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I used to have a very small single car garage and it took a lot of thinking and some experience to keep it organized and to have an efficient little shop to work from within.
I seen on pictures on the web and in the forums that some guys working in well heated and even air-conditioned shops and still complain of being restricted because they can't fit project car #7 in there too!
Did it make me jealous, yes, I would lie if I would have said otherwise. However, it didn't mean that I couldn't work with something smaller and achieve the things I wanted to do just like the guys with the big garages and the truck load of tools they seem to have on top of it. |
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A picture of the front of my home garage!
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Luxury it was not!
I used to have one electrical outlet, one Mr.Heater propane heater, and three shop lights 80 watts each. The door was made from a piece of scrap wood and the garage door opener didn't work at all when I bought the house but did work in the "open the door mode" after some slight persuading with a hammer. To close it I had to jump out of the truck and hit the wall switch, but that's OK because I didn't have to jump out of the truck in the rain or snow when coming home. You probably can tell that I was able to put up with some things, at least temporarily.
I really wasn't able to change any of these problems because I got cancer at first which put me physically out of commission for over a year and because this disease isn't a cheap one to have, my wallet left along with it.
Well, this all changed! I was still in remission and although I didn't feel anywhere as good as I did before, things did seem to be at least a bit more constant in the health department and due to the extensive efforts put in by my other half, I was finally financially able to tackle my garage project. |
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Bigger is better!
The plan was simple, extend the garage, insulate everything the best as possible, get some decent electricity into it, a heater for the winter, a water pipe for a small sink, shelves, a work bench and a descent door. After having worked for almost four years in the little available space of this garage, it sure would feel like a world of space to me when it's all done.
We started demolition by taking down the old portion of the building which was basically just a small type of hallway to the garage.
It was a messy job and some rot within the wood did not make the job nicer but we had it done on one afternoon with some basic tools and a bit of persuasion. |
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One of my good neighbors came to help us later that evening and he did a fantastic job by removing any remaining topsoil with his awesome tractor.
The next day the sand was delivered via truck. 3 cubic yards of sand didn't sound a lot at first but when it arrived, it sure looked like a lot of shoveling! |
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We all worked together on the wood form for the concrete the next day. Preparing the section by laying some steel mesh for the concrete pad was done in less than an hour.
It was the hottest afternoon we had in a long time and the concrete truck finally arrived here at 3pm on Friday. |
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We worked the remaining afternoon to get it done and the surface smooth.
The concrete pad was finally in and all the 1/2" x 6" L-bolts are in place as well. These are responsible for holding the bottom 2x4 wood pieces in place. Of course we did leave the section out in which the back facing door will go.
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It took another two afternoons for the framing work to get done using 2x4"s for the wall and 2x8"s for the roof. It was lot's of cutting, nailing, screwing, and measuring.
Mike's boy and my boy had a lot of fun helping with managing the construction and the "needed" wood sorting. |
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All the wall sheeting got done reusing the old boards on the south side and new 1/2" particle board on the remaining structure which became a lot more stable after that was acomplished.
On that week's Friday and we got all the sheeting for the roof done. My son and I were busy to cut tar paper to go on up. |
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Mike was on the roof and waited for the material, while he hammered away, we made sure he didn't run out of the stuff.
It was late evening when we got done and it was starting to get dark out. All what's left was cleaning up shop and my boy had no problems grabbing a broom and got right on it. |
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Just when you think you got it all figured out there is a change of plan. We discovered that I could add another 6 feet of space by utilizing the area in front of the staircase. We took the backwall back out and prepped the area for more concrete which arrived the next day.
In less than 3 hours we had the new add-on pad in and leveled
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The walls went up three days later (we had to wait for the concrete to set) but everything was going much smoother this time around.
We tackled all the roofing before the anounced rain would show and some simple flashing finished this part of the project. |
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This picture shows the roof when looked down on from the 1st floor of my house. You can clearly see the size of the new garage extension which is the darker roofing.
A few days later we covered the sides with tarpaper and finished the garage eve's. |
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We then proceeded with covering the largest wall with vinyl siding. The next day I tackled the door frame which needed to be shortened in it's width and height. This took some serious time to get it done just right.
The last picture shows the completed outside of the extended garage. |
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The installation of a simple rain gutter on the back side, framing the door in, finishing the rest of the vinyl siding, and creating a fireproof concrete wall section in preparation for the chimney of a potbelly stove finalizes the outside portion of this project.
Of course there are always a few minor cosmetic issues such as paint and spackle in some areas.
The next page starts with the interior of the garage.
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