Build a garage home gym that holds up

Garage floors slope toward the door — typically ¼ inch per foot — so the ceiling height at the front of a 20-foot garage can be 5 inches lower than at the back.

That slope decides whether you can overhead press inside the rack or need to press outside it.

You need: a 25-foot tape measure, a pencil, and paper or a note-taking app. A helper makes this faster — one holds the tape, one reads and writes.

Measure the walls and ceiling:

1. Measure each wall from corner to corner. Note any irregularities: support columns, utility boxes, protruding pipes. Record both width and depth in inches.
2. Measure ceiling height at four points: the center of the garage, the center of each side bay, and at the garage door opening. Stand on a step ladder and pull the tape tight to the ceiling joist or drywall.

Find the overhead clearance: 3. With the garage door fully open, measure from the floor to the bottom edge of the overhead door track. This is often the lowest fixed overhead obstruction. 4. Find the single lowest hard overhead point in the space — a ceiling joist, a light fixture, the open garage door panel, a gas line, or a spring torsion assembly. Mark this in red on your sketch.

Mark the electrics and the door: 5. Mark the location of every electrical outlet, light switch, and overhead light on your sketch. 6. Note the garage door type (sectional, tilt-up, or roll-up) and the opener model. Check whether the opener motor or torsion spring assembly hangs below the ceiling joists.

Keep: your dimensioned sketch with every measurement in inches and the lowest overhead obstruction clearly labeled in red, plus the garage door type and opener model noted. You will need these numbers for the layout step.