A garage makeover in St. Louis starts at $2,500 for a coated floor and runs past $5,000 once cabinets and slatwall are added. Below are twelve ideas with what each one costs, the four mistakes that waste the most money, and two St. Louis garages photographed before and after.
Quick takeaways
- Start with the floor and the walls. They set how finished the whole garage looks, and everything else mounts to them.
- Epoxy floor coating runs $6 to $10 per square foot installed across three packages, all with a limited lifetime warranty.
- Order matters more than budget. Drywall and paint before the floor, floor before the cabinets. Getting that backwards is the most expensive mistake on this page.
What a garage makeover costs
Cost is the question people ask most, and most answers online are national averages that have nothing to do with a St. Louis quote.
Here is what we publish for St. Louis garages. Garage remodeling comes in three packages, and the Best package is the complete garage makeover.
Good starts at $2,500 and covers the epoxy floor. Better runs $2,500 to $5,000, our most popular, adding a decorative flake finish, slatwall and overhead storage. Best starts at $5,000 and adds custom cabinets and a full slatwall system.
Every package carries a limited lifetime epoxy warranty. The full comparison is on our garage remodeling page.
If you only want the floor done, the floor is quoted by the square foot: $6 in Good, $8 in Better, $10 in Best, installed.
Every package is the same build. The slab is diamond ground and the cracks are filled. Then a HyperBond epoxy base, a full flake broadcast and an Aspartic 85 polyaspartic topcoat go down, backed by a limited lifetime warranty.
On the floor packages, Better and Best add a moisture barrier, and Best carries two coats of the topcoat. That breakdown is on our epoxy floor coating page.
A full makeover is quoted after we measure, because the number depends on which of the twelve pieces below you include.
For scale from real jobs: the Randall garage in Ladue was a 400 sq ft remodel with epoxy and slatwall, five days on site. The Leitner garage in Fenton took four days for epoxy, cabinets, a workbench, slatwall and overhead racks.
12 garage makeover ideas
The twelve below are ordered roughly the way I would do them, because the sequence matters.
1. Paint the walls
A fresh coat of paint adds instant cheer to a garage. Choose a bright color that makes you happy or a bold hue that invigorates. If your garage walls have unfinished open studs, you will need drywall before painting. Add crown molding and baseboard and the space starts reading less like a parking spot and more like a room.
2. Give the garage some electrical power
Most garages have a single outlet, which severely limits the tools and toys you can run. Adding outlets along the walls is what makes the space usable.
Consult an electrician or a garage designer first so the outlets land where you actually need them. We have installed lighting and electrical on about one job a month, and it is licensed work either way.
3. Regulate the temperature
St. Louis sits in the interior of the country and gets both extremes. Insulation is the first move. Ceiling fans help in summer, and electric heat makes the space usable in January. A ductless mini split is an option, though we only fit one or two of those a year.
4. Make it multifunctional
A garage does not have to be only a place to park. Wall-mounted TV, speakers, a built-in bar, a pool table, modular seating. A detached garage can go further still, as far as a dining room, though that is beyond what most people want.
5. Upgrade the floor
Replacing dull gray concrete with an epoxy floor coating is the single change that alters how finished a garage looks. You may be wondering why you would spend money on something you walk on, and the answer is that the floor is most of what you see.
Flake blends, quartz, metallic and solid colors are all available. Two recent examples are Tuxedo flake across an Oakville garage and Tidal Wave flake across 550 sq ft in Kirkwood.
6. Install windows
A dark garage is an unsafe garage, especially if you are working on a car or running tools. Windows bring in light and let you air the place out, which matters more than people expect once the garage gets used.
7. Get a workbench
A basic workbench changes how much of the garage you can actually use. It gives you a surface for woodworking and repairs, and most come with drawers, which solves the nuts-and-bolts problem at the same time.
8. Add storage space
Storage is the most effective way to improve how a garage looks, because it gets everything off the floor. Cabinets and shelving are the straightforward route. Slatwall takes hand tools, bikes and yard equipment onto the wall.
If the ceiling is high enough, overhead racks hold seasonal boxes out of sight and free up the floor underneath. The Leitner garage in Fenton took cabinets, a workbench, slatwall and overhead racks together, which is the full version of this idea.
9. Create an entryway that says welcome home
If the garage is how you actually enter the house, treat that door like a front door. Paint it a cheery color, add a welcome sign and some potted plants. A small drop zone nearby for coats, shoes, umbrellas and dog leashes does more for daily life than almost anything else here.
10. Upgrade the garage door
Most people never chose their garage door, and it is often the thing making the garage look old. Inspect it properly. If there are gaps at the sides or underneath, it needs insulation, and check the opener is working correctly. If the door itself is sound but dull, acrylic latex exterior house paint holds up well and covers cleanly.
11. Get help from a garage makeover company
Depending on scope, hiring is the better call, and the reason is usually sequencing rather than skill. A company that does this weekly knows the order to work in, and that is most of the value.
The other half is that the pieces are designed to match. Floor coating color gets chosen against the cabinet and slatwall finish, not after it. Even small things carry: color-matched screws on slatwall panels change how the finished wall reads.
12. Add garage decor
Signs, a clock, framed prints, a rug at the entry door. Decor is the last five percent, and it is the part that makes the garage feel deliberate rather than merely tidy.
Before and after: two St. Louis garages
Every idea above is easier to judge against a real garage than a stock photo. These are ours, photographed on the job.
The Leitner garage is the full version: floor, walls, cabinets, slatwall and bike storage, done in the right order so nothing got installed over an uncured floor.
The Randall garage is the budget-conscious version of the same idea: fix the walls, coat the floor, put storage on the wall, stop there.
What we found on that job was that the order mattered more than the budget. Drywall dust and overspray will ruin a fresh coating. So the walls were finished first, the floor went down second, and the slatwall went up last. Five days, on a 400 square foot garage.
“Brandon and team made our old jumbled garage feel like new. He redid floor, repainted + filled everything, put up shelves and installed slat-wall. Looks great and is highly functional now. Highly recommend!”
You do not always need a teardown. The Albers floor was an existing coating the owner found flat, and it was recoated rather than removed.
The full record of recent makeovers and floors, with what each one involved:
On a small phone, swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Job | Where | What was done | On site |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leitner | Fenton, Tapawingo | Epoxy, cabinets, workbench, slatwall, overhead racks | 4 days |
| Randall | Ladue, Creekwood Ln | Drywall touch-ups, two paint colors, epoxy, slatwall, 400 sq ft | 5 days |
| Heubbe | Kirkwood, West Adams | Polyaspartic flake floor in Tidal Wave, 550 sq ft | 2 days |
| Albers | Weldon Spring, Lancelot Drive | Recoat over an existing floor, flake and crushed stone | 2 days |
| Masksumic | Oakville, Birchmont Place | Grind, crack repair, Tuxedo flake epoxy | 2 days |
| Skurtu | Des Peres, White Stable Road | Non-slip epoxy flake, after drywall and window work | 2 days |
| Sult | Fenton, Winter Valley | Epoxy flake, finished 23 December | 2 days |
| Reiff | Clayton, Colonial Ct | Failing concrete repaired, then coated, 200 sq ft | 1 day |
Common mistakes to avoid
The four below are the ones that cost real money. They go wrong more often than any choice of color or cabinet.
Working out of order
Drywall and paint come before the floor. The floor comes before the cabinets and racks.
- Walls first. Drywall repairs, then paint.
- Floor second. Grind, repair the cracks, coat, then leave it to cure.
- Storage last. Cabinets, slatwall and overhead racks.
Dragging heavy components over a floor that has not finished curing is how a new floor gets damaged before anyone parks on it. On the Leitner job the epoxy went down first and cured fully before any storage was installed.
Coating a slab that is not ready
A slab poured in the last month is not ready for anything: concrete needs about 28 days before it will hold a coating.
A coating also will not fix a slab that is cracked and moving. That is a concrete repair, and no finish on top of it hides the problem for long.
Three things then have to happen. The surface is diamond ground to cut through the laitance layer, the thin brittle skin that forms as concrete cures. Cracks are repaired. The slab is checked for moisture rising from underneath.
Skipping any of the three is the usual reason a floor peels a year later.
Underestimating the floor
A floor coating is the least forgiving part of a garage makeover, which is why it is the part people most often regret doing cheaply. Curing is not the same as installing: you can walk on the floor long before you can park on it.
Season matters as well. Epoxy wants 55 to 90°F while it cures, so an unheated garage is easiest in spring and fall. We do work through winter: the Sult floor in Fenton was finished on 23 December. Our guide to epoxy floor curing and drying covers the timings.
Buying storage before you know the layout
Cabinets bought off a shelf rarely fit the wall you have. Once they are in place, the slatwall and the overhead racks have to work around them. Decide the layout first, then buy.
You do not need a full makeover to fix most garages. Say the slab is sound and clutter is the real problem. A coated floor and storage on the walls will get you most of the way. I would stop there rather than spend on cabinets you do not need.
Why your garage might need a makeover
A cluttered garage is hard to move through, so decluttering and organizing come first whatever else you do.
Past that, a garage is rarely just for cars. It is the natural place for a workshop, with tools kept together and the rest of the room as a work surface.
A garage is also where most home gyms end up, because you can drop weights in a garage and store them on the wall. A coated floor is what makes either comfortable: it seals the slab against damp and cleans with a mop.
Get help from a garage makeover company
If you decide to hire rather than do it yourself, three things are worth checking. Does the company do this work weekly. Will they show you finished jobs in your own area. Will they tell you the order of work before you sign anything.
For scale on our own side: insulation, drywall and paint run two to three times a month, lighting and electrical about once a month, and a ductless mini split once or twice a year. Drywall alone usually takes at least a week.
Garage Designs of St. Louis has been remodeling garages since 2002 and works out of 772 Merus Ct., Fenton, MO 63026. Brandon Coleman has installed epoxy floors across the metro since 2014 and has owned the company since 2023. Our case studies and gallery show finished garages in Kirkwood, Clayton, Ladue, Ballwin, Oakville, Des Peres and Fenton.
Garage makeover questions
We are open Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM.
We have remodeled garages out of Fenton since 2002 and have been accredited by the Better Business Bureau, or BBB, since 2008.
I am Brandon Coleman. I joined Garage Designs in 2014 installing epoxy floors, moved into full remodels in 2021, and bought the company in May 2023.
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