If you’ve been around here awhile, you already know that I have been an at-home workout person for about 6-7 years. I have not had a gym membership in that time and I would always just workout in my living room to get my circuits done! When we moved to the new house, it had a two car garage (our previous home did not have a garage) and while we knew we needed to store some things in the garage, we thought it would be really nice to create a garage gym in there. We are used to parking in the driveway anyways, and we can still easily pull one car into the garage if we needed to/wanted to. If we moved the treadmill (it folds up & has wheels) we could get both in if needed!
Craig built some storage shelves that hang from the ceiling above the garage door, so we have a bunch of things stored up there which gave us a lot of space to make our garage gym. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the flooring and equipment we have, so I figured it would be easiest to put everything into a blog post that you can reference at any time if you need! So in this post I’ll share all the details of our garage gym with links to anything I can find!
GARAGE GYM
But first, let’s do a quick “before”, shall we? Everyone loves a good before & after! Not much to it, just your standard garage.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
UPDATED “AFTER”:
As of January 2023 I’ve added a few more things to the space so I’m updating the post to share those things!
Here’s a list of equipment we’ve added:
- Bench
- More Dumbbells in various weights
- Slam ball
- XL Resistance bands
- Gym Clock
- Pull-Up Bar
The Details
Flooring: We went with this flooring after I read tons and tons of reviews – it ended up being the highest quality item I could find for the price. It comes in a bunch of different sizes so you can find the one that best suits your space/budget. When you first roll it out, it does lay flat immediately which is nice you don’t have to worry about it curling up. But at first it is a little grippy/sticky so when you walk on it you’ll see your shoe marks. In the picture above, the mat on the far right is one we just rolled out a couple days ago, as opposed to the other two that have been rolled out for about a month now. Those don’t pick up nearly as much as the new one. To offset this, I recommend just doing a quick mop/swiffer/something with some water to clean off at first and it will help make it not so sticky. From there I just try to sweep and clean it on occasion. Over time I think it won’t be much of an issue. The shoe marks above are more pronounced because of how I edited my photo to brighten it, but really I don’t think they are very noticeable in real life. I have been really happy with this flooring. Doesn’t move, is just cushion-y enough without being bouncy. I’d buy it again. *UPDATED TO ADD*: We’ve had the flooring almost 2 years now and I do think it gets easier to clean as you use it, it’s just a bit sticky at first but that goes away and then it’s really easy to sweep/clean!
Treadmill: I know there are some super fancy, high-price treadmills on the market today…but I have zero interest in spending several thousands of dollars on one of them especially when I can get one for a fraction of the price that is still gym-level quality. Horizon is a brand used in gyms for years and I trusted the name. I got the T303 model and I got it on sale (it’s on another sale right now!) which takes $500 off the price tag and brings it under $1k. Basically, it has everything I felt I needed in a treadmill. I have only had it for a couple weeks but I have been happy with it so far!
TV: Not necessarily gym equipment even though it does kind of go with the treadmill! But Craig likes to use our old p90x workout DVDs too so this way he can hook up the DVD player and do those workouts in the gym…and I can catch up on my Bravo shows while I do cardio 😉 Just got this 24inch smart TV! I linked my Spotify account to it so I also use it to play my music, so it also serves as a sound system. We also got this wall mount that is full motion so we can turn the TV if we need to see it from the floor.
Here are links for the other pieces of equipment that we have:
Aerobic Step | Kettlebell | Dumbbells (we have a few different sizes/weights) | Mirrors (*note they don’t come with hardware so you’ll need to also get mirror mounting hardware) | Weight Rack | BOSU Ball | Stability Ball | Foam Rollers | Mats | Yoga Block | Space Heater (got this for when it’s cold out and works like a charm!) | Resistance Bands (my custom-5 pack band set!)
I also threw a coat of paint on the back wall because it was looking so grimey. I probably would have done it all over but didn’t want to have to take the mirrors back down. A coat of paint does wonders!! Especially since that wall is going to be my backdrop for filming more workouts for y’all, I wanted it to at least look nice & clean!
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Honestly I just love this space so much. Working out is such a happy place for me and I feel super grateful we have this space we could dedicate to it. But even if you don’t (like I said, I worked out in my living room for years and years) all you really need is a pair of dumbbells. My Besst Workouts Weekly Workouts are great if you’re short on space or equipment and many of the moves can be done with just your bodyweight! Click here to sign up!
If you have any questions let me know!
xo,
Bess
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