How many of you thought this thread would never get an ending or even any real progress? I know I was worried...but here we go for a BIG day 1 update:
(Keep in mind my carpentry skills are pretty much non-existent as you will notice)
Pulling corners strengthened with 1x6, brackets, screws/nails and lag bolts. I really didn't have any order to this...all brackets had at least a lag bolt or 5" nail. I dread removing this mash-up of hardware.
Inside pulling corners strengthened. This is likely not the best way to strengthen the corner...but I wasn't sure how to do it. All I wanted was solid wood to drill into for the lag bolts.
Rear come-along set up.
(This is where my pictures become lacking or non-existant. My apologies, I should have done a better job)
As you can barely see in the previous picture, the leaning wall is supported with 2x4's. I used 2x6's attached to the studs with the 2x4's dug into the ground or wedged against my cement walkway. I did not support the non-leaning wall the same way. I probably should have, but I was confident I wouldn't go past vertical and beyond the other way.
Horrible picture of the front come-along (I will fix)
My first order of business was to fix the front left corner that had slipped off the pad.
Support wall built to lift corner.
I then added another hook on the bottom to help pull the corner back on the slab.
This pull didn't go as planned. I lifted the wall and cranked the come-along to find a lot of resistance. I moved the pulling hook down as low as possible right up against the bottom of the wall to achieve better success. Out of the 3 studs that were shifted off the pad, all but the last stud corner section fully moved back into place. Since I'm rebuilding the corner, I put in temporary sill anchor bolts and left it alone.
This is where I actually started pulling the come-alongs to straighten the building.
To start, I was leaning a good 8 inches. I tried to go slow...but in all, I pulled the building straight in about 1 hours time. Look how much it's moved!
Building is straight!
The one thing I learned from other garage threads is:
do not brace the building under tension! (I made this mistake in the rafters) So I didn't make the same mistake twice. I released both comes alongs and expected it to naturally want to shift back to the lean it had for who knows how many years.
IT DIDNT MOVE AN INCH
Not a single crackle or pop...it just stayed still
WOOOHOOOO!
I then temporarily braced the back wall
I cant believe I'm already into replacing sill plates! I figure the best wall to start with is the worst one. As the right wall sill plate has zero evidence of ever having a sill plate, I started with that wall. The wall is currently jacked up and I've got the 2x6 PT sill plate (builder used 2x6 top/bottom plates and 2x4 studs for some reason...so I'll follow) ready to be attached a secured.
I'm also working on the grading issue as many of you have pointed out. Dirt was piled up the side walls by a good 6 inches. Not good.
My plan is to surround the building with a gravel trench to keep dirt/moisture away from the walls. It'll be angled to take the water to the back of the building and away.
The studs are rotted bad enough at the bottom to require new wood. Instead of removing and rebuilding the wall, I'm going to double up the studs and keep the current studs that are still 90% good. All of the wall weight will be on the new studs. This is probably the lazy way to do this, but I think it will suffice. The current studs are still good wood to screw OSB into for the top 7+ feet of the wall + sill plate to screw in to.
That brings me to siding. I'm going to remove the old siding, sheath with OSB and then new siding. Both windows are coming out and I will replace the side door. I also want to completely rebuild the front wall. Widening the front side walls for strength and shrink the door size to the standard double garage door. Which means a new door.
Even with a new door + OSB + siding...I think I'll be under $5k for pretty much a new garage. Regardless of whether you think it'd be better to knock it down and start over, I will easily get my money back and more in house value. I would not get anywhere close to recouping the cost of teardown and rebuild of a brand new 20x20+ garage.
Thanks for the support leading up to this and feel free to comment on anything I can do better!
First they said no, but then I said to the guy, "so lets say my garage falls down next week, is the city responsible now that I've told you that your tree is damaging my building?" Thats when he very quickly agreed to remove the tree 
