My wife and I bought our small fixer-upper house 10 years ago last month. When we were looking, we didn't have a lot of money, but one thing I really wanted was a garage. I grew up working on stuff in my parents' gravel driveway, and their small one-car garage was the home of my mom's car, and they didn't like me working on things long-term in there. Needless to say, I wanted a garage of my own to wrench in. When we bought the place, I was beyond excited to have my own place to wrench on things, even if it wasn't perfect.
Like the house, the garage dates back to 1944 when the house was built. It's mostly original, but someone updated the door and the electrical service years ago to more modern stuff. There are good and bad (actually, mostly bad) things about this garage.
The Good:
-It's bigger than my parents' garage
-Built on a concrete pad
-It has both 110v and 240v service
-It hasn't fallen over yet
The Bad:
-It's a one-car garage
-It has holes in it
-Water gets in sometimes
-Eventually needs a roof
-There is some rot around the sills and some of the walls
-It's right on the neighbor's property line, and that neighbor hates that I exist
For the past 10 years, I used it as-is. For a while, it housed my Shelby CSX project, but it has become a catch-all for crap since that left. The garage door isn't in the best shape, the rot has not gotten better, the side door and walls were literally flapping in the breeze, and I nearly set it on fire with a staple gun back in April like a moron. It's also right on the property line, and due to the town bylaws, I cannot do a knock down-rebuild; I can renovate it, but the structure needs to remain upright during the process. After looking it over, I've decided to fix up what I can for now and keep it upright. It's all fixable, and the overall frame is sound, but there's a lot of work to do.
The goal at the end of this is to have a functioning garage/shop that looks decent, stays dry, and will fit a car inside.
More pics:
The trim is rotting, and paint comes off in the wind. Not ideal.
That corner is rough, but the studs underneath are still there. Sorta.
Cool, more rot!
Long before we moved in, there was a window where this piece of plywood is. That may need to come out and get fixed properly. But hey, cool signs! There's also a hole on the left under one of the signs for an old wood stove pipe that I need to seal up.
This side is right on the property line. The foundation of the garage is basically the line, so working on this side is going to be tricky. The neighbor doesn't like us at all, and has told us numerous times he wants the garage to fall in on itself rather than me fixing it. Much to his chagrin, it's getting fixed. The good news is this is probably the "good side" so it will be mostly paint over here, so hopefully he stays out of my hair.
This thread will chronicle me picking at the garage over time. It might take a while, and I'm on a budget, but I think I can make it a much more functional, better looking, and structurally sound space.