Greyghost's Garage and Such

[greyghost18t]

Hey everyone. I have been a long time lurker here and thought i would finally show whats been going on.

2 years ago my wife and I bought our first house. It is a late 1800's with a detached 2 car garage.

We have been working on many projects over the last 2 years so here it is of the garage and the house.

The day we closed

Now time to rip up some carpet and tiles to reveal original thin plank hardwood floors in the dining room. The floors run from the living room into there. The previous owners had them covered up for the last 35 years.

Yes i think they were asbestos but they came up easy

The same thing happened in the Foyer with tiling.

So then we decided to take up the carpeting that was on the staircase to the upstairs and found out why they had it on there in the first place.

At this point i still have not gotten to the garage..

After some research and some sweat I got the stair case fixed and ready for paint.

Here is the outcome of that..

Now we had some fun electrical projects to do. Got to love DIY lighting fixtures.

I am a drummer so this one fit well for a hall way light.

Next was the Dining room chandelier. ( we bought one at the restore for $3.00)

Now we needed a Kitchen Island

Before

After

Alright now to the garage...

Don't have many before pictures but they left me a nice workbench.

So here I am putting up my barn tin for the lower amount and i painted the top part with some left over paint we had. Its basically a particle board they put up.

So over the 2 years i have done some work in the garage.

one thing is that I did find a porcelain factory light at a rummage sale for $30. Had my friend create a gooseneck and wire it up for me .

Then I added a bunch of **** into my garage to take up space. I am going to be building a frame for my new shed in the next week or so once it stops snowing here so thats why all the wood around .

Also have my license plate collections in the works. I still have about 30 plates not up yet.

Fits a GTI pretty nice. I can't pull in straight because of how the drive ways narrows on that side of the garage..but with a small car i can handle it.

Here is the reason why i took that side.

The truck fits in there nicely.

I also went to Costco and got 4 of the led shop lights and have them on a motion sensor so when we pull into the garage they light up nicely. Also put 2 more non led shop lights above the garage door that I can turn on and off when the door is closed to give more light for working. Put a non LED one above the bench as well.

Here is the other occupant of the garage right now. Wheels are off for balancing.

The shop manager was very impressed

Here was another huge project for last year. we had a midsize chain link fence on the driveway side. It didn't look good so we decided to build our own fence and use the existing posts.

Now the construction begins. I made sleeves to go over the metal posts to attach the rails.

Then attach the boards.

Came out alright.

Well i think that was a good first post for this. I hope to have some more stuff in the works. I want to start wood working and I have already scored an older table saw from my in laws that i have to move over.

Thanks for checking this out.

 

[LXCam]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Wow what a great place you're building, I luv it. My favorite is that drum light fixture, bud that is badass!!

 

[Deezler]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Nice work! You guys seem to like the goth(ic) look. Spooky stairway decorations, haha. seriously though, beautiful reno thus far. keep the projects and pics coming!

 

[greyghost18t]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Those pictures were from Halloween so that's why the goth look. lol yeah my main project right now is the shed and getting the bike back on the road this spring. I want to also build a chair rail on the top of the barn tin with a 2x2 above it and then attaching a 1x4 to that to cover up the the top of the tin. Should clean it up a little and give a little shelf.

 

[BUGTHUG]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Good job, nicely done! You need a doggy window in the fence so your dog can see whats going on.
You don't have any spare old drum pedals you want to sell?

 

[BUGTHUG]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

whats up with the dubs? I didn't see them in your garage? the ones in the avatar

 

[xtremek]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

I like the "cover" for the old posts, very slick.

 

[greyghost18t]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Unfortunately i don't have any old VW's.. don't have the room for them yet. Still looking for my splitty but those are hard to come by in good shape here in WI.

We have thought about doing a doggy window in the gate for her to see out of. Possibly this summer. The good news is she can still see over the fence when she is on the deck and also she can see thru the boards.

I don't have any old pedals right now. I am using them on 3 different sets right now. 2 different practice spaces and my set at home.

Here are some pics of my set though..

Piles of drums in a new room

Playing a festival

My amazing find. Ludwig Pre Serial number 1954 snare

I love the patina on the nickle hoops.

 

[dubber]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

A DIY'ers dream property. Nice work thus far. Cheers for a fellow VW enthusiast.

 

[BUGTHUG]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

love the metal flake

 

[greenlizard]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Smart reuse of the fence posts. I'd like to think I would have done that.... but it's likely I would have dug them up.

 

[drivesitfar]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

SG: AMAZING transformation of your staircase and excellent fix. I saw your name on the thread and happy I checked it out. now I see why your golf game hasn't had much time lately and happy to see you are making tons of progress with your home.

just an FYI. buy a good mask for you and your bride especially when ripping up old carpet pads, tiles and pulling apart old walls. the dust and debris that get in the air can be toxic so you don't want to breath it.

keep up the great posts and pictures and i'll check in as often as I can in case you have questions.

good luck

 

[jwhcars]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Nice work and a great post. Charming home.

 

[HSpencer]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

I can't begin to say how impressive this rehab is. The vision and scope of the work is fantastic in every way. The reworking of on hand items is so very clever and everything is coming out beautiful. The finished staircase has to be my favorite photo. Second favorite would be the first photo of the two of you standing on the front porch. Changing the chain link fence to wood is another fine finishing touch!!

HIGHLY IMPRESSIVE!!!

Best Regards
Herb Spencer

 

[greyghost18t]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

SG: AMAZING transformation of your staircase and excellent fix. I saw your name on the thread and happy I checked it out. now I see why your golf game hasn't had much time lately and happy to see you are making tons of progress with your home.

just an FYI. buy a good mask for you and your bride especially when ripping up old carpet pads, tiles and pulling apart old walls. the dust and debris that get in the air can be toxic so you don't want to breath it.

keep up the great posts and pictures and i'll check in as often as I can in case you have questions.

good luck

Yeah its been slow on the golf front for me. I hope to get out soon.. I know just over a month from now i am playing golf then playing a softball tourny so its time to start working on the game again.! Thanks for your advice on the masks. I need to get some decent ones for my wife and I because we will be pulling out all the carpeting upstairs next month because one of our cats has decided that she has a peeing problem. We have tried everything with her and we don't know what we are going to do with her.

love the metal flake

Thanks! They did it right with those vintage drums. I got it for a steal because it needed new heads and new snares.. I was lucky!

Smart reuse of the fence posts. I'd like to think I would have done that.... but it's likely I would have dug them up.

We thought about it but it would have included taking up some of the driveway. The toughest part is the gate to the drive way. We are trying to use the frame for the gate so we can totally enclose them because the opening wouldn't be as great. Right now it opens both ways.

I can't begin to say how impressive this rehab is. The vision and scope of the work is fantastic in every way. The reworking of on hand items is so very clever and everything is coming out beautiful. The finished staircase has to be my favorite photo. Second favorite would be the first photo of the two of you standing on the front porch. Changing the chain link fence to wood is another fine finishing touch!!

HIGHLY IMPRESSIVE!!!

Best Regards
Herb Spencer

Thanks Herb. Its amazing to think we have done this much in less than 2 years. We do have some projects we want to tackle this year. In our living room we have a fireplace that was installed maybe in the 1940's in the corner of the room. They put fake brick all the way to the ceiling with it with out a mantle. We want to tear it all out and rebuild it with more period correct Victorian style surround. We did get a free mantle that I need to paint still. Also I want to mount the TV above it and i don't trust what is there right now. So we are debating on demolishing it and then new framing and proper fire board on the bottom and then dry wall on the top.. or demolishing it and having a contractor come in and do it.

 

[BUGTHUG]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

I say go for it, you have some mad wood skills so it should turn out nice.

 

[greyghost18t]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

So i was able to take a look at the table saw my father in-law had. HEre are some pictures of it. I sent them to one of my friends who is a wood worker and said I should get a new one that has some safety devices since I am starting out and he wouldn't even use it. Too dangerous.

I might just keep it and refurbish it

 

[drivesitfar]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

SG: That is a solid old Craftsman table saw and yes they are dangerous just like the old radial arm saws, but if you PAY ATTENTION and learn to do the smart and safe cuts you'll be fine. I had one like yours restored by a 75 year old client of mine that was gorgeous and I had it for 2 years and didn't make a cut with it so I sold it. I've been using skill, jig, chain, sawsall and several other saws instead of a table saw for years so until I have room enough to have one set up full time i'll continue to do so.

I've seen a lot of workbenches on this forum with table saws built into them so you might take a look if you are planning on keeping yours. you are pretty handy so I don't see any issues with you using that saw and just learn all there is to know before you use it if you can.

 

[greyghost18t]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Well have made some progress around the garage.. one thing was building a shed to get more room in the garage.

dug out the base and put 4 inches of road bond and then built the base and staked it down so it doesn't shift

Constructed the shed. Wanted to find one that was matching the house and garage(it is opposite). Found this at HOBO on sale from last year. Didn't want the browns and tans like all the others are coming as. Also didn't want to build one from scratch.

Once that was over, I had the room to build some garden boxes in the garage for my wife.

Here they are put into the ground and starting to fill with dirt and compost

After filling them and mulching around and making our garden..

This then allowed me to get back to my project in the garage.. got the front end back together

The patina on the garage floor is really starting to look like a 1930's garage floor.. ha

 

[drivesitfar]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

SG: great improvements. I also need to build some raised beds and i'm guessing it's going to miss this year's season, but hoping to this fall. WELL DONE

what are you and your wife planning on growing in them?

 

[greyghost18t]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Drives - she is going to do some yellow onions, Brussel sprouts, variety of tomatoes, carrots, cilantro, green peppers, red peppers, jalapenos, pumpkins, mint, poppies to replace the poppies that we had to dig out that the PO had planted.

Also we need to get an adapter for the rain barrel that i got for free to attach to the gutter.

 

[the_white_shadow]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Nice job on the improvements. What was in the stairwell? I may have missed it, but it looked like a giant bag of blue meth from Breaking Bad. LOL.

 

[drivesitfar]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

SG: i'm sure you'll need to get a few more rain barrels to sit side by side and since it's been a while since I removed mine at my wife's request I can't recall what I did to keep the water from growing mosquitoes and mold/algae. read up on it and let us know because I might end up getting some again as I get my backyard finished and ORGANIZED.

sounds like a great selection of stuff you guys will be growing and might I suggest making another platform for a green house so you can have veggies in the winter too.

 

[greyghost18t]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

Nice job on the improvements. What was in the stairwell? I may have missed it, but it looked like a giant bag of blue meth from Breaking Bad. LOL.

It was some carpet padding to cut down on the noise from the hollow step. I left it in there because i figured it wouldn't do any damage.

SG: i'm sure you'll need to get a few more rain barrels to sit side by side and since it's been a while since I removed mine at my wife's request I can't recall what I did to keep the water from growing mosquitoes and mold/algae. read up on it and let us know because I might end up getting some again as I get my backyard finished and ORGANIZED.

sounds like a great selection of stuff you guys will be growing and might I suggest making another platform for a green house so you can have veggies in the winter too.

Not sure if we want to do the winter route yet. Lets get past this year and the landscaping we need to do in the back yard. The PO made the back yard a little putting green size lawn and we are going to add more sod and make the yard bigger and less mulch and mud.

I will have to check that on the rain barrel. I think we are going to hook up a soaker hose to it and run it thru the boxes so all we have to do to water is turn it on from the rain barrel. Hopefully that keeps water moving and not stagnate.

 

[greyghost18t]

Re: Silverghost's Garage and Such

So it has been a while since i have posted in here. Its been busy at the house. Trying to get things all set for putting it on the market in the next year.

First of all I had to demolish the old built in closet in the spare bedroom to make into the nursery. I will get pictures of the finished tonight I hope. This was done in the summer of 2017. The little guy came on July 4th 2017.

Old closets.
Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr
Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

After demolishing the old closets
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Testing fitting the ikea bookshelf that is now built into the space

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The amazing wall papers that was found
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Next I mounted the TV on the fireplace. Sanded the mantle and stained it and mounted it.
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When we opened up the fake stone or brick( what every you want to call it, we found that this was not original to the house at all. Also found the old wall paper behind.

Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

It helped to find that space to run all the wires to the entertainment system. The bad thing is that we had someone come out and look at the fireplace and we can't use it. It was a coal fireplace and they never put a lining in up the chimney. They said we can put a insert in and then a liner up the chimney, but we are going to let the next people do that.

Then he was born!

Since then projects have been put on hold a little. The bike went on the back burner. So i decided to take a lot off of it and send it to Moto-fied motorcycle shop here Milwaukee to get finished.

Here is the little guy helping me take all the electronics off and parts that i need to sell.
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Stripped down ready to go
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Loaded up on the back of the Rebel. Makes it a lot easier with air suspension

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Rowan and I visiting the shop last spring

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Did some work on the new tank over the spring

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Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Here are some recent pictures of whats happening .

Upgrade the wheels to 18" front and back. Had them powder coated matte black hubs and gloss black rims, buchanan spokes front and back, and hand polished rear brake

Cb750k by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Cb750k by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Cb750k by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Hardware plated.

Cb750k by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Front Mounted

Cb750k by blackghost20t, on Flickr

As it sits right now..

Cb750k by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Still a lot to finish on it.


Another project.

Rebuilt the deck on the hottest day this last summer. I was going to just sand and re-stain the deck, but when i really looked at the boards they were toast. When i started taking them up they were so light that you could break them in half with your hands.

After all the decking was removed.
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The little guy likes the new railings. These are solid and safe now. The old ones didn't have any posts to keep it secure.. just 3 screw on each spindle

Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Letting the deck season over the winter and I will be staining it this summer.


Other thing i did was this last weekend i replaced all the rollers on my garage door. The old metal ones were spitting ball bearings so i decided it was time. Ordered nylon ones on amazon and took a half hour and replaced them all. Wow! quiet now and smooth! Loving it.

I have a couple of projects i want to complete this winter so i hope to post those up soon!

Thanks for checking it out!

 

[Terranova]

I know it was two years ago...
That light fixture. The lugs said "donor" but the inside of the shell said "import". I sure hope it was the later!!!

I'm a vintage rogers guy myself. Have three marching snares and a dynasonic. Also a 50's ludwig pic all. My kit is DW though.

Liked that red sparkle Ludwig you put up too.


Looks like you've made tons a progress on the house and congrats on the little one too.

 

[greyghost18t]

I know it was two years ago...
That light fixture. The lugs said "donor" but the inside of the shell said "import". I sure hope it was the later!!!

I'm a vintage rogers guy myself. Have three marching snares and a dynasonic. Also a 50's ludwig pic all. My kit is DW though.

Liked that red sparkle Ludwig you put up too.


Looks like you've made tons a progress on the house and congrats on the little one too.

Thanks for the kind words. I bought that tom i turned into our hallway light fixture at a drum shop in Milwaukee that closed down. They had a huge sale and I think i got that one and another tom for $10. There was a lot of damage to the place for some reason. I am still looking for NORMA drums to complete a drum set i am rebuilding. I sold a 50's NORMA jazz set which was my first drum set so i could buy a rock set. I loved the rock set, but i wish i kept the jazz set. I now need to find a bass drum and floor tom and then i will have a complete set.

I did have to move my drums into the basement and bought an electronic drumset on shopgoodwill.com. I have yet to play it and i bought it months ago. Having a 17 month old really takes you away from playing sometimes. I do have my jazz combo and get to still play out which I love to do.

 

[greyghost18t]

Here are the before and after pictures of the nursery closet

Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Untitled by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Closet by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Closet by blackghost20t, on Flickr

Closet by blackghost20t, on Flickr

 

[greyghost18t]

I have a question for everyone. I have a small mud room into the house that is not insulated. It seems to have been built as an addition to enclose the original exterior door into the kitchen and add a new exterior door. The current floor is plank and slopes. I don’t think there is anything under it besides dirt. I want to put new flooring down. It is 53 inches wide by 83 inches length. So it’s not a huge area. What can I do to insulate better, level the floor, and prep to put a tile down. The 2 exterior walls have some boarding up on it that I do not know what is behind it. I don’t think anything. The 2 interior walls are the old exterior walls and still have the siding which give it some character. Any help would be great.


Sent from my iPhone using The Garage Journal mobile app

 

[bdbecker]

Try searching for "insulating a three season room floor" - there's a bunch of info floating around how to do this. I was actually doing a little reading about this over the holidays. Every year when the temps drop, I'm reminded that I need to take a look under my sun room floor to see if its insulated. Given some of the shortcuts I've found elsewhere in my house, I wouldn't be surprised if there was nothing under there.