My garage is fairly small. There’s roughly 9-inches between the garage door and the wall. That’s it. On both sides. The back of the garage has some space, but to paint the picture, our 1979 Chevrolet Caprice Classic stretches almost garage door to back wall with just enough room to walk around the front of the car, the hood ornament always grasping at clothing. If we were to replace the Chevy with a Lincoln Town Car or Cadillac Brougham, I’m not sure the door would be able to close. When they say everything’s bigger in Texas, they weren’t thinking about the garages. But it is what it is, and it’s what I’ve got to work with.
I’ve long said do the flooring or paint first, and I’m in the position where it looks like I’ll do the painting first. This is largely to accommodate the installation of new lighting, the fluorescent fixtures currently failing overhead, flickering in an otherwise eerie dimness, an overall image that Hollywood horror flick directors would be proud of. While it’d be easy to mount new fluorescents in their place, heaven forbid I should do anything the easy way. I want to do something a little more stylish, a little softer, a little more – indirect.
Taking cues from the reflective ceiling of the General Motors Design Dome Resurrecting Eero Saarinen’s Design Dome at General Motors | Architect Magazine, the idea is to paint the ceiling with a highly-reflective white paint and line the tops of the walls with illuminated crown moldings. On top of that, I’ll likely hang sconces on the walls that point upward toward the ceiling, further illuminating the bright paint. The idea is that the paint will evenly reflect the light down over the garage. The trouble spot is that the reflective ceiling will likely only work properly when the doors are closed. But the effect should be very unique, and I’m excited about trying it out. To further illuminate the space, I’m thinking to install a bank of direct lights above in the center of the ceiling as well, all the lights on their own switches. Should be unique.
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