Little Garage on the Prairie

Thorky · Apr 16, 2012

Hey everyone!

I've been lurking on this site now for the past few months, after being sent a link to BB767's "Restored 1930's Auto Shop" thread.

I figure it's about time to post up my little winter project, a 24'x30' 2 car garage with 10' high ceilings. Doors are 10' wide by 8' high.

Most of the work has been done by myself, except the following:

Pad pour - helped by my dad, who refused to let me run the powertrowl
Roof tin - had buddy with Bobcat come out to lift sheets up to roof
Fascia/Soffiting - Hired brother in law that does this professionally
Mudding - different Brother-in-law/drywaller brought in his boxes

A bit of back story.

First off, this is NOT my dream garage. I had originally planned to be selling my acreage this summer and had started the garage project simply to raise the property value.

As things are progressing though, circumstances have changed, namely, my employer made an offer I cannot refuse. So now the build has changed a bit, even though there is a chance I may still sell, I'm making the garage "mine" a bit more then I had originally planned.

And now what we all came here for, PICTURES!

October 2011 - Pad poured

We had just about perfect weather for curing cement, unfortunately because the truck didn't show up until 3pm, we were powertrowling until 2:30am

Walls Framed

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November - Roof goes on

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December - So does the roof tin and garage doors
The doors only have the vertical tracks installed at this point, just to keep the wind out and didn't want the rest of the track in the way while drywalling.

Also, didn't take any pictures of it, but, I strapped the roof with 1x4's on 2' centres before putting down the tin.

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I'll just leave off here while I resize more pictures...

Thorky · Apr 16, 2012

January - Electrical and Fascia/Soffiting

I didn't take any pictures of the electrical but here you can see fascia and soffiting are in.

February - Insulation/Vapor Barrier/Drywall

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Did all the boarding with 12' sheets to reduce the amount of joints

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When boarding by yourself, a lift is worth its weight in gold

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March - Mudding/Taping/Painting

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Pictures of mudding and sanding are boring, so, straight to paint

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Masked off to stipple the roof and the bottom 40"

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First row of lights installed

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Thorky · Apr 16, 2012

How to keep paint from baking on to your halogens when spraying paint?

Reynolds Wrap oven bags!

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Thorky · Apr 16, 2012

April 2012 - Everything else

So April finally rolls around and I'm finally ready to get my doors working properly, this turns into a minor nightmare.

Problems I ran into:

-special order openers and rails, that arrived at the lumber yard a month ago are missing, guess I should be more prompt picking up my orders. Doesn't matter anyways because...
-was only sent half the springs needed for the doors, one right hand spring per door, so they order new ones for me.
-springs arrive, get installed and are completely wrong for the doors,
-order new springs, again. And a new rod.

Despite the set backs, I was still able to officially drive a vehicle into the garage for the first time.

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One thing though, this gave me time to build a workbench...

And build some storage areas...

Thorky · Apr 16, 2012

Things left to do this month:
-complete installation of 2nd garage door opener
-install windows
-shim, seal and trim man doors
-trim and seal garage doors
-Tywrap exterior of building
-pressure wash floor

Well, thanks for checking it out everyone, I'll keep updating as work progress's.

I welcome any questions, comments or suggestions any of you have!

09 Road King · Apr 16, 2012

I'm missing the pictures.

audifirst · Apr 16, 2012

looking good

Thorky · Apr 16, 2012

09 Road King said:
I'm missing the pictures.

Anyone else not seeing the pictures?

I'm using my dropbox public storage for hosting the pics, if they're not showing up I'll have to move them

audifirst said:
looking good

Thanks!

Dan in Pasadena · Apr 16, 2012

Loving your title. I'm surprised no one's made a point of mentioning it :lol:

Very nice work, congratulations. It's gonna be a nice one.

Maybe I missed it but what are your long term storage plans? I like your high shelves, but speaking from my experience (NOT on "the prairie") they'll catch a lot of dust and dirt and you may have mice or rat issues.

I'd humbly suggest when your budget allows that you consider enclosing it with sliding doors and lights beneath ala....hmmm....I can't remember his name but he's got a kickass red '69 Z28.

dartsportsteve · Apr 16, 2012

I'm seeing them. Looks great! I'm going to be building a similar size (26w x 28d) so I'll be following along.

Thorky · Apr 16, 2012

Dan in Pasadena said:
Loving your title. I'm surprised no one's made a point of mentioning it

Very nice work, congratulations. It's gonna be a nice one.

Hah, thanks, I felt it was fitting seeing as it is a bit flat around here...

dartsportsteve said:
I'm seeing them. Looks great! I'm going to be building a similar size (26w x 28d) so I'll be following along.

Thanks man

VWPORSCHEGT3 · Apr 16, 2012

everyone loves different things.... but if im out of eyeshot of mountains i start to lose my bearings...or marbles... lol :thumbup:

good job!

Thorky · Apr 17, 2012

VWPORSCHEGT3 said:
everyone loves different things.... but if im out of eyeshot of mountains i start to lose my bearings...or marbles... lol good job!

The main reason I had originally planned to move was because I can't stand living on the bald prairie. I at least need some trees around me!

Thorky · Apr 17, 2012

Don't mind the mess, I'm still cleaning up from construction and trying to get all my tools organized (and found).

Finished up the garage door openers tonight and brought in the old welding table.

Also brought home the many pieces of my VFR project tonight

Thedoc14 · Apr 17, 2012

Turning that VFR into a prairie buggy?

Thorky · Apr 17, 2012

Thedoc14 said:
Turning that VFR into a prairie buggy?

Something like that.
The previous owner had laid it down and destroyed the fairings, so he had fightered the bike.

I like the style of the bike, but it looked fairly sloppy. So I'm stripping it down, cleaning and repainting everything on it. Also building a new custom rear subframe and changing out the clip-ons with some fatbars.

jabin · Apr 17, 2012

Good looking garage and nice work building it. My Father-in-law is in Oklahoma, so the fields of wheat takes me back out there from Ohio. Is dust a big issue like it is in OK? In my FIL shop, everything gets covered with a "dust cloth", old bed sheet, because the red dust gets everywhere.

For my own benefit, when installing drywall on the ceiling are you suppose to stagger the joints or not? I'll be finishing mine off this spring and need to learn the details.

Thanks

Thorky · Apr 17, 2012

jabin said:
Good looking garage and nice work building it. My Father-in-law is in Oklahoma, so the fields of wheat takes me back out there from Ohio. Is dust a big issue like it is in OK? In my FIL shop, everything gets covered with a "dust cloth", old bed sheet, because the red dust gets everywhere.

For my own benefit, when installing drywall on the ceiling are you suppose to stagger the joints or not? I'll be finishing mine off this spring and need to learn the details.

Thanks

Yah, dust is a big problem here. Its quite a dry region and the wind does not stop! I have to change my furnace filter every 3 weeks.

As for the drywall, seeing as it is not a structural component, no the joints don't need to be staggered. Also, it makes mudding and taping much easier/faster because you can do a continuous run, no stopping and starting.

For side to side rigidity on the bottom cord of the trusses, it should be strapped. It all depends on your local building code, but here it's required to be completed before the building framing will pass inspection.

nkachur · Apr 19, 2012

Well I must say that came together faster than mine. :beer:

So the plans have changed and you are getting comfortable, everything looks good. Congrats on work making you an offer you couldn't refuse.

If dad hadn't been so tuckered after the prepour prep work I am sure I wouldn't have been allowed to touch the power trowel ether.

I agree on the lift for dry wall as well... do they make them tall enough for 14' ceilings?

Thorky · Apr 20, 2012

Dan in Pasadena said:
Maybe I missed it but what are your long term storage plans? I like your high shelves, but speaking from my experience (NOT on "the prairie") they'll catch a lot of dust and dirt and you may have mice or rat issues.

I'd humbly suggest when your budget allows that you consider enclosing it with sliding doors and lights beneath ala....hmmm....I can't remember his name but he's got a kickass red '69 Z28.

Thanks for the suggestions. The shelves are probably going to be staying open, I know that dust is going to be an issue in here, but everything that goes up there will be inside large enclosed rubber maid tubs. The junk that is up there right now is just temporary until I get around to moving it to my storage trailer. I'm really hoping that rats and mice are not going to be an issue in here, everything is sealed up very well, I'll just have to keep an eye on the garage door seals.

Thorky · Apr 20, 2012

nkachur said:
Well I must say that came together faster than mine.

So the plans have changed and you are getting comfortable, everything looks good. Congrats on work making you an offer you couldn't refuse.

If dad hadn't been so tuckered after the prepour prep work I am sure I wouldn't have been allowed to touch the power trowel ether.

I agree on the lift for dry wall as well... do they make them tall enough for 14' ceilings?

Thanks for checking it out.
Now it's true, it did come together fairly quickly, but it's also a much smaller project! That and I basically had no social life all winter.

We have a baby on the way so there's been a lot of pressure to get it done as quickly as possible so that the rest of the house can get done.

The plan went like this:
1. Finish garage
2. Move everything from basement to garage
3. Finish basement
4. Move everything from upstairs to the basement
5. Redo ceilings upstairs
6. Move everything back upstairs
7. Wife has baby

Thorky · Dec 19, 2013

It's been a good long while since I updated this, funny how life can get in the way of things.

I've spent the last 18 months busting my *** to finish my house reno and complete the garage. Got it all finished up and on the market just in time for the local housing market to completely die! Just the way things go I guess.

Last post I made, the interior of the garage was basically done, all I had left to do was exterior finishing and then fill the interior with junk, which I have done rather successfully.

One issue I ran into with the garage addition was that my main to the house was undersized. While I had a 200amp service, the main and panel had to be replaced.

Trenching...

After that was completed I then got distracted by the birth of our first child, who, to my great pleasure, has taken a liking to all things mechanical...

Thorky · Dec 19, 2013

Back to the garage part...

Due to the sheer ridiculous cost of stuccoing in my area and finding it impossible to get anyone to come out and even quote the job, I chose to do siding on the 3 least visible sides of the garage and stucco only the front face and gable end that met the house.

The only contractor to show up to give a quote on the entire garage wanted $60000 plus mileage to do the entire garage. :shocking:

They also said they would not even attempt to match the stucco pattern on the house!

Siding going up

Once the siding was up I had another contractor show up to look at doing the front face and gable end. They wanted $10k plus material plus mileage and they couldn't even think about doing it for 6 months.

Needless to say, a few hundred dollars in material and tools, I learned how to stucco. I matched the stucco color as close to the house as I could and then painted it to match after it had cured for a month. Here it is pre paint...

As a point of reference, this is how the house looked before starting any work on it.

Thorky · Dec 19, 2013

I've been doing a project or 2 during the winter since I completed the garage.
The first winter was the repaint and cleanup of my VFR (project "Lipstick on a Pig"). I've posted some pictures of it elsewhere on the forum, but never the completed product.

The before

The after

Thorky · Dec 19, 2013

Last winter involved two projects, one out of necessity, one for fun.

We had record amounts of snowfall last year and of course my tractor decides to blow the rear crank seal and give my clutch a good oil bath...

Turns out, I had just enough room

Once that was done, I decided to tear apart a perfectly good, low mileage quad...

And make some modifications...

Jagmandave · Dec 19, 2013

I see the wheels and paint, but what else did you do? Bigger bore? What is the thing mounted on the front of the quad?

Where are you located?

Thorky · Dec 19, 2013

Jagmandave said:
I see the wheels and paint, but what else did you do? Bigger bore? What is the thing mounted on the front of the quad?

Where are you located?

I did a high compression big bore kit, cam, ported and polished heads and clutches. What you're seeing on the front is the rad relocate and snorkels. Rad relocate keeps it from filling with mud as easily and overheating.

I'm located in southern Saskatchewan.

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