Swanny1953
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Happy New Year, fellow GJer’s! I’ve been a member for several years and have followed many of your threads over the years, my favorites being Mark’s Monster Garage and Don Long’s Building My Big Party Garage! These guys have gone above and beyond in the sharing of their stories with us.
I retired a couple of years ago, and after marrying off our youngest daughter in June 2016, the wife and I decided a little change of scenery would do us good. We’d been in the same house in Dallas since we moved here 20+ years ago. We wanted to stay in the DFW area. Our criteria for the new house included: 1) enough land to have a shop building for me and have the neighbors be farther away than literally over the fence from us, 2) everything on one level as we were quite tired of trudging up 18 steps to get to bed every night (not to mention countless other trips during the typical day), 3) an “open” floor plan as our existing house had lots of individual rooms, but no feeling of spaciousness, and 4) downsize from the existing 4,500 feet (there are only 2 of us and the dog now). After engaging a realtor and looking at numerous properties, we closed on this in November 2016.
View media item 78577We succeed on getting all but 1 of our criteria checked off with the new house. You guessed it, we didn’t downsize (the new place is about 500 sq. ft. bigger). BUT – I didn’t have to worry about constructing a shop building as there was a separate 40’ by 50’ garage building with 10’ ceilings, fully finished with a ½ bath and HVAC. Here’s what we started with – the previous owners used it as a play room.
View media item 78578View media item 78585So, the first order of business was to take up the carpet and get a proper floor installed. Pulling up the carpet was the easy part. Getting the mastic off the floor was something I tried to do myself (not a good, or successful, idea), but ended up having the flooring company do instead. Here are in-process and finished shots of the floor.
View media item 78586View media item 78589The next order of business was to install some New Age cabinets and upgrade the tool box as I had outgrown the old Craftsman box I’d had for 20+ years. Next was the addition of a BendPak 4-post lift. I neglected to take any pictures of the installation of these items, but you can see them in the photo below.
The goal here was not only to have a place to store my wheeled toys, but also have enough room to work on them as well as have a small “man cave” with a TV area, golf practice area and a few pieces of workout equipment. We bought a SWB big back window ’66 Chev C10 pickup several years ago that is in need of a rodstoration. It has rust in the expected places and some shoddy bodywork to cover up the rust in some others, so lots of sanding & body work are in my future. In the meantime, we acquired 2 new toys. My father-in-law gave my wife the first Corvette he ever owned (he had 5 when I met him), a 1969 Riverside Gold, 390hp big block 4-speed with less than 42,000 miles in pristine condition. Then, I found a car similar to the one I had as a high school senior, a 1966 Dodge Charger that I just had to bring home. All of a sudden, I’m out of space to work on anything without getting all the other toys covered in dust!
View media item 78582View media item 78581View media item 78580
I retired a couple of years ago, and after marrying off our youngest daughter in June 2016, the wife and I decided a little change of scenery would do us good. We’d been in the same house in Dallas since we moved here 20+ years ago. We wanted to stay in the DFW area. Our criteria for the new house included: 1) enough land to have a shop building for me and have the neighbors be farther away than literally over the fence from us, 2) everything on one level as we were quite tired of trudging up 18 steps to get to bed every night (not to mention countless other trips during the typical day), 3) an “open” floor plan as our existing house had lots of individual rooms, but no feeling of spaciousness, and 4) downsize from the existing 4,500 feet (there are only 2 of us and the dog now). After engaging a realtor and looking at numerous properties, we closed on this in November 2016.
View media item 78577We succeed on getting all but 1 of our criteria checked off with the new house. You guessed it, we didn’t downsize (the new place is about 500 sq. ft. bigger). BUT – I didn’t have to worry about constructing a shop building as there was a separate 40’ by 50’ garage building with 10’ ceilings, fully finished with a ½ bath and HVAC. Here’s what we started with – the previous owners used it as a play room.
View media item 78578View media item 78585So, the first order of business was to take up the carpet and get a proper floor installed. Pulling up the carpet was the easy part. Getting the mastic off the floor was something I tried to do myself (not a good, or successful, idea), but ended up having the flooring company do instead. Here are in-process and finished shots of the floor.
View media item 78586View media item 78589The next order of business was to install some New Age cabinets and upgrade the tool box as I had outgrown the old Craftsman box I’d had for 20+ years. Next was the addition of a BendPak 4-post lift. I neglected to take any pictures of the installation of these items, but you can see them in the photo below.
The goal here was not only to have a place to store my wheeled toys, but also have enough room to work on them as well as have a small “man cave” with a TV area, golf practice area and a few pieces of workout equipment. We bought a SWB big back window ’66 Chev C10 pickup several years ago that is in need of a rodstoration. It has rust in the expected places and some shoddy bodywork to cover up the rust in some others, so lots of sanding & body work are in my future. In the meantime, we acquired 2 new toys. My father-in-law gave my wife the first Corvette he ever owned (he had 5 when I met him), a 1969 Riverside Gold, 390hp big block 4-speed with less than 42,000 miles in pristine condition. Then, I found a car similar to the one I had as a high school senior, a 1966 Dodge Charger that I just had to bring home. All of a sudden, I’m out of space to work on anything without getting all the other toys covered in dust!
View media item 78582View media item 78581View media item 78580
However, when I logged out on my iPad, the pictures disappeared. I had linked them to my GJ picture album - guess that doesn't work for anyone else to see them but me! Back to the drawing board on the picture front!
