The Garage is DONE!

With the completion of our garage, all of our projects for 2013 are done!!!

When we bought our house, we knew the garage had had past termite activity and subsequent damage. Being that we were twenty-some years old and leaving the world of renting, we didn't mind that the garage was rough around the edges.  After all, it would primarily house our lawn equipment and Justin's Caddy.

Then, in the Fall of 2012, the "restored" Caddy was sold.  A few months later, Justin decided he needed another "project," and this time he focused in on the garage. Aside from the foundation and roof, most everything needed replaced so I knew Justin would be able to spend LOTS of time on the garage.

And that's exactly what happened.  The weekend of Memorial Day 2013 was spent clearing out the garage and getting ready to tear into it...

About two years ago, the City road-grader hit the corner of the garage.  The inside boards were too rotted to nail the siding back onto and the hoops we'd have to jump through to file an insurance claim through the city were crazy.  So, we it just became an eyesore and *hopefully* a reminder for the road-grader not to get too close!

At some point in time, the garage was added on to and it was very obvious from the back...and the fact that it had multiple widths of siding didn't help make the addition inconspicuous, either!

Some of the lovely termite damage...the boards shattered like fine glass!

All the moldy paneling and insulation from inside the garage--and no, the pregnant lady only got close enough to take pictures!  And even then, the guys yelled at me for getting too close to it!

It was too scary how easily the walls came down...how the garage didn't blow over with a strong wind was beyond me!

All the walls ended up getting reframed...

We had an electrician restore the power to the garage.  Now, we have lights, outlets and an electric garage door opener!

One wall of new siding...we went with wood in case we ever do seek the historical designation for our house.  The use of wood should allow the garage to count as a conforming building.

New siding, new door and trim!

Can't see it in the pics, but ordered door panels with beadboard inserts that coordinate with the house's beadboard soffits

All the siding matches :-)

Last night, the final trim work was done and after 7 months of work, we can say the garage is 'a wrap'!  Well, the siding joints still need caulked and the body painted, but at least the surfaces are all primed so the wood will survive any winter moisture.

After tearing into the garage, it was amazing what we found...like I said, we knew about the termite damage.  But then we found water damage.  And framing that wasn't attached to the sole plate in numerous places.  In fact, some areas had the sole plate on a dirt foundation!  Between the amount of framing that wasn't attached to anything, and how damaged the structure was, I honestly don't know how the garage was still standing.

Now that the garage has practically been rebuilt, the structure shouldn't be going anywhere!  Thankfully, all the primer colors look fairly decent but I'm definitely excited to hit it with a paintbrush come Spring and get it matching our house.  What I'm most excited about, though, is having power to the garage...the old shin-splitter door was a PAIN in the butt, especially after a heavy snow, but now with the touch of a button, I can pull right into the garage!

I'm just glad that with only days left in 2013, we can say that all of our projects are completely wrapped up...our goal was to have the garage completely wrapped up before Akinya was born and obviously we missed that deadline by a few months.  But as they say, it's always better to be late, than never!