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How to Design Your Dream Garage: Colors, Paint & More

Ready to get creative? Learn how to design your dream garage using colors, paint and more. Don’t get stuck with a typical, boring garage. Make your garage extraordinary.

The big picture things are clear – you know how you’ll use your garage and you’ve decided on your theme. Now it’s time to dig a little deeper and think about colors.

This is where you will see your vision come to life. As you decide on the color scheme and individual colors in your space, you will begin to see your ideas coming together. It’s really exciting!

However, there is a lot to consider and it can quickly become overwhelming. Just follow this step-by-step list on how to choose colors for each item and it will be smooth sailing.

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Choosing a Color Scheme

orange and black octane tiles in a garage

Man, if you’re anything like me, this is an intimidating task. I am not the person who magically picks out all my decor and them *boom* everything matches like it’s out of a magazine.

Personally, I like to start with my neutral colors. Right now I’m super into grays and bright whites. Those are pretty neutral, yes? They go with just about anything.

Then pick out one, maybe two accent colors. You can use a site like this to get palette ideas and make sure everything goes together.

How to Design Your Dream Garage: Colors, Paint and More. See your vision become a reality when you choose the perfect color scheme for your man cave.

A common garage theme is black, white and red. Black and white are your neutral base and red is your pop or accent color. Orange also makes a great accent color in the garage, especially for you Harley lovers.

Related content >> 4 Ways to Beef Up Your Garage Decor

Choosing a Flooring Type

outdoor carpet tiles in a garage

Wait, you thought garage flooring could only be concrete or epoxy? Not even close! You’ve got so many options to consider: vinyl rolls, hard plastic tiles, rubber rolls or tiles, and even carpet tiles.

It all depends on how you’re going to use the space. For the fitness lovers out there, rubber flooring is perfect for building a home gym in the garage. Or maybe you’re looking for more of a comfortable hang-out space. Carpet tiles are just what you need. Plus, with carpet tile, you can pick from tons of colors – even the colors of your favorite sports team – so you can show your team spirit while relaxing and watching the game.

But wait, what if you want to park your car there? How is that going to work if you have rubber flooring or carpet tile? No need to worry! There are plenty of products that are built to handle vehicles. They’re super durable in addition to being stain, soil, and wear-resistant.

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Choosing Floor Colors

How to Design Your Dream Garage: Colors, Paint and More. See your vision become a reality when you choose the perfect color scheme for your man cave.

For your floor, you have a few options. If you’re going with a garage flooring roll, you will probably stick to your neutral color. However, if you choose epoxy, you have the option to stay with the neutral or use your floor as the place to make a splash with your accent color.

My favorite option is to create a fun pattern using garage floor tiles. You can combine your neutral color and accent color, either in a checkerboard or other type of pattern. This is also a great opportunity for the classic black and white look, too.

If you’re going for a very specific design here, you may have a lot of colors going on. That’s okay! This is why you’re going to choose this part first. It’s much easier to choose paint to match the floor than floor to match the paint.

And, of course, don’t forget to check the colors against your vehicle. You want to make sure it looks great because you are not buying a new Ferrari just to match your new floor.

Related content >> Garage Flooring Buyer’s Guide: Tiles, Rolls, Epoxy & More

Choosing Paint Colors

black and red vinyl tiles in a garage

Once you’ve chosen your floor, hang onto those samples you ordered. You’re going to want to compare them against all your new paint swatches.

The first thing I like to do when choosing paint colors is I go to the store and grab literally every single free paper swatch they have that I even remotely think will work. Then, I take them home and put them all up on the wall.

Next, eliminate all the ones you hate now that you’re home. Take your floor samples and hold them up against the paint samples to see how they go together.

Choose just a few favorites. The actual paint samples (not the paper ones) cost money and it can rack up pretty quickly.

Take your favorites and paint a large swatch of each in your garage. Now compare to your floor, car and decor to see which one is best.

If you plan on having an accent color or adding a trim color, go through the same process. Just make sure you keep your winning swatch up so you can compare the paint colors against each other.

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Baseboards & Paneling

black and gray vented tiles in a garage setting

This part is fun. I just recently redid my home and we decided to use the baseboards as a neutral accent color. So…we used gray which still matches with everything, but it’s darker than traditional baseboard and ended up looking like an accent piece.

Often, people just go with traditional white baseboards/paneling, but this is a great place to do something a little different. Make sure you keep your basic paint swatch up on the wall so you can try all your baseboard/panel colors up against it.

Also, don’t forget to double check how everything looks together – wall, baseboards, floor and car.

Related content >> 10+ Ways to Use Your Garage – From Functional to Fun

What’s Up? The Ceiling.

smooth ribtrax tiles in a garage setting

If you ask me, this is not the place to choose dark, looming colors. Honestly, I am of the opinion that traditional white is the way to go so that your garage doesn’t feel like a cave.

However, if you’d like to do something different, go through the same steps with the samples and make sure everything goes together before making a decision.

In fact, I recommend painting your sample on the ceiling so you get a real idea of how it will feel. You may change your mind about that dark gray after all…

Related content >> 20+ Garage Theme Ideas for Your Perfect Space

Murals, Stickers & Designs

carpet tile in a garage

This is the fun part! Now that you know your basic color scheme, you can pick out all kinds of fun stuff to put on the walls and use for decor.

If you’re going with a mural, that is a pretty big commitment. Make sure all the colors you’re using and your idea match everything else you’ve chosen so far. You can print out your inspiration and hold it against your swatches and floor samples to make sure.

Stickers and wall art are a little easier. You have an idea of what your space will look like and you can use your imagination to see if these things will go. If worst comes to worst, just make sure the items are returnable. Then you don’t have to stress too much about whether they will match.

Lighting

How to Design Your Dream Garage: Colors, Paint and More. See your vision become a reality when you choose the perfect color scheme for your man cave.

This is one of those things that people forget about. And you really shouldn’t! It’s important to decide how you will light your garage and the look of those lights and lighting fixtures.

For example, a 1920s chandelier would not look awesome in a grunge-themed garage. In my opinion, you want lighting fixtures to be subtle and the lights themselves to be clear and look as close to natural light as possible.

However, this is one of those areas where you could use lights as an accent. A hot red light over your black car would look pretty sharp. You can even do something crazy like a disco ball if it works with your overall theme.


Ready to get started? Order your garage flooring samples today.

How to Design Your Dream Garage: Colors, Paint and More. See your vision become a reality when you choose the perfect color scheme for your man cave.

About Ari Ziskin

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Ari Ziskin is our resident expert in all things fitness, dance and flooring trends. After five years of blogging at Ari’s Menu, where she was featured on sites like The Huffington Post and Buzzfeed, Ari decided to pursue writing full-time. Nothing makes her happier than sharing her knowledge to help people create their gyms and begin their fitness journey.

2 Comments on “How to Design Your Dream Garage: Colors, Paint & More

  1. I need some help. I have decided to use tiles and decided on colors(black, red, gunmetal) but could some ideas on how to arrange and how many of each to order. Does your company provide that assistance?

    • Hi Ed,

      I will have one of our sales reps reach out to you and help you figure out exactly how much of everything you need. Can’t wait to see how the garage turns out!

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