NEWBIE! Mid-century modern "1.3333" garage overhaul plans

MRavenIX · Aug 14, 2015

Hey guys! I've been on here for a little while, secretly gathering all of your vast knowledge on everything from flooring to vises, tools & so on...

The wife and I live in SoCal, and recently closed escrow on a mid-century modern Cliff May Rancho home. The house is gonna need a lot of TLC, as will the garage! I have multiple bikes and a 1966 Ford Falcon Futura that will need to occupy the garage, which should be interesting (read: :willy_nil

)

The main issues, as you will note, is that the previous, original homeowner of this 1953 house "tried" to build himself some shelving and workspace, but didn't seem to possess all (or even most) of the necessary skills. Granted everything is now old, but come on!!! :eyecrazy:

Oh, and they also decided to build a bedroom into my beloved garage space, which is why it's now only a 1.3333 car garage. Good thing my bikes take up the space of a 1/3 of a car :thumbup:

I plan to revamp the entire garage, from flooring, walls, cabinetry and lighting, as well as correctly route the electrical wiring that's hanging everywhere and fix the second garage door (Mr. Wizard boarded it shut and cut a hole for the mail), etc... it will mostly get use as a place to work on all my aforementioned toys and hide from the wife with just me and my beer fridge :beer:

Without further ado, I present the house and garage catastrophe:

fergus · Aug 14, 2015

Whoa man. Mr Wizard was the first thing that came to my mind as well! Get you a wrecking bar, a 4 pound hammer and a six pack.

You'll have it done in a day.

Welcome to GJ.

memphisnate · Aug 14, 2015

Looking forward to seeing the progress! Feel free to include house pics too!

I love the MCM houses.

MRavenIX · Aug 14, 2015

fergus said:
Whoa man. Mr Wizard was the first thing that came to my mind as well! Get you a wrecking bar, a 4 pound hammer and a six pack.

You'll have it done in a day.

Welcome to GJ.

Thanks!!! And yeah, I know! Funny you should mention that... We're coming from a condo, so I didn't have a lot of room for anything. The first thing I ordered after we closed escrow:

papavolume · Aug 14, 2015

Looks like a cool house on the outside there. Mid century homes are my preference as well! Ours was built in 1954

Do you plan to keep that extra bedroom in there?

NedNorton · Aug 14, 2015

It may be time to invite a couple of friends over with their sledge hammers also! Seriously, good luck with the remodel. Make a project plan and execute against it. Having a good solid plan has helped me a lot with my rebuild and kept it on track. Good luck! :beer:

Subscribed...

MRavenIX · Aug 14, 2015

memphisnate said:
Looking forward to seeing the progress! Feel free to include house pics too!

I love the MCM houses.

It's gonna be a ton of work (both house and garage), but it's gonna really take shape after we get a couple big things out of the way (paint/front yard/fence). I'll post some pics when I get a chance to take some. The online pics were really bad and washed out.

And thanks, we're pretty fond of them too! :thumbup:

papavolume said:
Looks like a cool house on the outside there. Mid century homes are my preference as well! Ours was built in 1954

Do you plan to keep that extra bedroom in there?

Thanks! The inside is pretty funky... they remodeled in the 70's and again in the 80's so there's a lot of fail throughout the house! :tard:

Unfortunately, we're gonna have to keep the bedroom there. The wall was taken down between the other 2 smaller bedrooms in the rear of the house to make a larger entertainment area, so that's the only spare bedroom left... I'm not really complaining though, since they at least had the decency to build a wet bar!! :beer2:

I'll at least be ripping out the closet, which will give me another few square feet.

MRavenIX · Aug 14, 2015

NedNorton said:
It may be time to invite a couple of friends over with their sledge hammers also! Seriously, good luck with the remodel. Make a project plan and execute against it. Having a good solid plan has helped me a lot with my rebuild and kept it on track. Good luck!

Subscribed...

HAHA... it shouldn't be too bad, but I'm sure I'll be able to bait at least a couple people over with beer and the promise of breaking sh!t!

I already have a pretty solid plan of what I'm gonna do with the garage... it's gonna end up being a "functional showroom". Now the house is a different story, since there's :ahem: someone else involved :lol_hitti

xtremek · Aug 14, 2015

I'm looking forward seeing how you lay this out. How many bikes do you have?

MRavenIX · Aug 14, 2015

xtremek said:
I'm looking forward seeing how you lay this out. How many bikes do you have?

Should definitely be interesting! It's a good thing I don't have any big machines, since there won't be much spare floor space! I'll likely be doing a lot of floating cabinets for that reason.

There will be between 2 & 3 bikes at any given time. At first it'll be a Honda race bike, a Honda street bike and my Aprilia street bike! :thumbup:

HSpencer · Aug 14, 2015

From the outside photo I think you got a fabulous home. I can't believe someone would snark up a garage like that. The previous owner must have had NO GARAGE PRIDE!! LOL. Anyway, it will come around nicely once you get into it. In fact, it will be fun, are you nodding your head yes? It really will and you will have LOTS OF GARAGE PRIDE when your done. I will be watching as you post and enjoying seeing this become so nice!

Best Regards
Herb

MRavenIX · Aug 14, 2015

HSpencer said:
From the outside photo I think you got a fabulous home. I can't believe someone would snark up a garage like that. The previous owner must have had NO GARAGE PRIDE!! LOL. Anyway, it will come around nicely once you get into it. In fact, it will be fun, are you nodding your head yes? It really will and you will have LOTS OF GARAGE PRIDE when your done. I will be watching as you post and enjoying seeing this become so nice!

Best Regards
Herb

Thanks! I'm excited to start getting into everything... I'm pretty impatient, so once I actually move in and get started on the garage, I'm hoping it'll move along quickly! I'll be sure to keep this thread updated as I make progress!

Bib Overalls · Aug 14, 2015

You can not expect much for a mere $750,000 in Long Beach. :dunno:

Any room to expand in back?

Nice to see the colors displayed.

MRavenIX · Aug 14, 2015

Bib Overalls said:
You can not expect much for a mere $750,000 in Long Beach.

Any room to expand in back?

Nice to see the colors displayed.

HA! You're not that far off on the price! And we're in the fixer upper! :rant:

Unfortunately no room in the back... I couldn't even get a car back there if I wanted to. And the neighborhood we're in is very particular about how you modify the outsides of these Cliff May homes, so I'm stuck with what I got!

Glad someone noticed the flag... I brought that and a bottle of champagne with us when we got the keys! You just don't see it enough here in Southern California. :headshake

Burnt C6 · Aug 20, 2015

You sir have a challenge on your hands. I'm looking forward to watching this come to life.

MRavenIX · Aug 20, 2015

Burnt C6 said:
You sir have a challenge on your hands. I'm looking forward to watching this come to life.

I most certainly do! Like many others on here, I'm very OCD, and take a lot of pride in what I do. And since I FINALLY have a space all to myself (my lovely wife has given the unconditional green light to do whatever I want, as long as she still has a washer & dryer), I'll be doing as much as my budget allows of me!

We don't move in for another few weeks, but I'll hopefully have time to get some demo done this weekend! Pics to follow, so stay tuned!

Going through some of these garage build threads all at once is very deceiving... and makes my project seem like it's already taking forever! Every time I come on this forum, my OCD kicks back in high gear :willy_nil

Colin Len · Aug 20, 2015

Congrats on the home purchase, I'm sure this will be a great decision. For this area that neighborhood is probably my favorite aside from maybe living in the Belmont Heights area. I love the mid century homes in your neighborhood - so classic!

That's too bad there's a bedroom in the garage though - is it really well built and permitted or was it hacked together? If it were me I'd seriously consider turning it back into a garage if it's not permitted and included in the #bed/#bth of the home or the finished square footage.

Best thing about those houses is the post and beam construction which makes it really easy to know what's load bearing and thus easy to reconfigure walls. The worst part is that they're generally horribly insulated

I can't wait to see what you've got planned, good luck!

MRavenIX · Aug 20, 2015

Colin Len said:
Congrats on the home purchase, I'm sure this will be a great decision. For this area that neighborhood is probably my favorite aside from maybe living in the Belmont Heights area. I love the mid century homes in your neighborhood - so classic!

That's too bad there's a bedroom in the garage though - is it really well built and permitted or was it hacked together? If it were me I'd seriously consider turning it back into a garage if it's not permitted and included in the #bed/#bth of the home or the finished square footage.

Best thing about those houses is the post and beam construction which makes it really easy to know what's load bearing and thus easy to reconfigure walls. The worst part is that they're generally horribly insulated

I can't wait to see what you've got planned, good luck!

Wow, I'm assuming you're in the area? We were looking in Belmont Heights as well, but fell in love with the Rancho neighborhood and the potential of the house. It's gonna be fun getting this to where we want. I'll post some house pics after the painters and A/C guys are done within the next couple weeks.

Regarding the room in the garage, unfortunately it has to stay as a bedroom, since it's the only other one besides the master. It is included in the appraised square footage, and the placement (aside from it taking my precious garage space away) is great for what we'll need.

I'm not sure if it's specific to most post & beam houses or just the Cliff May designs, but it's super easy to know which walls aren't load bearing, since NONE of them are!! Everything is on the beams. These houses were/are known for the windows and doors to the outside, so they were built so any wall can take full length windows. Should make it really easy if we ever change things around!

Here's a shot of the inside of that guest bedroom... that closet will be removed though, so I can at least reclaim that space:

And thanks for following along!

GDPossehl · Aug 20, 2015

Those boarded ceilings in the garage are pretty cool. Once the walls are finished the ceilings would give a really interesting and rustic contrast, although horribly insulated as mentioned.

I'm also surprised nobody has asked for more pictures of said wife yet. It's been 6 days already!

JCQuick · Aug 20, 2015

I spy a very nice set of walking sticks in that first photo lucky man

Moose97 · Aug 20, 2015

Subscribed!

Great looking house! Can't wait to see more!

MRavenIX · Aug 20, 2015

GDPossehl said:
Those boarded ceilings in the garage are pretty cool. Once the walls are finished the ceilings would give a really interesting and rustic contrast, although horribly insulated as mentioned.

I'm also surprised nobody has asked for more pictures of said wife yet. It's been 6 days already!

HAHA... and no one has still!! :lol_hitti

I agree, I really like the ceilings too. The entire inside of the house is like that, just painted white. With that in mind, I'll almost certainly paint the smaller slats white, but probably leave the large beams exposed and possibly stain/seal them, which will hopefully help to brighten up the space & should really highlight the structure.

I was recently able to see just how thick those smaller slats are from the A/C being done... they're at least 3" of solid wood! Luckily I'm in Southern California, so I at least have the milder temps working for me, although it does get hot. The brand new A/C system should handle that well. :rocker:

Since I don't have any pics that really show our ceilings, here's an example from another Cliff May home:

JCQuick said:
I spy a very nice set of walking sticks in that first photo lucky man

HAHAHA... yes sir!! :pimpflash

Moose97 said:
Subscribed!

Great looking house! Can't wait to see more!

Thanks for coming along for the ride!! I'll post more pictures soon, hopefully with at least a little progress!! :beer:

dubber · Aug 21, 2015

MRavenIX said:
I already have a pretty solid plan of what I'm gonna do with the garage... it's gonna end up being a "functional showroom".

Just found your thread for the first time. Best of luck with your project. You definitely have your work cut out for you, but you seem unfazed and set on your plan which is key. G/L

MRavenIX · Aug 21, 2015

dubber said:
Just found your thread for the first time. Best of luck with your project. You definitely have your work cut out for you, but you seem unfazed and set on your plan which is key. G/L

Well at this point I'm unfazed, but I haven't even started!!

And unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to get anything done until next weekend... my wife and I run a business, which needs my attention for the next solid week

Until then, here are some pictures of the rides that will have to fit into the garage!!!

2009 Honda CBR600RR (track toy)

2014 Aprilia Tuono V4R (commuter)

1966 Ford Falcon Futura Coupe

...and just so she doesn't feel left out, my 2014 EcoBoost, who has been cast out into the driveway:

Colin Len · Aug 21, 2015

MRavenIX said:
Wow, I'm assuming you're in the area? We were looking in Belmont Heights as well, but fell in love with the Rancho neighborhood and the potential of the house. It's gonna be fun getting this to where we want. I'll post some house pics after the painters and A/C guys are done within the next couple weeks.

Yeah, I've been in the area for a little over a decade now. I've lived mainly off of 4th St in the Belmont Heights & Retro Row areas in various apartments but last May bought my first home. Unfortunately I couldn't afford to buy in LB so the closest decent area I could afford is Lakewood - it was a compromise I was willing to make so that I could buy instead of rent and upgrade from a single car garage to a double. If I can make it happen financially I'd love to move back to LB eventually. Besides the virtually unattainable Park Estates area the Rancho Estates area is pretty much top of my list.

Have you been in the area long? Judging from your pics it looks like you track your bike, is that pic from Fontana? I have an Integra I've been preparing for track days and usually ran at Willow or Buttonwillow. That's all on hold now since the new home eats up all my expendable income.

rodsnratfinks · Aug 21, 2015

Alright! I love Cliff Mays. Are you going to restore it? I would love to see more of the house.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

MRavenIX · Aug 21, 2015

Colin Len said:
Yeah, I've been in the area for a little over a decade now. I've lived mainly off of 4th St in the Belmont Heights & Retro Row areas in various apartments but last May bought my first home. Unfortunately I couldn't afford to buy in LB so the closest decent area I could afford is Lakewood - it was a compromise I was willing to make so that I could buy instead of rent and upgrade from a single car garage to a double. If I can make it happen financially I'd love to move back to LB eventually. Besides the virtually unattainable Park Estates area the Rancho Estates area is pretty much top of my list.

Have you been in the area long? Judging from your pics it looks like you track your bike, is that pic from Fontana? I have an Integra I've been preparing for track days and usually ran at Willow or Buttonwillow. That's all on hold now since the new home eats up all my expendable income.

Gotcha... we looked a couple places in Lakewood too, but it's just a little too far from our jobs. I'm in Irvine and the wife is in downtown Long Beach (where our condo is now). Park Estates home are just ridiculously too big... it's just me and the wife.

I was born and raised in SoCal, so I've been here awhile!! And good eye, that is Fontana... I was there a couple months ago. I also go to Willow Springs, Chuckwalla & Spring Mountain in NV. Good luck on that Integra!!! Always liked those cars, just never got around to getting one! Gotta love the B18C 5/6/7's!! :thumbup:

I had a Mitsu Evo IX (actually the reason for the user name), but needed a truck to haul the track toys!! :beer:

rodsnratfinks said:
Alright! I love Cliff Mays. Are you going to restore it? I would love to see more of the house.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Nice... someone familiar with the house! And yes we are gonna restore it. First is paint and A/C, but we're planning to touch every part within the next couple of years!! I'll post some pics once the painters are finished!

MRavenIX · Aug 24, 2015

Although no updates yet, here are some additional pictures as requested of the outside of the house, as the termite repair was being completed... and before it's actually stated, yes, there is a ginormous electrical tower behind the house :dunno:

At least I won't see it from the garage!!

And here are the exterior paint samples... we're going with vulcanite! Should be a nice contrast with white eaves.

Primer is on the wall! The beige and brown will soon be history!! :bounce:

GDPossehl · Aug 24, 2015

Nice paint choice. Looks better already.

MRavenIX · Aug 24, 2015

GDPossehl said:
Nice paint choice. Looks better already.

And that's just the primer, which is the background color in the photo of the multiple panels. The actual paint color should be even sharper. :thumbup:

bshusted · Aug 24, 2015

Love MCM homes. The color difference is already a huge improvement. What are your plans for the stone facade?

OzarkMan · Aug 24, 2015

Love the color choices. We've left NYC for Phoenix about 15 years ago and while we have become accustomed to the desert sand tones, we bought an older home on acreage which we've remodeled into a metropolitan modern masterpiece. It all started with getting rid of the brown and beige colors.

Keep the photos coming!

MRavenIX · Aug 24, 2015

bshusted said:
Love MCM homes. The color difference is already a huge improvement. What are your plans for the stone facade?

Us too!

My wife really likes the stone, so it'll stay... for now. It has plenty of gray in it, so I don't think it'll look too bad once the paint is completed. Plus we plan to put up a wood fence to replace the block wall within the next year, so the red will likely tie in well with that. And if it looks out of place, I'll just rip it down!! :thumbup:

MesaAZguy said:
Love the color choices. We've left NYC for Phoenix about 15 years ago and while we have become accustomed to the desert sand tones, we bought an older home on acreage which we've remodeled into a metropolitan modern masterpiece. It all started with getting rid of the brown and beige colors.

Keep the photos coming!

Well thank you!! And I hear you... luckily both the wife and I were able to see past all the bad colors and decor; so pretty much everything will eventually be changed, swapped or redone!

I'll hopefully have more pictures by this weekend!! :beer:

GDPossehl · Aug 25, 2015

Replacing that wrought iron with something more modern will add a lot to cleaning up to look of the place. Something with flat lines and minimalism will bring them into this century.

You could probably make something similar yourself for little money.

Kevkx125 · Aug 25, 2015

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/540/vdo80q.jpg
Dig the falcon had a couple of 67's and a 68 fun cars for sure.

MRavenIX · Aug 25, 2015

GDPossehl said:
Replacing that wrought iron with something more modern will add a lot to cleaning up to look of the place. Something with flat lines and minimalism will bring them into this century.

You could probably make something similar yourself for little money.

I have a pretty neat and relatively cheap idea for fixing the ugly wrought iron for now, which I'll make sure to post when finished (with a shot of the garage in the background, of course!) When the fence is eventually replaced, it'll be around the whole house, and look something like the fence below. With that in mind, I'll be paying the professionals to install it at that point:

Kevkx125 said:
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/540/vdo80q.jpg
Dig the falcon had a couple of 67's and a 68 fun cars for sure.

Thanks!!! It's amazing how rare the parts for the 66 & up are, especially compared to the earlier models. I just took possession a couple months ago, so like all my other toys, it's gonna get the full treatment! :thumbup:

I already have new brakes and some other parts waiting for installation... but need a garage first!! :willy_nil

Prost!!!

MRavenIX · Sep 2, 2015

Well I finally made some progress on the house AND garage!

As I learned at the Cobra Kai dojo, "Sweep the leg, Johnny!!"

Left just a couple of nails for the stars of the show...

Some "ingenuity" found throughout the garage

Maybe this was level when built 30+ years ago???

Found my first legit garage decoration in the wreckage

First personal touch

STAGE 1 - GARAGE DEMO: COMPLETE!! :rocker:

LOOK, A CEILING!!!

The temporary post-demo, pre-reno setup

And here's a shot of the repainted house. Much, MUCH better :bounce:

xtremek · Sep 3, 2015

Got the easy part done, time for the fun stuff. :thumbup:

GDPossehl · Sep 3, 2015

A Falcons decal... in California?

MRavenIX · Sep 3, 2015

GDPossehl said:
A Falcons decal... in California?

HAHAHA... good eye, and I see you're from GA. It's actually a legit helmet decal... that thing is heavy duty!! That's my buddy's bike, and he's been a die-hard Falcons fan since he was a kid. :tard: :tard: :tard:

NEWBIE! Mid-century modern "1.3333" garage overhaul plans

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