5 Useful Garage Upgrades Many Homeowners Wouldn't Think To Add

If you're a homeowner, then you probably can't wait to really make the space your own. This means adding any number of personalized touches, like installing that porch you've always dreamed of or getting out there and elevating your back yard to the next level. In other words, you can put your personalized imprint on everything — and that goes for the garage, too.

It's an easily overlooked area, especially if you just use it for storage, pop in and out of there for small repairs and maintenance jobs, or simply just park your car in it overnight. However, just because your garage might not be a high-traffic area doesn't mean you need to leave it as a bare and unpleasant cave. Some subtle upgrades, tweaks, and installs could transform the space into a genuinely enjoyable place to spend time, which will certainly help to keep you motivated when working away in there. 

To keep things easily approachable, all of the suggestions we've made below are easy to undertake, and require small to modest budgets — you could safely do all of them yourself for under $1,000 with just basic tools, for example. So, whether you're looking to make the garage a more inviting space to spend time in, or you'd like to make it a little more comfortable when toiling away on various projects, these five upgrades should really help to elevate the space.

If you're looking for ways to transform that dark and dingy garage into somewhere bright and welcoming, then the first thing you need to do is throw out those old fluorescent ceiling bulbs and install something from this side of the millennium. There are various different solutions here; bright LED strip lights, low-profile battens, and even hexagon-pattern lights are all options, with the latter being particularly popular with car detailers. Of course, costs will vary depending on which exact setup you are looking for, but installing LED lighting into your garage can be a fairly straightforward DIY task.

Flexible LED strip lights are probably the cheapest solution out there, but the output isn't going to be amazing with cheaper solutions — these will work fabulously under cabinets though, shining a clear light onto a workspace underneath. You can pick strips of these up from just about anywhere, including Walmart, where they cost less than $10. For that price, they are surely at least worth trying out before opting for a more expensive solution.

You might also consider fitting LED battens to the ceiling for a cost-effective and bright solution to your lighting woes. They are low maintenance, with high quality items lasting 30,000+ hours, and come in a variety of sizes, outputs, and colors. Warm, natural, and cool whites each provide a different vibe. The ultimate garage lighting setup probably has to be hexagon-pattern lights, though. These provide an even distribution of light all over the area and are easy to install, but they can easily set you back hundreds of dollars — it all depends on the size of your garage and the design desired.

Some jobs can be really quite exciting, but chances are most tasks you take on in your garage will be tedious maintenance. That's bad enough as it is, but these chores can quickly become frustrating if you've got to keep moving from tool to tool in order to get your work done.

So, instead of moving your job around the garage, why not simply have the garage move around you? In other words, make it so every tool can be used at one useful location. That's easily done with most hand tools, as you can just get something like a rolling mechanic's stool with built-in storage trays, but compressed air or corded power tools aren't always so mobile.

If you're getting tired of moving to the compressor to use certain tools, or relocating your extension cord around from bench to bench, a simpler solution might be to install retractable air hose reels and extension cords. Neither of these are particularly expensive or tricky to install, and once they are in, you can now pick a spot to work without needing to drag your project with you around the garage.

Not only does this make actually working in the garage a lot less frustrating, but it also helps to keep your whole space neat and tidy. Because is there anything more unsightly (or potentially dangerous) that cords and hoses strewn across your garage floor? It's a good argument to make the upgrade.

This simple upgrade is similar to the suggestion above, in the sense that the vacuum goes from being mobile (and in the way) to mounted in a fixed spot. A wall-mounted shop vac typically sports a stretch hose, which means you can easily get around the garage to clean up without having to detach the main body from the wall itself.

You can spend as little or as much as you like on one of these — it all depends on how seriously you take your vacuuming and how much power you need to keep your garage clean. Cheaper units are available for around $100, whereas more serious vacuums will quickly run up to near $500 or even beyond.

These types of shop vacs will of course be of great interest to car enthusiasts with multiple vehicles they need to keep clean. But what's the actual benefit of a wall-mounted unit over a traditional vacuum? Aside from the obvious point of them now being out of the way, traditional vacuums could easily bump into your flawless paintwork while you're busy cleaning the wheel wells and door cards. With nothing but a flexible hose in your hand, a wall-mounted shop vac limits the chances of causing unintended damage. It's a good reason for any car detailer to consider one of these vacuums.

There is little else more frustrating than not being able to find the tool you desperately need to finish a job. It might only take a few minutes to wrap up what you're doing, but if you have to spend an hour turning the garage upside down just to find one missing socket wrench, then it becomes an incredibly frustrating endeavor.

So, instead of just throwing your tools down wherever you happen to be at the time (or dumping them into a disorganized toolbox), consider using a pegboard as an organizational method. These take up very little room as they sit flat against the garage wall, and they enable you to see every tool you own with just a quick glance. Grouping tools together means you can find what you need within seconds, and more delicate items won't get knocked around at the bottom of your toolbox any more, either.

To make things even easier for yourself, consider mounting the pegboard on wheels, or having a smaller one for this purpose. This way, instead of carrying tools back and forth across the garage while working, you can simply bring the tools to where you are working. The other great thing is that pegboards are a remarkably cheap solution to organizing your garage tools, unlike heavy-duty tool cabinets which can easily run four figures or higher.

Working away in your garage can be quite enjoyable when installing upgrades on a classic car or detailing your beloved daily driver. However, sometimes the tasks you carry out in the garage are less enjoyable, such as swapping out rusted suspension components or preparing the underneath of a dusty old roadster for welding repairs.

In the latter instances, motivation can sink pretty low, especially if you're battling rounded off bolts and scraping your knuckles on battered chassis rails. Anything that can perk you up in these trying times is surely a great garage upgrade; it can be hard to beat blasting your favorite tunes or having re-runs of your favorite show playing in the background.

This is why simple upgrades like adding a wall-mounted television and a small sound system are great ideas, especially if you spend a lot of time in your garage. This can help those long hours fly by, and while many pieces of tech continue to soar in price, the cost of adding a modest TV and simple sound bar is often well within the budget of many homeowners. Furthermore, adding these upgrades could actually prove pretty useful — consider how much more convenient it would be to simply play a YouTube repair tutorial on the TV in your garage instead of getting oil and grime on your phone.