Guys, thanks for the compliments. I was not aware of the door opener covers' tendencies to fall -- will take precautions to prevent that. I have absolutely no idea why the county would allow a 2-car + carport and not a 3-car. I had resigned myself to a 24x24 2-car, and was tickled pink when they OKed the carport almost immediately. I could have gone through a lengthy zoning variance application process, but since a 100-year flood plain runs through a corner of the property and my neighbor is a real ****, it would have been a lengthy uphill battle. I planned all along to enclose the carport in the near future. I just have to wait until after the county has done all their inspections and assessments. I am glad I completed the project -- just this week the county supervisors passed some legislation prohibiting construction within 100 feet of a stream bed; depending on the rules for measuring, this might have killed the project. Fortunately, now I'm grandfathered so I don't have to worry about it.
Lots of storage space and keeping everything off the floor were the goals, and I think I've accomplished that. I'm definitely going to try to keep things off the side walls. As it is now, I can open the door to either car fully without hitting a wall or the other car. The cabinets are all Home Depot products. I looked at other options -- and there are lots of great garage-specific products out there -- but they were just too expensive for my budget. I did splurge on the Race Deck floor, but, as you can see, it was worth it. I figured a professionally-applied epoxy floor would have cost me $800-900 anyway, so the upgrade to Race Deck was not unreasonable. The Race Deck was everything I expected -- no surprises. I put the floor down myself in about 10 hours. The tools needed were a table saw to cut the tiles and a rubber hammer. Knowing that I was going the Race Deck route, I had the contractor leave the drywall 1/2 inch short of the floor, and then when he installed the base trim, I gave him a few tiles, and he placed the trim on top of the tiles. So when I did the floor, I could just slide the tile under the trim and didn't have to be too precise. (Race Deck requires a 1/2 to 3/4 inch gap from the wall to allow for expansion.)
Of course, there's still a lot of piddly finishing and decorating to do (posters are next!). And if it ever stops raining, the contractor still has to finish the grading around the garage. I clearly underestimated the amount of time (and money) the finishing work would take. Despite contractors doing the painting and drywall, it still took my roommate Bryon (that's his blue GTS, by the way) and I two months to install the lights, cabinets, electrical, etc.
