Garage Project

This is our garage.....mid project.  

Prior to Jonah's birth in 2011, we decided our detached garage offered some very valuable work and storage space.  We spent months thinking about what needed to be done and making a budget.  Over the summer we got our building permit and began the unglamorous part of renovation: structural stability.

To appropriately capture the entirety of the project, I must rewind a few additional years to 2007.  That's the year we bought our house and also the year my sweet husband re-roofed the garage.

As you can see from this photo, the roof was in bad condition.  Several patches lined the north side as well as abundant moss.

Essentially, the garage was unusable until we fixed this problem.  You can see the rotten wood in this photo.  

Jesse scraped off several layers of asphalt shingles as well as the original cedar shakes.  There was pretty extensive rot in areas, so we took the whole roof off down to the rafters.

There's always a point in every project where you think, "I hope we can do this."  

This was that moment for me.

I am so lucky to be married to an engineer.....a very patient engineer.

When it comes to house projects, we have the same philosophy: a job worth doing is worth doing well.

We don't often have prior experience when we take on a project, but we read tutorials and run ideas by friends and then give it a shot. 

And, a few days later...we have a new roof and know how to put one on!

Whew!

Like any project, there's usually secondary and tertiary projects which must be completed to finish the original project.  Which leads us to The Shed.

This is our "shed."  Or, I should say our future shed.  This covered area attached to the south side of our garage is where we store our firewood.  In order to utilize the garage space as efficiently as possible, we decided that we should enclose the wood storage area so we could also keep our lawnmower, chainsaw, garden supplies, etc in a secure shed.

The shed is actually the tertiary project.  Prior to getting started on that, we needed to put in a natural gas line to the garage.  The line would travel under the shed floor.

This is our driveway.  Tarps covering some kind of pile of sand, gravel, or wood has been a familiar sight all autumn.  

We rented a trencher to dig the path for the gas line.  Even with our rocky soil it worked great!

The gas line was installed professionally.  It will be nice to have heat in there next autumn.

After filling in the trench (Jonah helped with his little shovel), we could finally get started on preparing the shed floor surface.

We opted to use 12"x12" concrete pavers for the shed floor.  Again, our driveway is full of pallets delivered from Lowes.

We spread 5" of sand across the space and then Jesse used a plate compactor to pack down the base.

Lining slightly unsquare pavers up in a slightly unsquare space, was a challenge right up my alley.  It was a fun puzzle and one that I could have easily worked on way too long.  Fortunately, Jesse reminded me that it was the floor of a shed.  

Once I finished, my little helper came to help me sweep more sand into the paver cracks just to lock everything in place.

With the shed floor complete, our attention refocused on the garage.  We discovered that the garage wasn't square.  One of the foundation beams on the north east end of the garage had rotted away and the structure had shifted lower to fill in that void.

We borrowed a couple of jacks from our neighbor and replaced several supporting beams and pier blocks.  And by "we", I mean "Jesse."

This was a common image.

Totally un-fun.  But now we have a squared up garage!  Which is going to make all the subsequent construction much easier.  Once that was done, Jesse started framing up the walls of the shed.  Note that the old garage windows have been removed (the shed encloses them so they wouldn't look out on anything).

We decided to side the shed with Hardie Panel which is a cement fiber composite. It will last much longer than wood especially when exposed to moisture.

Even though I was reluctant to cover over the original garage siding, I acquiesced knowing that it would resolve our issues with existing gaps in the siding and also match the shed.

Hardie panels are very heavy, so Ryan came to help Jesse hang the sheets over a rainy November weekend.

We still have a long road ahead.  But it starts getting more fun.  I have visions of finishing trim, painting everything white, and even a clematis-covered trellis.  Oh yes, and a shed door would be nice too!

As you can see, we have been busy.  We're taking a little break now while the snow flies and the holidays are here to enjoy.
xoxo