Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT Denver MCM garage expansion

[kwyjibo]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Anth - Thanks for the link. I cruise a few blog and real estate sites to get ideas, one of the better for photos is https://www.eichlerforsale.com It's funny to see houses that my friends grew up in to be so in demand (and expensive).

Mpower - The e9 has been stored in a friend's garage. I've swapped between the Carrera and it for the past year or so when it got too crowded in my garage. I did get a chance to visit the garage recently:

I haven't been on the forums much lately, so I have some catching up on how your work has been going. I haven't done much auto-related because the construction/remodel has to take priority. One thing, now that I picked up the targa project, I've come to the conclusion that the e12 needs to go. I really haven't done anything about it because I don't want to see it go. But time... space....

 

[kwyjibo]

The last few days have been crappy - everything seems a bit off. The wall unit for the mini-split was lost by UPS. The glulams showed up but one was cut short and the T&G cedar was damaged. The CMUs are delayed. etc. etc. Bad mojo feeling in the air.

here is the latest lumber delivery waiting for me to do something

Here is why work will have to wait - went for an early morning hike followed by a trip to A-basin (yes, skiing on June 30)

 

[Chortler]

Good reason to put off work. Still a bit of snow in the East Wall chutes. Is Pallavincini still open?

 

[cash68]

I hate you so much.

 

[kwyjibo]

Good reason to put off work. Still a bit of snow in the East Wall chutes. Is Pallavincini still open?

Nope, just BlackMtnExpress and Lenawee are open. Today should be a madhouse up there.

I hate you so much.

Sorry, man. [trigger warning: more suckiness coming... don't read on....]

I was feeling coop'd up yesterday so I couldn't reply fast enough when a small group of friends decided to go on an evening drive. But I didn't feel like driving. I was surprised when my friend came by with his wife's daily:

The vehicle choice made sense on paper - electric car wouldn't loose power going up to 14,000 feet. But the handling gave it no chance of keeping up with a Boxster GTS or 996turbo through the (many) turns.
Go to the light

View of Denver from Mt. Evans

Not my photo, but here is the sunset

 

[gearhead1960]

View of Denver from Mt. Evans

Not my photo, but here is the sunset

I was at Mt. Evans last summer with my wife, SIL and husband. We hired someone to drive as my SIL is deathly afraid of these roads and she wasn't about to let her g-force loving BIL drive.....

Coming from the east and not having Mts this high, the views were absolutely amazing.

 

[cash68]

So jealous. Colorado is awesome.

 

[kwyjibo]

A couple of updates from yesterday...
I poured a concrete pad for the mini-split a few days ago

Just after I pulled the forms and backfilled, I was surprised to see the concrete guys show up with my cmu order. AND they came to pour a footer in the trench I dug a few weeks back. ****! If I knew they were going to be here (with a load of concrete) I would saved myself the trouble of making the pad. Here's the new footer and a stack of the CMUs.

And here's a photo of a ground face block next to some cedar and beach pebbles to get an idea of how they look together

gearhead1960, I feel your pain. My wife has generally banned me from driving visitors around because I make them "uncomfortable". My feeling is that you don't go to Disneyland to stand and watch other people have fun.

 

[colonial foot soldier]

patio area is very nice. good inspirations. I have been wanting to something similar with a privacy wall to separate lurking neighbors.

 

[kwyjibo]

The mason started this morning. The temperature hit triple digits (38C for our metric friends) this afternoon so I was happy to see how far he got before taking off. The cmu section of the wall will be 3 blocks (24") taller... which should be about the same height as the low section of the adjacent cedar wall.

patio area is very nice. good inspirations. I have been wanting to something similar with a privacy wall to separate lurking neighbors.

Thanks. The neighbors behind us sit about 4' higher than us so we'll soon find out how good my calculations were when I designed the walls. The general sloping of the neighborhood is why I'm also having a short retaining wall made in the front yard. I'm hoping that I can have an update on that next week.

 

[polexican23]

i know nothing about masonry, but will there be any structure weaknes for not alternating joints?

 

[kwyjibo]

i know nothing about masonry, but will there be any structure weaknes for not alternating joints?

Thanks for the question. The answer is that the stacked pattern is not as strong as staggered. All the houses in the neighborhood that use "cinder blocks" have them stacked vertically. It must have been an MCM-style thing. I'll admit I like that look better than staggered. It is a freestanding cosmetic wall so they don't think that I should have any problems with the concrete footer and the filling of the blocks with concrete and rebar.

 

[cash68]

Lots of buildings are built like this, not staggered. Start looking at walmarts and any large building and you might notice they're stacked like this on the sides and back of the building; I think it's way cheaper than buying the half blocks or cutting them, and like stated above, once you fill w rebar and concrete it's very strong.

 

[kwyjibo]

The mason finished the front wall the other day - Here's how it looked at the end of the day:

There must be summertime lull in landscaping, because I was able to get 2 tons of gravel delivered within an hour. I spend a few hours shoveling the gravel behind the wall. Now I just need to get rid of the mountain of extra dirt.
I've started to build the pergola around the backyard wall. I'm using the concealed hardware from Simpson Strong-Ties. I'm having a hard time with the beam ties (CBTZ) because I'm having difficulties drilling straight down the length of the post with a hand held drill. I have a another idea for a jig that I'll be testing this weekend.

 

[Riley]

It's fun following along with your project. Great cars, interesting sights and a wonderful renovation! Thanks!

 

[Arclitgold]

Nice work!! Can’t wait to see what’s next


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[kwyjibo]

It's fun following along with your project. Great cars, interesting sights and a wonderful renovation! Thanks!

Nice work!! Can’t wait to see what’s next


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Thanks for following along!

I need to get some friends over to help me with the pergola beams - maybe this weekend.

I didn't get very much done last week, we had a couple visitors. Had a good scare when we went hiking and our friend's hair started sticking straight up. She thought is was fun. My wife and I were not amused by the thought of getting hit by lightning and guided them off the mountain. They were mad that in our rush to get them down, they didn't take photos of the static hair.

I was able to get some work done: I planted a peach to get some shade on the hot area between the garage and the neighbor. I also borrowed a friend's Hilti hammer drill so that I could bolt down the Mr. Cool onto the pad.

Two posts are up for the pergola. The bags are to keep rain from getting into the hardware.

 

[TahitianGreen]

Looks nice dude!

 

[cash68]

Unrelated to your garage, but I just picked up a project you might dig:

 

[kwyjibo]

Looks nice dude!

Thanks, I hope to have an update on the pergola in a couple days.

Unrelated to your garage, but I just picked up a project you might dig:

Yes! You're absolutely right, I dig it! Are you going to post info on your thread or did you start a new one somewhere else (like 2002faq)? It looks nice, congratulations!

 

[Max Power]

I could use that dirt at my house.

 

[kwyjibo]

I could use that dirt at my house.

You're more than welcome to the pile - I'll even help load!
PM your contact info

 

[Jo3l]

It's coming along great! From the street it looks like your garage is almost as big as your house

 

[kwyjibo]

It's coming along great! From the street it looks like your garage is almost as big as your house

Thanks, I wish the garage could have been bigger. My original plan would have added double the space, but zoning....

Here's a photo of my problem with the Simpson concealed ties. They require 1.25" holes at the end of the post and in the beam, which I made with a handheld drill. Basically, a pipe is inserted into the post and the beam to tie them together. The pipe is locked in place with metal pins/dowels. The photo is the connector pipe installed in the post. As you can see, I was a few degrees off of where I wanted to be.

So, instead of redrilling the hole (which I thought would weaken the joint), I drilled the hole in the beam with a matching "wrong" angle. The problem is that the same torque and alignment issues that made drilling the first hole in the post a problem, made it hard to accurately drill a matching second hole into the beam. I had problems with all 4 junctions. The test fitting wasn't too bad and the joints are pretty close to square, but I won't be using these again. Unless I can figure out a way to accurately drill these holes, it's just too hard for me to get a tight, square joint with these things. Here's how the layout looked prior to drilling

 

[kwyjibo]

OK, this might be a first for me: two updates in one day.

I corralled a few friends over to help lift the beams. We got two of the lower, longitudinal beams up this evening. If all goes well, we'll have the two heavier cross beams up tomorrow. Here's the framing around the cmu wall

 

[Zcruisers]

That looks great!! This is my favorite thread.

 

[kwyjibo]

Zcruisers, thanks for the encouragement!

My friends came by for a second evening of fun. We got the larger glulam cross beams up on the framing.

I'll hang 2x10 or 2x8 slats between the large beams. I still need to look into rolling barn door hardware for the door to the right of the cmu wall.

 

[Jo3l]

Wow those are some serious beams! You must have a lot of friends

 

[Mpower5266]

Unrelated to your garage, but I just picked up a project you might dig:

Awesome... I have a Malaga roundie myself.

 

[kwyjibo]

No good updates - we've had a few out-of-town-friends visit. But all the entertaining lets me explore more sites around town. First up, we toured the Chamberlin Observatory. Built in the 1890s, it houses a 20 inch refracting telescope. After looking at the moon, we got a nice look at Saturn and a few of its moons.

The Denver Botanic Garden always has some art collection on display among the plants. This one was kinda creepy

 

[kwyjibo]

Sorry about the lack of updates, I've been out of town - and completely unconnected - for a while. Here's hint of where I've been:

My wife had a couple of meetings in Australia, so I decided to take advantage of the hotel room and go along. Vacation time is now over and I hope to start posting updates soon.

 

[kwyjibo]

OK, forget what I said in the last post. There's a new priority: fix the daily driver. The first time I tried to drive the 325ix after the trip, the clutch pedal went straight to the floor and stayed there. I didn't see anything superficial when I looked underneath so I think a seal in either the master or slave cylinder blew. OK, replace them. Well, the clutch was needing a replacement soon. Change it now. And, it's almost time for the water pump and timing belt. Might as well do those too. And, while I'm in there I might as well adjust the valves (which will also fix the leak at the valve cover). And....

I rearranged the garages and moved a bunch of stuff out to make enough room to work. The same group of guys that helped lift the pergola beams came over to push the car up my steep driveway. The parts won't get here until Tuesday because of the holiday weekend.
And so it begins....

 

[Geoff289]

Sorry about the lack of updates, I've been out of town - and completely unconnected - for a while. Here's hint of where I've been:

My wife had a couple of meetings in Australia, so I decided to take advantage of the hotel room and go along. Vacation time is now over and I hope to start posting updates soon.

Were those guys in the zoo or in the wild?

 

[Bmwtie]

Nothing like an unforseen car restoration. Lol


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[kwyjibo]

Were those guys in the zoo or in the wild?

Unfortunately, it was in a zoo. One of the local hosts organized a trip to a koala "sanctuary" that turned out to be more of a zoo. We didn't have enough time between the two conferences to explore too far out on our own. I'd love to return someday for a proper holiday.

Nothing like an unforseen car restoration. Lol

If I had better self control, I'd just be replacing the clutch hydraulics. But NOoooo....
I spent a few hours fixing a couple minor things and dropping the exhaust. Nice twin pipe muffler!

 

[E12-535iTurbo]

I love the BMW content. Keep posting it so I might start working on mine again .

 

[kwyjibo]

I love the BMW content. Keep posting it so I might start working on mine again .

I didn't mention this earlier, but with the e30 needing lots of work, the e12 has been filling in as the daily driver. I haven't driven this car for so long, I forgot how nice they are. The last few days have reinvigorated my plan to replace the automatic transmission with the 5-speed Getrag 265 that I have in storage.

 

[kwyjibo]

I drove a couple hours out to the Vail ski area for a car show. I've never actually stopped by here (its right on I70) but its a very nice place to have an event. Some of the cars were right in the village but most were in a field at the base of the hill. This spot at the fountain would be a nice place to spend a day hanging out - I will definitely consider entering this event next year

...and my favorites from the morning. Both the C-type and 300 SL were from the East Coast. The owners were nice guys and had some friends in common, but I don't remember ever meeting them.

oh, and my garage - I finally finished the Mr Cool installation. I originally paused earlier this summer when I was waiting for the line cover to be delivered. We've had record-breaking heat for the past couple weeks so AC is a welcome addition.

 

[Brian R]

That is a nice update. I've skied most of the CO resorts but somehow have missed Vail. Another place I need to go. The Mr Cool looks good and I'm sure makes it easier to work in garage.

 

[cash68]

**** Vail. Last time I went I paid the full price ($180+ tax) purely because I wanted to ski blue sky basin, which is awesome. I go up the lift, cut over on the back bowls, go up another lift, and get to the point where I can head to Blue Sky. NOPE! They closed all of blue sky and most of the back bowls due to high winds.

What does that mean? 300% people on the front face. Lines 17-25 minutes long. Was furious. Tried to get my money back, since the hill was 100% open when I paid for hte ticket, they refused and told me to pound sand. Even tried blocking the charge on my credit card company, but that didn't work either.

I hate that place, and Vail Resorts is becoming a monopoly and ruining small town ski resorts.