Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT City Hideaway

[Neppo1345]

In 2023, the wife and I finally decided we were ready to take the plunge and turn our tiny 34’x40’ alley adjacent city backyard into a garage.

Goal of these first couple posts is to get up to speed with where we are as of June 2025.

At the time, the yard had a carport, fire pit, and poorly installed patio and had never been used for much other than a place for the dog to do his business.



We made the decision to turn as much of the yard into a garage as possible.



Started doing some research into our city zoning and codes. Discovered our limiting factors were a requirement for 4' of setback to the property lines, and a 10' minimum distance between the primary dwelling and outbuilding. That set our size at 26' x 30'.

We could have possibly gone up to 28' x 30' with a letter from the neighbor and a jump to a fire resistant exterior, but at the time we decided that the extra hassle and cost wasn't worth the extra square footage. That, and I wanted to get to the alley without going through the garage to take out trash, recycling, etc. I'm sure I'll regret it eventually.

Collected a wide range of quotes and settled on a local builder. Laid out some plans with the builder and an architect and started demo in fall of 2023.

Chose to do demo ourselves to re-coop some budget. Builder wanted $4k for demo and haul away. We did it ourselves...bought a harbor freight jackhammer for $600, rented two dumpsters for $300 each, and a couple weekends of time. Saved almost $3k... and now I own a jackhammer.



Surveyor verified property lines and laid out the foundation boundaries in late October.

Had the sewer lateral that runs under the backyard scoped. Scope showed it was the original sewer lateral to the house. Clay pipe, in good condition with some very minor offsets. It was given a clean bill of health and we decided to press forwards without replacing it. The garage would be located directly over top...more on that later.

Excavation contractor started and finished in early December and we were left with a muddy pit until the concrete contractor was available. The good thing is our contractors were using a large reputable concrete supplier, the downside was that they were busy with large commercial projects and we were small fish.





Concrete in next post.

 

[ODIS]

Nice!

 

[GlennSullivan]

Always great to have a wife that is a team player, even when it comes to picking up a tool or shovel.

 

[runit]

was that an original 'mill' neighborhood?

 

[Neppo1345]

Always great to have a wife that is a team player, even when it comes to picking up a tool or shovel.

Tell me about it. Her involvement through all this has been irreplaceable. I don't deserve her.

was that an original 'mill' neighborhood?

Not tied to a Mill per say but the original expansion of the city post WWII, so same idea.

Alright, that gets us to concrete. Walls were poured first with the slab to follow after the plumbers could be scheduled in to cap off the sewer lateral.

Got lucky with some warm early December weather. Concrete contractor set forms and poured the next day.




The following week, the plumbers show up to tidy up the sewer lateral cleanout. They look at me and give me the "what the heck are you doing building this nice new garage over top of a 50 year old clay sewer lateral" speech.

Since most of the excavation is already done, they offer a "too good to pass up" deal on doing the sewer lateral from the tie in to the alley up to the house. This also allows them to move the cleanout from inside the garage back into the backyard. It delays the project by about a month (they finished just before New Years) but the peace of mind that I'm not going to need to cut into the floor in a year or two due to collapsed clay pipe is worth it. It ate up about 3/4 of what we saved by doing the demo ourselves.





I was kicking myself in hindsight with them digging in and around the new walls. Should have made this call prior to any concrete work being done. Hoping there aren't any long term settling issues.

2 weeks later our contractor showed up unannounced to do the flatwork. I was out of town for that and was a little pissed off at my GC...another time when the wife being awesome was a saving grace. She stayed home from work, took the time to go out and ask them questions I was feeding her.

Pour started with the weather at 50F. They ran a cold weather mix and were there almost 8 hours until it was set. The flatwork company covered it with insulated tarps, our GC went out and bought additional insulated tarps, and within 24 hours the outside temp had dropped from 50F to 1F. I panicked, but talking to the flatwork company they reassured me all would be fine.

The weather stayed below freezing for almost another 2 weeks and the concrete slept under the blankets for a month. When uncovered, there were zero signs of freezing and as of today (a year and a half later) I haven't noticed any signs that would indicate it was hampered by the weather. Only downside was some discolorization caused by the insulation blankets which I wasn't concerned about since I was planning epoxy.

I think I dodged a bullet there.

I actually don't have any photos of that process. I think they were all on the wife's phone. I'll have to get her to send them over for the next post. I do regret not taking more pictures.