French Drain Complete.

A few posts back, I wrote about how we dug trenches around the perimeter of the garage to put in a French drain. We purchased a yard of blue stones from a landscaping company in our area and we picked it up to save on the $50 delivery fee.  This pile is a yard of stones.  It only cost us $35 for the whole yard and will be enough to fill 3 sides of the garage.  Since the delivery was more expensive than the product, we figured we would put in the "labor" of picking up the stones and shoveling it out of the truck when we got it home.  It was a lot of heavy lifting, and my goodness my back was sore when we finished shoveling all the stones out of the truck.  The things I do to save $50!  Hahaha!  Sometimes I wish I was less cheap frugal, but then I start to think how I could spend $50 and I just suck it up and shovel the #$%@ rocks.

Inside the trench, we put down a layer of landscape fabric to prevent dirt and mud from coming up the stones.  We also put in landscape edging on the sides to keep the rocks in place.  Then we shoveled the stones into the trench.   I took this photo so you can see the landscape fabric in the back and the edging.  We are thrilled with the way it came out. It looks amazing. This entire garage renovation was so much work, back breaking labor!  However, we learned a lot and saved so much money because we did all the labor ourselves.  Maybe I can use those savings on a spa day.

Garage is Done!

I am so amazed with how much work the Hubs and the Farmer got done in just 10 days!  They were totally exhausted at the end though.  During this building process, we thought about things we could do to extend the life of the garage, because this is not something we want to do again in the near future.  We decided to put in a French drain around the garage. A French drain is a trench that is filled with rocks and gravel that helps re-direct rainwater away from a structure and it's foundation. Since our old garage had so much termite damage, rot and water damage, the hub's dad, the Farmer, highly recommended we put one in. So the hubs and I dug a trench 1 foot deep and 6 inches wide all the way around the perimeter of the garage. No trench is needed in the front where the garage door is.   I love this photo of the Hubs, he is not amused that I'm taking photos rather than digging. LOL.  I quickly took this photo, then grabbed a shovel to help him dig.  Haha. He's such a good sport!

We went to a landscape retailer to buy a yard of blue stones for the trench. They had a lot of other prettier stones, like river rock, but we were trying to stay on budget so we opted for regular blue stone.  It only cost $32 for a whole yard of rocks.  We went and picked it up with the Farmer's truck. We decided to pick it up ourselves because that saves us the $50 delivery fee.  For a renovation project like this, every little bit of money saved helps!  The hardest part was unloading the truck, which was the Hubs and I and two shovels.  A yard of stone weighs about 1 ton.  Heavy!!  After we removed all the rocks out of the truck, I felt like I could use a spa day. 

We haven't poured the rocks into the trench yet.  We had to get back to working on the garage.  Before we pour the rocks into the trench, the Farmer suggested we cover the trench with landscape fabric.  The landscape fabric will be a barrier to keep dirt out of the gravel. So we'll do that before the rocks go in.  Over the plywood walls, the men installed some insulation foam boards to help with the whipping wind.  Doesn't this look like a Lowe's ad??  Actually, during this project we received two Lowe's coupons in the mail, so we saved $35!  So I don't mind giving a shout out to Lowe's.  However... it is a drop in the bucket, because I lost count after already spending over $2,000 at Lowes.  But every little bit helps right?  I have to keep saying that like a mantra, haha.  We only put the foam boards on two sides of the garage, the sides most exposed to the direct wind and the elements.

Then the siding went up.  We picked out an almond color vinyl siding.  We went with what they had in stock, which wasn't much of a choice.  White or almond.  We could have done a special order with other color options and styles, but it would have cost more money and honestly, we're on a budget, so I can live with the almond color.

Bye, bye Lowe's advertisement.

One wall done!

Two walls done!

All walls done!!  It took 10 days and every waking hour of my husband's and his father's vacation to do this!  The guys worked so hard on this project!  We are ecstatic!

This is before!

And after!  I am seriously smiling right now, not only because we have a "new" garage, but also because now that my husband has one building project under his belt, you know what's next?  (smile) Three words.  My garden shed!  (bigger smile)

Garage Renovation: Part 3

We were so fortunate to have good weather this past week.  We only had one day of rain where work had to stop.  After the trusses were all installed, the men (the hubs and his dad) moved onto adding the roof.  Plywood was added and then we decided to spend the extra money to install an ice and water shield so that it would be storm proof.  No leaks or holes in this roof! After the roof shield was installed, the roof was water tight and then the roof shingles were added. 

Doesn't the new roof look awesome?

Then they moved onto installing the new garage door.  Here you can see the inside of the building and all the old framing and walls are still there, only more stable with all the new beams holding it up.

Here it is, with new exterior walls, new roof, and new garage door!  Next up, siding!!

More photos to come!

Garage Renovation: Part 2

Here are more photos of the renovation of the old garage. My husband's dad, the farmer, is also a master carpenter. Before owning the family farm, he had his own carpentry business where he specialized in custom built furniture and cabinetry. So it was fantastic to have him visit to help guide us with the reconstruction of the mess we call a garage. Not to go into a long drawn out story but, we decided because of all the various zoning rules to keep the framing of the existing garage. Long story, short, we are considering this an "emergency renovation" project. The building was literally a hazard and so it had to be renovated. There was not a chance that the building would hold up to another New York winter! On the second day of working on the garage, after clearing out all the damaged wood holding up the walls, the father-in-law showed me how you could move the entire wall with just your hand.  Hello, scary!  So first up, he built a temporary wall to take the load off the existing wall.

Once the temporary wall was in place, then it was safe to replace the bottom boards and add new 2x4s to the wall to shore up the stability.  This was done to all 3 walls.

On the outside, the hubs and father-in-law attached new plywood to the outside of all the walls. 

Once the walls were solid again, the roof was completely removed.  There were gaping holes in the roof, so nothing was salvaged.

Then my father-in-law built all new trusses for the roof.

All the old trusses were removed and new ones were installed.

Here is a photo from the front. It's really starting to look so much better already!

Stay tuned for more photos!

What we've been doing for the last 10 days!

My husband has been on vacation for the last 10 days. However, he hasn't had time to relax at all! It's a "working" vacation, he's been working on rebuilding our dilapidated garage with his dad.  When we moved into the house last year, the garage was definitely not the selling point.  It was in really bad shape.  In fact, when we had our house inspection, the inspector said that there was so much termite damage that the building should be knocked down.

Here is the side view, where you can see that siding is  literally falling off the walls.  And the roof is practically caving in.  I was scared to go inside the garage for fear that something would fall on me! 

Here is the inside view of the garage.  The previous owner of this house let the garage go into disrepair.  Check out the walls, he nailed every kind of piece of wood onto the walls just to plug the gaping holes in the walls.  It is such a mish mash mess!

Here is a closeup of the back side of the roof.  Don't you love our "skylight"?  LOL.  You see why I was afraid of this garage?

One of the first tasks was to remove the old siding.  This was actually pretty easy to do, I was able to pull the siding off with my hands, of course, I wore gloves though.  Nasty stuff.

More photos to come, stay tuned!