Tony's Small Garage Shop Build: Fixing It Before It's Too Late

AxeHealey said:

Tony Sestito said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

motorcycle-sized car tent

Wut.

One of those Shelter Logic tent things. It's smaller than the usual size you see. Definitely could have worded that better!

It's been raining all week long, which I figured would be the ultimate test to see if the door is sealed up enough to prevent water from getting in. So far, so good! No leaks, but there's a little moisture near the threshold. The sills are bone dry so far, which was another concern. I did a thing... successfully!!!

No pics, but I had a few minutes to get out to the garage and tackle some cleaning, tossing, and other things over the weekend. One thing I did was stapling up some of the falling roof insulation. This should help in keeping the garage warm this winter. It's been off the roof for years now! I still need to hang more of it that fell, but I ran out of staples. Eventually, I'll be buying some more and getting it hung up.

I also need to clean/reorganize a lot more, but it's getting there. Tossed out a good amount of crap already. Might have to put up a "for sale" thread on here with some stuff for cars I no longer have. Still have a pile of Saab 9-5 parts, some Turbo Dodge stuff, and some leftover 2010-13 Mazda 3 bits that need to leave.

Bumping this back up... Garage things are happening again. 

Much has happened, actually. 

Here's a teaser....

Looks better already.

Glad you are back on track!

Ok, I have a little more time to go over what's happened in the past few years. 

In late 2022, we started having some fairly major issues with our house, and we made the call to renovate the joint. Renovations started in early 2023 and are just wrapping up now. 

Before:

After:


While I could do an entire build thread on that process, I'll be brief in saying that we essentially doubled the size of the house and brought things into the 21st Century. 

Part of the deal was hopefully finding enough in the budget to refresh the garage. The town building inspector said we can only renovate the garage and have to keep the current dimensions due to the proximity to the neighbor's property, so no expansion or going vertical was allowed. Building elsewhere on the property involves the state conservation commission, so we chose not to kick that hornet's nest for now. That's not the best case scenario, but I'll take what I can get. 

The garage since I last did anything with it had only gotten worse. The trim rot, the sills, the gaping holes, the roof, and the water leaks were all still major concerns. So, the contractors started assessing how bad things were by tearing the thing apart. 



They found that there was extensive rot to the lower parts of the walls on 3 sides, and that the corners were rotted enough to let rodents in. The roof actually was starting to flex in an almost perpendicular fashion. Not great. 



That hole in the front left corner was the worst. I saw a rat going in and out of there last year. Not ideal. 



The rear of the garage also had some problems. There was an old stove pipe outlet and an old boarded up window, both which were causing major water leaks. Those had to get patched up properly. We also made the decision to ditch the windows; this would allow for more shelf space and cut costs.



They started to brace the roof and walls to bring it back into shape. You can see the temporary braces at the top above the side door. 



More work done, with holes patched and the door I installed earlier temporarily removed. 







Wall patching/window filling complete, and the side door back on. 



We used the same vinyl siding and synthetic trim as we used on the house. HUGE upgrade from what we had before. 



A view down the property line





Instead of sketchy indoor Romex going overhead connecting the garage to the house, we dug a trench and plumbed it properly. More on this in a later post. 



And lastly, for the outside, we changed out the rotten fiberboard and wood door for a modern, insulated door. 

Basically, the exterior is complete now. We were able to save about 85% of the original structure, whereas we prepared for having to rebuild the thing wall by wall. We also had a bunch of leftover roof shingles from the house, so those got used once we trued up the structure on the new garage roof. This cut budget down drastically. The leaks are gone, the walls are solid, and the thing looks great.



Most importantly, it matches the house! Curb appeal is through the roof now compared to before. 

The next part is dealing with the electrical and the inside. We decided to nix the 240v circuit for now, as I never use it, but the box will have a provision to add it later. All the walls will be properly insulated, and more shelving/storage will be built in. Will I be able to get a car in there? We'll see!

Wow, that's massive!  Looks great!

In reply to WonkoTheSane :

Thanks! The garage is not that big, but the house... we are very happy with the house. A lot of the things that were in the garage can now be stored either in the basement shop OR our new crawlspace under the rear of the house, which should free up a ton of room in the garage. 

Dang! Congrats on both the house and the garage. 

In reply to CrustyRedXpress :

Thank you! It's been a LONG time coming. We bought the place as a fixer-upper in 2010. Took 14 years to get there!

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Still faster than monzora... Gratz on the upgrades!

It's been a little while since I updated this, but the work continues. Now that the exterior is done, it's time to get the inside finished enough to make it useable again. This is where I started:



A few years' worth of packrat nonsense, multiplied by stuffing things in there during our house renovation made this a real mess. The first step was gutting as much as possible so the crew can work, and during that process, relocate a lot of the stuff to other places. Some goes in other storage areas, some in the house, and as much as possible in the trash. 



First stop: the dump. I still have at least 2 more trips to do, but it was liberating tossing so much crap that I never use. The remnants of my old workbench and a garage cabinet, both repurposed kitchen discards, got tossed. They were falling apart and had to go.

After clearing and cleaning, this is what's left in there: 



There is a lot more that needs to go back in here, but I'm trying to organize and do it right instead of just making another unmanageable mess. The sides are cleared out now for the crew to wire the rest of the garage properly and then insulate it. Temporary power has been restored partially, so it will be good to have it all back up. 



I also found out that the original structure was built in 1956! The old house was built in 1944, so this was added 12 years later. I joked with the wife that we should get something from 1956 to park in here at some point. 

Once everything is done inside, it's reorganization time. I'll need to replace my work bench, hopefully with one of those rolling tool boxes with a slab top. I want to make sure a car fits in here. 

ALWAYS ensure that the blimp is pointed UP. 

I know it would be some work, but since it's not that big and it's empty and everything else looks so good, why not drywall the interior?  Mark your studs clearly so you can easily hang shelves, but clean, smooth, solid, white walls would look amazing.  And lights.  Lots of lights. . 

In reply to jfryjfry :

It's something I considered, but budgetary concerns make it a non-starter for now. As long as it has insulation, I'm good with that. 

This gives me hope that *maybe* doing a reno on my garage / shop space may actually be worth it.

In reply to DjGreggieP :

If this garage was salvageable, anything is possibe. I still can't believe that we didn't have to knock it down and start over. There was so much rot and water leaks everywhere, not to mention many unwelcome tenants taking up residence in here. I've found rodent nests all over the place. They even got into one of my tool boxes! Gross!

When things are done and I start to set everything back up, there are two must-haves that I'll need to deal with: a work bench and tire storage. On the tire storage, I have a wall-mounted rack I got for Christmas years ago that will get mounted somewhere; I want to get my winter tires off the floor and out of the way. And for the work bench, I'm thinking something like this cart from the Hammer Store would do the trick:



My old work bench was a converted under-the-sink kitchen cabinet with a sheet of plywood bolted to the top, and it was too big for the space at about 60+" long. This one is 46", and while I'd rather a longer one, I like that it's portable and doesn't take up a ton of space. Only issue is that I'd like to mount a bench vise to it, and I'm not sure that's possible with something like this. I also have a little plastic service cart that I've been using for a mobile work bench, but I tried mounting my vise to it and it does not enjoy the extra weight.

Still not 100% sure what I'll do for chemical and detailing product storage yet, but I'll figure that out. I do have a small Ikea metal ladder shelf I could use for that, as well as some other shelving units on wheels, but space is at a premium in here. A wall-mounted cabinet or shelf would be better. 

What a transformation!   thanks for coming back to share!

any reason the house power from the street was terminated like that?    Could they have not gone to the corner and then down?

In reply to wyndscreen :

Yes, it was a code thing about distance to... something, I forget (maybe the gutters?). I hate the way it looks, but there really isn't much of a choice. I just ignore it now.

In reply to Tony Sestito :

The weatherhead and connections need to be 3'  or more away from the window opening. It would be too close if it was connected at the corner.

Mrfurzzy said:

In reply to Tony Sestito :

The weatherhead and connections need to be 3'  or more away from the window opening. It would be too close if it was connected at the corner.

DING DING DING!!!

Yeah, that was it. If we put it in the corner, it was too close to the window that's on the side of the house. 



Like I said, I'm used to it now, and just happy to have a new house to live in that isn't actively trying to kill me. 

Up here in Furniture city and home of Steelcase, you can find over head cabinets on the side of the road, I dragged home a four piece set a couple years ago.  Look for office furniture on FBMP.

A friend of mine has one of these bad boys:



Someone was throwing it away, so he scooped it and put it in his garage. That's more what I was looking for, but I wouldn't turn down office cabinets. That big steel one in the back of my garage actually came from my old office building. Weighs like 300lbs!

The crew finished up insulation over the weekend and restored power to the garage! 







I forgot to take a picture in my excitement, but they also taped up all the seams of the insulation so they don't puff out as much on the walls. We talked about if and how I could finish the interior, and we decided that if I was going to do anything, it might be plywood. Drywall would look nice, but I could get more use out of plywood, as you can nail/screw things into them to hang stuff easier than drywall, and it would be more affordable. I may do this later down the road, because I need to get everything back in here and organized ASAP to clear my driveway.