Garage Quaran-clean up

[bowditchsmith]

Been busy with work for a bit, so progress had halted on the garage. We had plans to do builtins around our fireplace, which turned I to a much bigger project for me, but overall I am thrilled with the outcome.

When we moved into the house we tackled the floors, and it’s been ever progressing stages to get to where we are now.




We painted the mantle to hold us over for a bit, but there was so much wasted space around the unit.


I demo’d all the tile and got to work on a new design that the wife would be happy with.



I had to keep everything level to the previous dimensions as the new mantle and cabinets were all sizes off of the previous tile.



In progress:


Complete, with our Frame TV.


The fireplace screen was looking a little bit weathered so I slapped a new coat of paint on it to clean it up.





Ok Back to the reason people come here:
It’s always nice having the wife's car out of the garage to add to the clean up. I decided to add some pegboard to the rear wall with some additional lighting. I have a front side section that will be installing a slat wall on to help get some of the final pieces off of the floor.










I was finally able to unpack and organize my tools which was such a gratifying feeling.












I also added a dedicated dehumidifier in the garage by the rear door to help keep the air dry. I was noticing a lot of condensation accruing with the rapid temperature fluctuations that we have been experiencing in the north east (snowing 1 week, low 80s the next week). It’s pretty incredible how much moisture this thing is pulling out of the air, and it helps to keep the garage a more constant temperature.

 

[bowditchsmith]

A garage needs garage art, and I knew early on that i wanted framed prints. I was thrilled when I came across this collection of cinematic beauties, and tried to narrow my selection down to a handful of icons over the years. Very happy with how they came out. Now it’s very clear how desperately my walls need some paint. Probably won’t be able to address them until the spring.









Oh, and I threw some new LED work lights on the ceiling earlier this week. Much more even light coverage, I’ll likely add a few more closer to the doors.








Hope everyone had a safe holiday!

 

[bowditchsmith]

It’s been cold out, and I’ve had plenty of other work project to keep me busy. But yesterday, one of our garage door springs failed, and the door didn’t open all the way. My wife couldn’t see it from her back up camera, but the door was just below her vehicle roof line, and it put a nasty scrape on the spoiler of her SUV.

Guess I picked a good week to take off.

I started by refreshing to door mechanism hardware. With all new pulleys, springs, safety cables, nylon track bearings, and finally new openers.

I shopped around for a bit to find the right fit for our garage. We have rather low ceilings, and unfortunately the wall mount units were out of the question for our current set up. But up until now, we’ve had mismatched units so it was a good excuse to swap them both.

I ended up going with a pair of chamberlain B1381s. They are belt driven, wifi enabled, LED light panels, and battery back up which was great for where we currently live (I’ve already have a few extended power outages where we live, and lights in the garage, and a functioning door will be great with getting the generator outside)


New units assembled for install.



Something that I always hated about our past garage and this one as well, was that the wiring for the garage door openers was exposed and just stapled to the drywall.

Originally I had thought about cutting the walls up to fish the lines into the wall, but this was an acceptable runner up for me. Quick and simple.











I purchased a new spool of wire to ensure that I could run it the lengths that I wanted without sacrifice. And added about a foot of wire in a pigtail at the unit, so that I could retain the wiring in the event that I changed the unit out down the road. The wiring for our old unit was on the other side, so this would help to be prepared for that in the future.









Need to clean up the front sensor wiring next, and on to the next side.

 

[Robey5]

Nice work over there. LOVE that race deck floor. I just have not (yet) made a plan for any sort of flooring system other than bare ‘Crete over here.

That Trek MTB: what is it? I can’t quite tell, a Trek Fuel? I’ve not been on a MTB on the east coast since I was in my very early 20s. I’d bet the trail riding is a hoot over there in Ma these days.....

Regarding the Chamberlin lifts: Check out the MyQ app if you have not. It is really a nice addition.

 

[baoser]

Looking good!

 

[bowditchsmith]

Nice work over there. LOVE that race deck floor. I just have not (yet) made a plan for any sort of flooring system other than bare ‘Crete over here.

That Trek MTB: what is it? I can’t quite tell, a Trek Fuel? I’ve not been on a MTB on the east coast since I was in my very early 20s. I’d bet the trail riding is a hoot over there in Ma these days.....

Regarding the Chamberlin lifts: Check out the MyQ app if you have not. It is really a nice addition.

Thanks! I’ve been loving the race deck this winter. It’s so easy to clean, and it keeps the floor very walkable for my wife when she gets out of the car in the wet / snow.

Close on the bike, it’s a Trek Roscoe 8. It was my first adult mountain bike. Lots of fun to ride, especially out here in the woods.

I did add the MyQ app, it was one of the perks of going with a newer unit. Our home has a lot of automation integration, so this was one of the long over due pieces. Hooked up to IFTT, it’s been fun writing some new commands for it.