Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The Much-Anticipated Garage

Yep, it's been a really long time since we've posted anything. What can I say? Time flies.


But it is finely time to do a quick update, since we've added a new garage to the 'ol homestead. Our old garage was ready to hit the dust....literally. When our electric garage door was still working, we had to hit the button and run out to the door, as the garage would shake violently, like it was having a seizure. At some point in the garage's history, 2 trusses had been cut to install the electric garage door opener. Now, I'm no structural engineer, but I can tell you that most structures don't have "extra" trusses that you can just eliminate. Eventually, the structure was so out-of-whack that the electric garage door wouldn't even work. If that wasn't bad enough, the slab was cracked and heaving so badly that we couldn't roll our BBQ grill in and out without breaking the wheels off. Here's a "before picture":
And this is "after". The "Darth Vader" of garages.

We debated quite a bit on what materials to use for the siding- metal or cement board lap siding. We ended up with the lap siding, as it was more cost effective and we don't have to worry about some crazy 4 year old scratching the metal siding.

We also debated whether we needed a one or two car garage. We do have 2 vehicles, but we put very few miles on them, since Kevin's commute consists of a stroll down the stairs and my commute is by bus/train. The problem is that with a family of 5, at night we are often running opposite directions for kid's activities. I'll admit that 2 vehicles is a luxury- but it also makes our lives a bit easier and less stressful. Considering resale value, we're pretty much forced into a double garage. Some people would say it's "butt-ugly" to match our house. We really don't care what she thinks.

We insulated the walls and finished the inside with stained plywood. The plywood allows us nail anything into it anywhere.

We designed a narrow little storage room with shelving on both sides at the front end of the garage. Coming next...... Gardening (or Urban Farming if you are a hipster, which we are not)