Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT Roboto's Garage

[Finallygotit]

Subscribed!

 

[Purist]

That porch is coming along very nicely! Good work, Roboto!

 

[Mr. Roboto]

That porch is coming along very nicely! Good work, Roboto!

Thanks! I cant wait until it's all done, and I replace my shutters and finish painting all my trim. I think it's really going to transform the look of my house and modernize it a bit.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Re-naming this thread to "Roboto's Portico" pretty soon. Sorry for all the slow porch updates, but, here's another one nonetheless. Got the roof and eaves trimmed out, and the drip edges on. Was hoping to get the shingles on as well, but had some other things to attend to this weekend.

 

[M-technik-3]

Nice when do you add the covered walk way to the garage?

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Nice when do you add the covered walk way to the garage?

We should begin construction on that in early October if all goes according to plan.

 

[920kip]

I had the forest green version of those same shutters. I took them down and pressure washed them. Then rattle canned them a dark bronze ( looks black from 20 feet away ).
They turned out looking like new. And they are holding up great after a year. Did the front door at the same time. It really updated the look I think.

Saved a few hundred dollars as well.

Your porch is looking great. It will really set your house apart from the rest in your neighborhood with the precast stair units.
Cheers,
Kip

 

[M-technik-3]

Had them on the previous house as well, took them off as they seemed to collect numerous hornets nests. Was tired of killing them.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

I had the forest green version of those same shutters. I took them down and pressure washed them. Then rattle canned them a dark bronze ( looks black from 20 feet away ).
They turned out looking like new. And they are holding up great after a year. Did the front door at the same time. It really updated the look I think.

Saved a few hundred dollars as well.

Your porch is looking great. It will really set your house apart from the rest in your neighborhood with the precast stair units.
Cheers,
Kip

Thanks! My shutters are actually the older louvered design. If they were the raised panel style like yours, I would most likely just be painting them as well! Yours come out great.

Had them on the previous house as well, took them off as they seemed to collect numerous hornets nests. Was tired of killing them.

Yes, they do certainly tend to attract the hornets! I think colonials just look incomplete without shutters, though.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

I was able to make some great progress this weekend.... I got all of the PVC trim installed down below (except for the riser on the bottom step as you can see), the eaves installed, the roof shingled, and all of the siding/j-channel buttoned up. This was a big step for me, because now I don't have to worry about my house being exposed to the elements with the siding not being 100% In place. I love the new shingles too... makes the 26 year old roof on my house look quite crappy in comparison.

Not sure if I am going to install skirting under the deck, or leave it open. We're also not 100% sure what the put in the big wooden "triangle" on the face of the roof. The original plan was to install matching siding to the rest of the house, but now we're thinking of maybe doing something different to contrast it.... maybe vinyl cedar shakes? Not sure what color. Thoughts?

 

[BigNuge]

Re: Mr. Roboto's Garage Makeover

Hey due, looks great!

I’m not sure that triangle needs a contrasting color. Maybe a texture like you mentioned with the vinyl shakes, but I’d try and match the house color. The white PVC on the porch trim really makes it pop already, a contrasting color on the triangle would almost be too much...imho.

Gotta get back to that garage man!!


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[Bob Heine]

Not sure if I am going to install skirting under the deck, or leave it open. We're also not 100% sure what the put in the big wooden "triangle" on the face of the roof. The original plan was to install matching siding to the rest of the house, but now we're thinking of maybe doing something different to contrast it.... maybe vinyl cedar shakes? Not sure what color. Thoughts?

Mr. Roboto, I would want the portico to blend in with the house but you should do what makes you and your wife (and your young style expert) happy. Maybe someone with Photoshop skills could render it with the existing siding installed.

I googled Colonial Portico and it brought up quite a few examples.
https://www.google.com/search?q=col...hULWK0KHSihDEsQ9QEIcTAA#imgrc=r5iUtqdT7_hyhM:

 

[zmotorsports]

If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!

I've perused through the entire thread over the past couple of days and besides the fantastic work and transformation your home and shop have gone through, the above quote struck a cord with me as I can't agree more.

Great job on the house and shop. Amazing work.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Hey due, looks great!

I’m not sure that triangle needs a contrasting color. Maybe a texture like you mentioned with the vinyl shakes, but I’d try and match the house color. The white PVC on the porch trim really makes it pop already, a contrasting color on the triangle would almost be too much...imho.

Gotta get back to that garage man!!


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I know, more garage time coming soon hopefully. Been putting off some of these house projects for too long, so it's nice to get them done at least.

Mr. Roboto, I would want the portico to blend in with the house but you should do what makes you and your wife (and your young style expert) happy. Maybe someone with Photoshop skills could render it with the existing siding installed.

I googled Colonial Portico and it brought up quite a few examples.
https://www.google.com/search?q=col...hULWK0KHSihDEsQ9QEIcTAA#imgrc=r5iUtqdT7_hyhM:

Definitely lots of options out there. I share your thought, have it match the rest of the house. We shall see!

I've perused through the entire thread over the past couple of days and besides the fantastic work and transformation your home and shop have gone through, the above quote struck a cord with me as I can't agree more.

Great job on the house and shop. Amazing work.

Thank you very much!

 

[bwap]

Just read the entire thread, some great work you've done!
Connecting the garage to the house would be a great addition, so I'm glad you're planning to do it.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Just read the entire thread, some great work you've done!
Connecting the garage to the house would be a great addition, so I'm glad you're planning to do it.

Thanks, I think so too. It's really going to change to flow of the house for us. Now that we have the baby, it really is going to make life so much easier for us to be able to come and go without having to carry her through the rain/snow.

Thanks for muddling through the ramblings in my thread too It's gotten a bit off topib between building decks and porches.

 

[bwap]

Thanks, I think so too. It's really going to change to flow of the house for us. Now that we have the baby, it really is going to make life so much easier for us to be able to come and go without having to carry her through the rain/snow.

Thanks for muddling through the ramblings in my thread too It's gotten a bit off topib between building decks and porches.

It's hardly off topic, and we enjoy it!
Give me inspiration of what we could do to our next place.
Once our current one sells..

 

[Purist]

Thanks, I think so too. It's really going to change to flow of the house for us. Now that we have the baby, it really is going to make life so much easier for us to be able to come and go without having to carry her through the rain/snow.

Thanks for muddling through the ramblings in my thread too It's gotten a bit off topib between building decks and porches.

Ha, that's what we're here for. My thread started as my upgrade from a tiny 2 stall garage to a legit 2 car garage, but has evolved into more of a landscape/foundation repair thread! lol

It's all good!

It's hardly off topic, and we enjoy it!
Give me inspiration of what we could do to our next place.
Once our current one sells..

Couldn't have said it better myself!

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Well, I actually did some work out in the garage for a change. I had to do some re-organizing to make room for the doorway into the addition once we connect the house to the garage. I had 3 office style cabinets along the left wall of the garage, and the furtherst right one is where the doorway will be. This of course set off a chain of events of things that needed to be re-located.

Here are the cabinets in their current position:

But, I wanted to keep them together, so I decided to move them all rather than just one. So..... I emptied them all out. It was a good opportunity to organize and throw away things that were junk. I've sure we've all had days like this:

I re-located them to the front wall of the garage. It's honestly the place that made the most sense for them to be work-flow wise, but I always kept that wall filled with things that were mobile (shop vac, table saw, generator). The reason being, when it snowed, I could roll them out of the way, and was able to comfortable pull 2 cars front to back in the right bay, and get my truck inside the left bay. I may not be able to do that now, I haven't tried it yet, but it's not the end of the world. Here they are in their new home:

You can see the old setup I had for the "parts drawers" In the corner. I really like those cabinets, and wanted to keep them, but now I need to relocate the table saw and generator to that area, so I built this quickly. I'll paint it eventually, but didn't have time, and was tired from moving all the junk around:

Now the bandsaw and drill press are really too close together to use. I may get some movable dollys for those and wheel them out when I want to use them, but we'll see.

It's funny, I remember when I bought my house thinking how massive this garage was. Well.... 6 years later, and I've filled it

 

[moab11]

I really don't think anybody has ever built a garage that is big enough. Your is looking good though, I've got a similar drill press on a mobile stand and it works quite well for the little bit that I use it. Just get some locking casters and it shouldn't move around much.

 

[Bob Heine]

I'm impressed that it took 6 years. That's a lot of restraint!

 

[Mr. Roboto]

I really don't think anybody has ever built a garage that is big enough. Your is looking good though, I've got a similar drill press on a mobile stand and it works quite well for the little bit that I use it. Just get some locking casters and it shouldn't move around much.

Thanks for the feedback. I also don’t use them too often, so I don’t think having to roll them out when needed will be the end of the works.

I'm impressed that it took 6 years. That's a lot of restraint!

Haha true! If I didn’t want to keep parking our daily drivers in there, it would be much more jam packed I’m sure!

 

[Mr. Roboto]

The vinyl shakes Mrs. Roboto picked out came in. I think they look pretty good. Just need to do the ceiling now and it will be done! I’ll probably end up doing some skirting as well, but down the road.

 

[Purist]

Re: Mr. Roboto's Garage Makeover

Looks great!!


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[Finallygotit]

That looks great. Gives the front of the house some needed character IMHO.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

This should be the last porch-related post for a while because..... it's done! I got the beaded soffit paneling up on the ceiling this weekend. I had plans to put recessed lights in there, as well as do some skirting underneath, but those will both wait. I'm at the point now where I can call the town and have them come to do the final inspection.

Also, you can see the new ugly pipe I have running up the right side of my house. I had a power-vent for venting my oil fired boiler that I've been dealing with for years. It was improperly installed too low to the ground, undersized for my application, and a general headache overall because it requires a whole other set of maintenance to keep going. So, the ugly pipe was the best option for replacing it. The power-vent also needed to go because of the addition between the house and garage. The addition can now be built right around the new pipe, and will protrude out of the new roof-line. Good thing, because the way the penetrated the pipe up through the roof of the fireplace jog isn't done 100% correctly. Someday I hope to box in the rest of the exposed pipe with a soffit, but that will be down the road.

Next up: Decide on a shutter color, and finish painting some trim.

 

[Purist]

Next up: Decide on a shutter color, and finish painting some trim.

Just my $.02, but I think black shutters would look great with your existing color scheme!

 

[Trey T]

wow it really adds a great flare to the front of the house

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Thanks! Sedi, I wanted to do black too, but my wife was not a fan. I think we settled on charcoal gray. Here is my very poor photoshop. Makes the old maroon trim I haven’t painted over yet upstairs stand out even more. That’s next on the list!

Also, the building inspector came yesterday and signed off on the final inspection for the permit, so we’re all good to go on that front.

 

[Grumblebum]

Great job on the porch, the front of the house really pops now. I'd almost forgotten what your garage looked like lol, gonna have to go back and look at some older pics.

cheers GB

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Small garage update this weekend. I've had the Rapidair Maxline kit sitting in a box in the garage for well over a year. I haven't had the time or motivation to install it. I've just been plugging a hose into a regulator on the side of my compressor as needed forever now, but it's kind of a pain. Well, I was doing struts on a friends car, and that hose sprung its 3rd leak, so I threw it in the trash. I've been waiting to get a nice hose reel for when I install the air drops with the Maxline kit, but jumped the gun and ran to harbor freight and picked up their new(er) "Diablo" reel for a little over 100 bucks with coupon to get me by for now.


I mounted it temporarily on the bench next to the compressor until I get the Maxline kit up. Temporary will probably turn into a few years... but oh well

It's O-K. Not bad for the money, but not the best build quality. I'm planning on getting some high-flow couplers for it as well down the line. I'm told they make a big difference.

I even had a little helper. She's 18 months now... time flies!

 

[Bob Heine]

Mr. Roboto, you are going to be continuously surprised how fast time flies when you have a child.

You should definitely get those high-flow couplers. Don't wait until you have a big collection of hoses and tools because it gets expensive quickly. I bought the Milton V-Series ones a few at a time until they were all changed out. Different sellers had them on sale at different times so do a little searching for the best deals.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Mr. Roboto, you are going to be continuously surprised how fast time flies when you have a child.

You should definitely get those high-flow couplers. Don't wait until you have a big collection of hoses and tools because it gets expensive quickly. I bought the Milton V-Series ones a few at a time until they were all changed out. Different sellers had them on sale at different times so do a little searching for the best deals.

Hey Bob,

Thanks for the info on the couplers. Are your Milton V couplers the purple "colorfit" ones, or the regular brass colored ones? From the little research I've done, it seems the purple ones are cheaper for some reason, though they seem to be the same dimensionally. Perhaps they are a different material?

 

[Bob Heine]

Mr. Roboto, when I was doing my conversion Milton didn't have the ColorFit system so mine are all Brass or Steel. I was checking the purple out and I think they are anodized steel but I couldn't find them in anything but 1/4" NPT versions (male and female).

The biggest help for me was the Milton PDF catalog:
https://nebula.wsimg.com/2c8c2c6b3e...F9A89657DD9338EBF&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

On page 2 there's a chart that shows the flow rates of the various style fittings. The V-Style flows more than twice what an A-Style flows and almost twice what an M-Style flows so it's a pretty big upgrade.

On page 11 they show the V-Style couplers and plugs in both brass and steel. Once I had the Milton part numbers, it was an easy Google to find the best price. In some cases the kits were cheaper than buying the individual parts but the best prices usually involve buying in bulk.

Over time I have replaced all the 3/8" air hoses in the garage with 1/2" Flexzilla, including the 50-footer on the HF ($60) reel. Those hoses all come with 3/8" NPT fittings so I needed the larger female thread couplers and plugs. I often use more than one air tool on a project and all my air tools have whips so I made up a Flexzilla whip with 3 couplers on the end. I just unplug it when I don't need it or when I need it on one of the other hose reels. HF sells the aluminum triple fitting with 3 M-style couplers for $8 so I just swapped the couplers. So that little setup requires a Milton 766 (3/8" Female NPT Coupler), a Milton 763 (3/8" Female NPT Plug) and three Milton 765 (1/4" Male NPT Coupler).

I didn't throw out the leak-free 3/8" hoses. I put them on a reel mounted on the wheeled tank of my old compressor so I can take air nailers to the far corners of the yard for fence repairs. I recently added a regulator and gauge to the setup.

The air fitting stuff gets complicated pretty quick when you start buying air tools. Some need male plugs and others need female plugs and often with 1/4" NPT but sometimes with 3/8" NPT. On the bright side, when you switch to V-Series couplers you can leave the A- and M-Style plugs on your tools -- they connect to the coupler just fine (but with reduced flow).

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Bob,

Thanks for all of that great info. You answered a few other questions that I had without me even having to ask them! I'm sold.... I will definitely be looking to change out the couplers in the not too distant future.

 

[lieutenant]

I finished your thread today. Lots of great work. I agree with your wife on the shutter color.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

I finished your thread today. Lots of great work. I agree with your wife on the shutter color.

Thanks for taking the time to read through it all!

Well, it looks as though we're moving forward with the addition between the house and the garage I mentioned a while back. I've been wanting to do this since buying the house. I always thought I'd do it myself, but the reality is I just don't have the time or consistent help to provide the second set of hands I'd need for a project this large, so I'm hiring it out. The contractor is doing the framing, siding and trim work, and the roofing. I'll be tackling the interior (flooring, electrical, insulation, sheetrock). The primary function of this space will be as a mudroom, so I'm also planning on custom building all of the storage, cubbies, etc.

This project posed a series of challenges. The tight corridor between the house and garage housed the condenser for my central air, a power vent for my boiler, and a vent for my dryer. I've probably posted about these in the past in here, but I slowly addressed all of these by replacing and relocating the AC, moving the dryer vent to the rear wall of the house, and replacing the power vent with an chimney pipe. This picture shows a partial "before" state. I say partial, because the AC had already been moved when I took it.

I spent this weekend preparing the site by partially removing that retaining wall, ripping up the portion of the walkway that will be under the addition, and demolishing the old steps into the house. I guess I should have paid more attention to these steps over the years... turns out they were only held onto the house with 4 nails, and they had already pulled away a good 1/2". Not good. If you've followed along my thread over the years, you'll know I have had rot issues with my old rear deck and old front steps, so I was concerned with what I'd find behind these, but to my surprised, they actually flashed them semi-properly, and there was no damage to be found.

Here is how it currently sits:

I had originally planned to spread a few inches of crushed stone under there to help with any drainage issues that may arise, since this addition will be "floating" so to speak. The goal is to only have one step down into my garage so that the steps do not protrude into the left bay that far as to not interfere with any vehicles pulling in and out. This means the finished floor of the addition will be about 14" above the slab in the garage. Since it's being framed with 2x10s, this puts it fairly close to the ground outside. I am a little concerned with the wood (even through they're using PT) sitting so close to grade, but the GC assures me it won't be an issue. I'm not totally convinced, though, but I tend to overthink things. Now, I'm afraid if I add a few inches of stone, it will be even closer (too close) to the bottom of the joists.... so we'll see what happens.

Anyways, sorry for the long post, but I thought I'd set up the project for anyone looking to follow along with the pics that will be incoming.

 

[moab11]

thanks for the update very interested to see how the new mudroom turns out, seems like a great use of space!

 

[IowaMercMan]

Re: Mr. Roboto's Garage Makeover

Is the garage on a footing? Kinda looks like it might be, in this photo. If not, how will you connect the two buildings ?


Walt

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Re: Mr. Roboto's Garage Makeover

thanks for the update very interested to see how the new mudroom turns out, seems like a great use of space!

Me too

Is the garage on a footing? Kinda looks like it might be, in this photo. If not, how will you connect the two buildings ?


Walt

The garage is build on a on a full depth foundation, same as my house. There will be a ledger fastened to the concrete foundation of the house, and another fastened to the sidewall of the garage since it sits a little bit lower. Then there will be 2X10s on hangers spanning from one ledger to the other. Hopefully this makes sense, hard to describe via text sometimes.