DIY: The Garage Gym

I might be the only person who ever moved to California and proceeded to put on 30 pounds over night. It’s possible the weight gain had more to do with trading a daily Crossfit workout for a daily 2 hour commute. And I suppose I also had two young kids and a new job. But now that the dust has settled a bit, I am out of excuses, and I’ve found that fitting trips to the gym into my schedule has proven tricky at this phase in my life.

So I decided to build a garage gym, and it was so much easier than I expected! I thought I would share the experience in case you’ve been hesitating to pull the trigger and just needed that nudge.

NB: I’m linking the products I happened to use, but I don’t get any sort of kickback if you follow the links. It’s just to be helpful — I am sure there are plenty of other tools/products/gear you could use!

Step 1: The Foundation

The good news is that we had an unused garage, since everyone in Oakland seems to park on the driveway. The bad news is that it was severely cracked and sloping a bit downhill after 100 years of settling (I think this is where my wife makes a crack that she’s only been settling for 10!).

Fixing the garage floor was no sweat. It turns out, self leveling concrete is a breeze, and Home Depot has everything for you in one spot: