Garage Update

I've been saying things like "I've been working on my garage a lot - I'll have an update shortly" for a while. Time for an update. Back in September, we leveled our crappy crappy crappy garage to build one that has a storage / studio space for me above it.

Sept 10.


(Both of these photos above were from a post in early Sept.)


Henry helping me dig the trench for the new electrical conduit from the house to the garage.


Sept 26.


Henry ALWAYS wanted to help.


Oct 11 (after losing about a week due to some rain).


Henry helping Greg screw off the plywood over the garage doors for the night.


Oct 20: enclosed upstairs!


Looking back the other way at the closet and the top of the steps.


Oct 29: siding up! I did the dormer section almost completely by myself that afternoon.


The other side of the garage.


Oct 31: Sprayed-in insulation being trimmed off.


"Storage cubby" above the steps.
(We didn't want any wasted space - if we could use it for storage, we wanted to keep it!)


My first mudding job (after the first coat) in the garage. Don't laugh. It looks fine now.


Outside done (except for gutters and motion light).


Around Nov 10.


Mudding! This room has a ton of planes! 40 to be exact.

These next 2 were from a post 2 weeks ago:

Nov 16: Drywall sanding. This photo doesn't do it justice - the air was SO thick.


Nov 21: My Dad putting the first of the color on the wall.

Dad came up again 2 weeks later to help me with the floors:

Dad and I starting the flooring last week (Dec 2nd). THANKS DAD!

Finally, here are a few from just last night after I put Henry to bed:

All trim up and puttied, baseboard heaters installed, track lighting in, and closet door hung.
(Still need to paint the inside of the windows and the closet door, but that will wait until spring.)


The "storage cubby" opening will be trimmed inside the opening with poplar (I have it
all ripped down), and I'll be building and hanging a door in front of that.


Inside the cubby: extra carpet from my grandparents' basement underfoot,
and some Black Friday cheap vinyl tiles to line the shelf.


Still need a sill on the window to the right, and I can't trim out that wall until
I build 2 cabinets to slide into those open spaces. (Oh, and there's Henry's Christmas
present in the works: a train table built from garage construction scraps.)


There's the other space by the paint pails that's waiting for a cabinet.


The closet: Dad and I hung our first door together. And it even WORKS! ;)

I did what I could with the new build: I didn't touch any of the concrete work or the electrical (besides spending a weekend digging the trench), and I just helped a bit with framing (odd jobs here and there - scroll back up to the Oct 11th photo: I did that entire little "squirrel run" detail to the far left under the dormer). But I helped a lot with siding, painting the exterior, drywall and mudding. And now I'm doing all the finish work myself (well, along with my Dad the 2 times he came up): final sanding, painting, flooring, trim, etc.

As you can see, it's about ready for me to start moving stuff in! But we'll wait until it's not 10 below to be doing that. Maybe this weekend when a heat wave is supposed to come through (and we'll hit 17... maybe even 20!), I'll start moving more of our "garage stuff" like garden tools, snowblower, etc from my neighbors garage back into ours.