Mr. Bojangles’ Basement Garage

My wife and I just purchased our first home. We have a 1966 VW Beetle (Mr. Bojangles...it’s a long story) that I do most of the work on myself, and when we decided to purchase a home we struggled to find the right house at the right price with space to work on the car.

The house we ended up buying we are very happy with, but it isn’t perfect and we have to make some compromises somewhere. I get space to work on the car, but it’s limited and doesn’t give me the room I’d really like (my car lift dreams will have to wait).

I have a lot of work to do in this basement garage and I’m not sure how to prioritize things, especially since I need to watch my spending for a while. It gets wet, but not terribly so. The floor is uneven and is missing chunks. We are getting a new insulated garage door and seals installed and updating our electrical panel to breakers. Our dehumidifier is working well to keep the moisture down even though the outside humidity is currently very high.

The priority for this space is to work on the car. Since I’ve never owned a home before I’m open to suggestions on things to look out for or what to prioritize. I’ve taught myself how to keep our big alive and well for the last ten years so I’d say I’m at least a quick learner, so where possible I’d like to do my own work on the basement and save money to pay professionals to do the things I can’t or shouldn’t do myself.

Here are some pictures just as we were moving. We have work to complete on an unfinished attic space that just needs drywall. But until that’s completed, lots of our possessions are just piling up.




The picture below shows the corner of the basement that gets wet. The rest is dry. There’s a trench in the concrete along the back and one side of the basement that leads to a drain out the side of the foundation. Where it goes I am uncertain. The trench is full of an almost clay like silt that I’ll be cleaning out as one of my first projects.



Thanks for looking. I’m happy to have my own space now where I can put time into making it clean and comfortable to work in.


Sent from my iPhone using The Garage Journal mobile app

Looks like you have a good start on it. It is like eating an elephant, just one bite at a time. I was once into VW bugs, had about 5 or 6 when I was in my 20’s. My favorite was the 1948 split rear window that I built into a V8 Chevrolet powered machine.

Started cleaning out our interior French drain. It was so packed in the corner I though it wasn’t cut all the way to the corner. Turns out it was just lots of silt.


Got the back of the garage cleared out but the trench runs under the stairs and along the interior wall and under the oil tank. Doesn’t look too bad along that wall though.

The French drain isn’t level, and it doesn’t slope in a single direction. It has a few high spots along its run, which is likely why I had so much build up of dirt in a few places.

Pretty sure this French drain is at best a half measure, but the floor was dry after getting some rain, so maybe it has helped.

Under the stair landing.


After cleaning part of the drain I haven’t been able to do much work. Electricians came to update our panel and replace the service line into the house. Power company wanted the service line raised by drilling a hole through my metal roof. I said no. Now the meter is in the front of the house.



Old (but clean) panel.



Electricians will be back to add and replace some old outlets, then I get people working to finish off the attic.

In the meantime I get to roast some coffee with Mr. Bojangles.


Crazy_Quint
Down-East Maine
1966 Volkswagen Beetle (lives in a basement garage)

That really was a clean looking old fuse box. I was wondering if it was some kind of retrofit but they don't even make retrofit panels for that anymore last I checked.

O'm with Rpcraft. They wanted that fuse panel to pass inspection and polished it!

Glad you got breakers in there. Way easier for service and for not scaring off some electricians.

RogueFab said:

O'm with Rpcraft. They wanted that fuse panel to pass inspection and polished it!

Glad you got breakers in there. Way easier for service and for not scaring off some electricians.

Click to expand...

Our mortgage lender required a breaker box be installed, and I didn't want to hassle with insurance, so it was the first completed project. Breakers are also just more convenient.

Lack of updates due to priority work being done elsewhere in the house.

We have a team finishing our upstairs attic space. I don’t want to do too much of my own work, since the construction was built into the mortgage. The bank will send someone to inspect the completed work before paying the contractor. So I’m holding off on things until they’ve all been paid and I know I won’t have more people in snooping around. One of the first things I need to do before I can do much of anything in the garage is get some lighting down there.

The construction upstairs should finish soon, and after classes start in September, I think I’ll be getting lots of projects completed. What I have now is good if I want to feel like a mechanic in some film noir, which I don’t.

When we bought the house the attic renovation had been started, but not finished. They built out some dormers, added a metal roof, then put up some insulation. That's where we came along. Here’s some progress pictures of the second floor, they've put up drywall, and built a knee wall. They also added a pine ceiling in the three seasons room and put up trim in another room. They've done a nice job, but I am ready to have my house back.











Tomorrow they should start painting and then work on the floor. Pretty excited to have the second floor finished so we can finish unpacking from the move and get settled.

We are also getting an RO system installed Tomorrow to deal with the uranium in our well water. So that will be nice. And our insulated garage door should come soon. So an actual garage update for the near future. Yay!



Crazy_Quint
Down-East Maine
1966 Volkswagen Beetle (lives in a basement garage)