Garage drywall – paint or leave as is

[Alan A]

Beadboard like this I mean.

This sides a mess - midway through a clean out and adding some more cabinets to hide the Oil and stuff that’s all along that shelf. Gets too dusty.

[Evans, Marv]

Yep. Definitely primer & paint w/ a roller. The 12 or 18 in. rollers reduce the time like "nobody's ever seen before." Gloss is OK, but I like semi-gloss to cut down on the potential glare. If you don't do it now, you'll regret it for the rest of your life.

[smadsen]

Roll it now while the garage is empty. Semi-gloss white. Ceiling also.

[Bill Douglas]

Got to paint it. Otherwise it's got that not finished look going on forever.

White bounces a lot of light around. Your eyes will love you for it.

[RSBob]

Last summer I painted the drywall in the two car section of the garage and what a vast improvement. Paint it after priming.

[aigel]

One more vote for paiting. White. My only added input is that even if you put shelves and a bunch of stuff, there is enough of it showing that, together with good high kelvin LED lights, you will have a much brighter garage because it reflects nicely.

When I moved back to to my house I had a couple months for remodeling and did the walls and the floor. The garage is so much nicer to work in, it is unbelievable. I look at other same vintage homes and their unfinished garages are often like a dungeon.

G

[masraum]

Paint it, preferably white.

[javadog]

On the bright side, you’re ahead of most of the California houses I’ve seen. I can’t count the number of houses I’ve seen where they didn’t even put drywall up on the walls or the ceiling in the garage.

[slow&rusty]

Paint for sure!

I did the same:
Before:




After:

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by billybek

Paint it white.

This!

It will make the entire garage brighter. It is near impossible to have too much light in the garage.

My walls and ceiling are all painted. Of course I have posters, and photos on the wall, and those look better against a white wall.

[Alan A]

White shows the dirt.
Grey or tan...

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

2 coats of Killz, done.

I did that with my barn shop, white. As other have said it really helps with brightness in the garage.

I once bought a paint sprayer for fences. El dumbo. Cleaned it up after about an hour, back in the box and sold it at the local Mennonite Auction that November.

Roll.

[abisel]

I got one similar years ago to paint the garage. Worked great. No up/down to get more paint onto the roller. And it will work with a 5 gallon bucket of paint.

https://www.wagnerspraytech.com/products/paint-rollers/smart-sidekick-roller/

And... If you use a gloss enamel paint, you may be able to clean the walls with the garden hose. Just spray it down and squeegee the water out the garage door. Or use a soft brush in a bucket of soap/water. Then spray if down with garden hose. Just need to make sure the top and bottom edges of the walls are sealed with a clear silicon bead. And if there is baseboard trim, a silicon bead along the top edge and bottom edge.

[onewhippedpuppy]

I’ll offer a different perspective, when I added my third car garage I did a full wall of white (pre-painted) pegboard. Ultimately it wasn’t easier than painting but it gave me an entire wall of modular storage.

[wdfifteen]

I rented this Graco pump and power roller. I did a 24x48 garage with 13 foot ceilings - one coat primer and two coats of white in two days. It's the only way I would do it. The only time I had to use a ladder was cutting in the corners.

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by Alan A

Beadboard the bottom half.
Way less work than you think if you use the panels from HD.
Protects the walls from impacts and looks nice. Former the main reason, latter was a bonus.

This is exactly what I was going to say. Some sort of plywood or panel system. You might use a power roller for primer and paint, although I'd probably use a spray gun.

[DanielDudley]

Paint makes the surface of drywall washable, and much more resistant to abrasion.

Oil based primers really soak in and make the surface much, much tougher.

[Tidybuoy]

I would paint. I used a sprayer for my garage but that was because the drywaller/texture left all the paper and tape prep work for me. If I had to do all that prep, I probably would have used a roller. It went very fast with a sprayer and I followed sections with a roller to work it in.

Your garage is empty, now is the best time for painting.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by rusnak

This is exactly what I was going to say. Some sort of plywood or panel system.

I used Smartboard and I'm happy with it. It's a bit spendy, but it looks a lot better than plywood.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/SmartSide-38-Series-Primed-Engineered-Panel-Siding-Common-0-315-in-x-48-in-x-96-in-Actual-0-315-in-x-48-563-in-x-95-875-in/3058153

[graymuzzle]

Prime and paint. If you don't the taping will ultimately fail, then you get to do the whole garage with a skim coat of plaster.
Ask me how I know.