From Falling Apart to a Fully Functional Family Garage

The Problem: Crumbling Walls and a Moisture Battle He Couldn’t Win

For years, Eric’s garage walls were covered in parging—a cement-based coating typically applied to foundation walls for protection and a smoother finish. On paper, it should have been durable. In practice, it was anything but. Every nail Eric drove in for tool storage became a liability. As he told Bryan, “Sometimes, I’d pull up the nail and the parging would fall out with it.”

The damage wasn’t just cosmetic. Moisture seeping up from the floor had compromised at least a foot of parging along the entire perimeter of the garage. Eric explained: “The floor would get wet. And then the water would seep up the parging. We had at least a foot all around our garage where the parging was falling apart.” When temperatures dropped, that trapped water froze—expanding inside the walls and accelerating the breakdown. Bryan Baeumler noted that freeze-thaw cycles are one of the most destructive forces in a garage environment. Eric agreed: “Absolutely.”

Drywall wasn’t a serious option either. In a garage exposed to car doors, tools, and fluctuating humidity, standard drywall dents, scratches, and absorbs moisture. Eric wanted something that could stand up to real life—waterproof, maintenance-free, and flexible enough to handle serious storage without turning every hanging hook into a structural risk. As he put it: “I looked on the internet. There had to be something else out there.”

The Solution: Waterproof Panels and a Storage System That Works With You

Eric found Trusscore, and the value proposition clicked immediately. Trusscore Wall&CeilingBoard panels are fully waterproof—no risk of moisture damage, no peeling, no rot. But it was the Trusscore SlatWall system that truly solved his storage problem. Instead of committing to fixed nail holes, SlatWall hooks and accessories slide freely along the panel tracks, so the layout can shift as his needs change. Eric described the moment it all made sense: “I found Trusscore. It said it was waterproof—this is a big thing. It showed that the hooks with the slats, therefore I didn’t need to put nails in the wall. It was functional. I could move these little hooks, little attachments around wherever I wanted to put them. And it just made so much sense.”

When Bryan pressed him on the maintenance side of things, Eric kept it short: “Well, it was maintenance free basically. And it was clean.”

Encore Poly-Floor installed the system with a specific layout in mind: white Trusscore Wall&CeilingBoard panels running horizontally above and below a continuous two-foot band of SlatWall that wraps around the entire perimeter. A new epoxy floor tied the look together, creating a cohesive, bright finish from floor to ceiling.

The Outcome: A Garage That Earns Compliments Day After Day

The finished space is a different world from the crumbling walls Eric started with. It’s brighter, easier to keep clean, and built for actual use—not just parking. As Eric describes it: “I put a workbench in here. I spend time out here. Work on my car if I need to. I can even get down underneath it—it’s clean. No dust or dirt. I love it.”

Eric is also quick to point out how the panels hold up against everyday garage abuse—something parging and drywall never could. “Drywalling, it can look nice for a while, but then it gets marked—your car door swings and hits it. If you have parging on the wall, which we did, your car door, you open it up, damages, scrapes some paint off the door. This is perfect. None of that.”

And the neighborhood has noticed. When the garage door is up, Eric regularly hears from passersby—neighbors slowing down for a second look, friends declaring their envy, and a few spouses down the street lobbying their husbands for the same upgrade. “When I have the garage door open and neighbors walk by and they go, ‘Holy, look at that garage.’ My friends love it. They’re jealous. And I’ve had a few of the wives down the street walk by and say, ‘my husband loves your garage.’” Eric says with obvious satisfaction.

When Bryan asked whether he’d recommend Trusscore to friends and family, there was no hesitation. “Absolutely. For sure. That’s the way to go.”