t have drywall on the walls or ceiling, and I highly recommend you put up drywall on both if you don’t have them. Couple reasons:

  • Dramatically cuts down dust, bug, and general gunk collection in the garage space
  • The white walls make the space feel brighter… because it is brighter. The white drywall helps reflect light around the space
  • Mentally, at least for me, it feels more like a high end workshop than a “I have no other place to do my craft” dirty garage

You don’t have to mud, tape, and texture the drywall unless you just want to. Just screwing the drywall sheets in place is wonderful. And these sheets aren’t wicked expensive.

Lighting

To the point of great lighting… IMHO nothing helps a hobby space more than lighting. Home Depot and Lowes sell LED light panels pretty inexpensively and they do wonders for your work. I have 6 panels up in my garage and I can perform surgery in there if I needed to. I put them on a dimmer so they can be dialed down when I don’t need the full “surface of the sun” levels. They are also sealed (no spiders! no cleaning!) and don’t buzz. You can even change the light temperature before you install them.

Epoxy floors

I love epoxy floor coating on the garage floors. It’s radically easier to keep clean, clean up saw dust, paint spills, etc. and generally makes the space look like a workshop. You don’t need industrial grade floor protection. The epoxy floor kits from Home Depot can work just fine.

Just keep in mind that the color (and speckle accents you add) can be easier or harder for finding silver lost parts you drop on the floor. Ask me how I know…

Mini-split

By far the biggest expense on this list, but truly remarkable for making garages/sheds/basements truly comfortable to work in. Mini-splits are small, highly efficient, quiet HVAC units. You can add them to almost any pre-existing room/structure because you aren’t running central air lines through the walls. The “split” is because you have a small compressor outside your house and a air handler unit mounted inside the room. I’ve added these to four different garages now and they are fantastic. In my garage today I can get it to the right cool/heat temp in a matter of a few minutes. And I barely notice it on my power bill. Installation is often pretty easy: mount the air handler inside, punch a single hole to the outside, run an insulated line through the hole and to the compressor, often located directly below the air handler/hole.

(Because they can be added to existing structures so easily, they are very popular in Asia and Europe where HVAC wasn’t originally built into the housing)

Insulated garage doors

When I renovated this current house and when I built the new house, I was lucky enough to have factory insulated garage doors. They make a huge difference, especially when combined with the mini-split, in the overall climate comfort. Plus they can help keep down the noise that your power tools make and keep the neighbors happy.

I’ve tried twice to add those insulation kits (two different types) to existing non-insulated garage doors and they don’t work for much. They add a small boost but can fall off and generally don’t do a huge amount of heat/cool or sound insulating.

Other thoughts

Dust control in a garage or a shed can be really important. Here’s a few thoughts how to make sure you’re sealing up your space as best as you can:

  • At ground level there are often gaps/spaces between the garage door and the house that allow dust and leaves and bugs to blow in. Use some wood, insulation foam, and/or spray foam to seal these spaces up.
  • Seal up windows that may be leaking
  • Seal up doors to the outside (builders sometimes forget that people actually use these spaces for things other than parking cars and lawn mowers)
  • Check the seal at the bottom of the garage door. If it’s old and cracked or missing pieces, replace it. It’s a cheap but important fix.

Good luck and share any tips you might have and I’ll add them here!