The Bee Hive

[wingcarenvy]

Hey folks,

I have been lurking around here for a while and admiring the spacious garages. Since I live in California lot sizes run less than most garages/shops on this site. My lot is 6000 square feet and I wish I had the room to build a bigger garage, but I dont so I have to make do with what I got. This garage at my house, which I have owned for the last 13 years, is 19 x 19 and used to be the spot where many creations have evolved. I finally had it with being cramped and rented a 1500 square foot industrial space to work in. I am much happier now but since I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 muscle cars I need to maximize my storage. So I got an idea from one of the builds here and decided to modify my existing garage to accept a couple of lifts. So without any further delay here are some pics.

Here is the outside of the garage. The Duster under the cover is to the west and the El Camino is to the East.

Demo work removing the awesome (insert sarcastic emoticon here) drywall that I did 13 years ago.

More demo, this is the west wall. I will be framing in a door to the rear of this wall.

.....and with the drywall removed.

This is the front wall where the sub panel is. I never did finish it and now I will be redoing it. I tried doing the electrical myself years ago and found that its not up to code.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Alright the plan is to support the ridge beam and add some collar ties to the rafters to keep the peak true. Then add OSB to the 2 side walls to bring it up to code for earthquake resistance. Finally I need to add a door to the rear so I can enter the garge without opening the garage door. Before I started that I had to remove the old drywall that I put in back when I moved in, which was a total abomination. Then I am having an licensed electrician come in and fix the wiring and ad a few new recepticles. After all that drywall will go back on and get proper texture and then paint. Nothing fancy, I need to do this low budget and keep it simple.

Here is the inner structur before demo. All of this will be removed to make room for a car on a hoist.

I am installing a 4x4 post to support the ridge beam since I will be removing some of the supports that were originally installed.

This is a shot of the west wall where I will frame in the door.

Another pic of the support post installed on the West wall.

This is the East wall with the OSB installed. The OSB is there for seizmic reasons.

Another pic of the east wall.

This picture is one of the "before" shots. This is the 2x4s I will remove after I install 2x6s higher up to keep the ridge nice and perfect. The garage door opener is on its way out the door.

This is the west wall with the 4x4 installed. The 2x4 thats runs across the bottom of the picture is going to be removed to give me more height.

This is the 2x6s installed at 10'6" height to keep the ridge from sagging.

Another pick towards the roof, the garage door opener and associated bracing will be eliminated.

The post on the east wall installed.

The door added in, I will need to cut the stucco and get a door.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Last of the pics.

The 2x6s installed

From another angle.

West wall with 4x4 post installed and romex just pulled into place before the OSB goes up.

 

[ZRX61]

Hey folks,

I have been lurking around here for a while and admiring the spacious garages. Since I live in California lot sizes run less than most garages/shops on this site.

Depends where you live, The part of LA county where I am has some HUGE garages, mine is 1000sqft & it's just about the smallest on my street

 

[wingcarenvy]

Depends where you live, The part of LA county where I am has some HUGE garages, mine is 1000sqft & it's just about the smallest on my street

We have been looking at unincorporated parts of Orange County to buy a house with enough lot. Unfortunately its a tough time to buy a second house with the banks having their head in their a$$. So we decided to back off for a few years and try again later.

 

[red]

Wingcarenvy, saw you on that little ladder reaching with a nail gun in your hand. Had a next store neighbor that was a retired fireman and he would always get upset with me when he saw me reaching while on a ladder.
Well it took twenty years and I finally nail my hand with a roofing nail. Started to slip and you instinctively try to grab things (that's how you pull the trigger on the gun) Fortunately it was just a flesh shot no bones and no hospital, but the opportunity for catastrophic damage exists. Needless to say I no longer reach on a ladder. Hope your a quicker learner than me . . .

 

[Nighttrain]

Looking like a great transformation. Keep the pictures coming. Also how about the new shop with the cars?

 

[wingcarenvy]

Wingcarenvy, saw you on that little ladder reaching with a nail gun in your hand. Had a next store neighbor that was a retired fireman and he would always get upset with me when he saw me reaching while on a ladder.
Well it took twenty years and I finally nail my hand with a roofing nail. Started to slip and you instinctively try to grab things (that's how you pull the trigger on the gun) Fortunately it was just a flesh shot no bones and no hospital, but the opportunity for catastrophic damage exists. Needless to say I no longer reach on a ladder. Hope your a quicker learner than me . . .

Funny you should comment on that. I am a fireman. I guess proper practices dont apply to me. Its like the mechanics car always leaks oil.

 

[ZRX61]

We have been looking at unincorporated parts of Orange County to buy a house with enough lot.

Take a look at Antelope Valley

 

[wingcarenvy]

I was driving over to my buddies shop and saw this from the road. These are the same lift I bought. They are modular and I got two of them.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Here of some pics of my rented shop as requested. I dont really have any pics of the shop itself just pics of whatever I was working on but you can get the jist of it.

I am standing in the middle of the shop facing the front.

Now I am standing on the other side of the Dart facing the back door.

I am standing back in the middle of the shop again facing toward the back.

Shot from outside the back door.

 

[oldschool914]

Do they sell lefts and are they in L.A.

 

[BRIANBB]

How about re arranging those pics for easier reading?

 

[drmoonshine]

wingcarenvy What color red is that?

 

[wingcarenvy]

How about re arranging those pics for easier reading?

Sorry, Is that better? I am new to this.

Do they sell lefts and are they in L.A.

I dont understand your question.

wingcarenvy What color red is that?

Its code R4 Red which is a stock color for 70. You can find it on the paint chip sheets for that year Plymouth.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Its time for an update. Things are moving really slow. I am doing this work myself and I have very little time lately to work on the garage, but I need to get moving since our rainy season is coming in a month or so.

This is the saw that I rented to cut out the stucco and the footer for the man door install.

Here is the hole I cut for the man door. Cutting the door opening was really easy.

Here is the pile of stucco.

Here is my problem. Cutting the footer to create a flush threshold.

Outside view.

Initial cuts not too bad.

Another shot.

Once I made the score cuts I just took a sledge hammer to the footer and it came out pretty easy.

The outside view of the footer. It has a 2 inch step which will be good for keeping water out.

I am going to pour some concrete to fill in the threshold and get it nice and level then install the steel door I purchased. That will be next.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Time for an update.

Drywall being hung.

More pics of it going up

Tape and mud

Texture

And paint

I used Behr primer and ultra white semi gloss paint. Its my first time using Behr products and I was quite impressed, although it took more primer/paint to cover a given area than the directions eluded to.

 

[4StarCstms]

Want to come Tape and Mud my drywall work??

Great progress

 

[Garage5.9]

If you don't mind me asking what did all of the work to the ceiling and electrical work cost including materials. Allways wondered about doing this to my garage but never seen it done till now.

 

[wingcarenvy]

I couldn't tell you what it cost as far as labor. I did it all myself. I did have a lot of help since I seem to be a little lost when it come to house improvements. I have done the drywall throughout my house so I am pretty set there. I always try to pick up hints and tricks whereever I can get them. I can tell you that I do have about $1200 in materials right now and acccording to some of the estimates I got (I thought I could afford to pay to have it done) that the labor would have been in the $1000 range, and that was the good guy deal. I did have some estimates as high as $2100 for the drywall and $1500 for the framing. I never did get an estimate for electrical. I hope that helps you, I found my inspiration to do this to my garage on another forum where a guy had cars stacked in his 9'6" garage. I saw that and figured "I could do that!". It is tough to get contractors to even call you back on a project this small.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Want to come Tape and Mud my drywall work??

Great progress

Thanks for the compliment. I hate doing drywall, but a friend of mine showed how to make it to where I didn't have to sand it and that tip made life easier. First I mix the mud a little thinner than it comes in the box, more like pancake batter. Then I apply sparingly and do 2 coats over 2 days. Then while the second coat is drying I take a grout sponge and wipe down the joint and anywhere I put down the mud. I found this makes the walls perfectly flat and I dont have to texture to hide anything. I do prefer a light texture though and that is why I textured my garage.

 

[dumb as a stump]

Nice to see you good taste and have mopars....That wasn't meant stir up the hornets nest.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Nice to see you good taste and have mopars....That wasn't meant stir up the hornets nest.

Thanks, I am equal opportunity car guy but I really have a big soft spot for Mopars. I mostly own Mopars.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Okay its getting close! Here are some updates.

This is the finished door and threshold.

I couldn't get anyone to come out and put up my "worthless" garage door back up so I did it myself. Actually it wasn't hard at all, I had help from DDM garage doors. They sold me the parts for the high lift conversion and gave me solid advice. I highly recommend them. I did the conversion for $225.
http://ddmgaragedoors.com/diy-instructions/garage-door-high-lift-conversion.php

From the front. I took the first panel and put it into place. Then I slid the tracks over the rollers and leveled the tracks and made sure they were parallel to each other.

Then I screwed them into the wall using lag bolts and started sliding in the panels one by one till I had this.

Dan from DDM garage doors recommended I pie cut the 90s to get the angle I wanted by bending them.

Once I cut them I bolted them in place and just bent them to my desired angle and installed the bracket that supports the end. I found the swiss cheese angle iron they use on garage doors at the Home Depot.

 

[51rider]

That's looking really nice!

 

[wingcarenvy]

Okay I screwed up big time. Looks like I made the tracks too close to the ceiling. The door hit the spring bar, brackets and springs themselves. So I had to shorten the horizontal tracks by 3 inches and drop the tracks down 3 inches as well. Here are some pics.

This is the bearing plate. You can see that I had to trim it to fit. It was way too close.

Here are the spring parts

Here is another hurdle. I have a two piece spring bar and I originally had one spring. I needed to convert to a dual spring set up since the door follows the roof line. Well when trying to bolt up the springs the anchor wouldn't fit over the bolts in the coupler, so I put a couple of button head bolts and it barely made it over.

Here it is with the tracks too close.

Other side, you can see I welded some old track to the outside of the tracks to reinforce them. Welding galvanized steel *****.

Here is the track repositioned lower.

Other side

And the final product.

 

[jktruck150]

Looks really good! Great work on the place!

 

[Motown 454]

Nice work it looks great.

 

[Thruxton]

Nice work! I just began redoing my 19 X 19 a few weeks ago, and I'm taking the same route with insulation, sheetrock, and collar beams. The only real difference is I am backing the sheetrock with 3/8 plywood so I can put a screw in it anywhere I want (as well as for impact resistance). Even dealing with a similar door problem with a similar solution.

My question: did you have to get a structural engineer or architect to sign off on your raised ceiling/collar beam design? I'll admit to flying by the seat of my pants on mine, so I'm trying to be conservative (2 X 6 beams 14 feet long including tapered allowance where tied to rafters = 12 foot ceiling, and here it's wind (hurricanes) not seismic activity we worry about so Simpson H-1 hurricane ties at rafter to plate). Any info you can share would be much appreciated!

 

[wingcarenvy]

Nice work! I just began redoing my 19 X 19 a few weeks ago, and I'm taking the same route with insulation, sheetrock, and collar beams. The only real difference is I am backing the sheetrock with 3/8 plywood so I can put a screw in it anywhere I want (as well as for impact resistance). Even dealing with a similar door problem with a similar solution.

My question: did you have to get a structural engineer or architect to sign off on your raised ceiling/collar beam design? I'll admit to flying by the seat of my pants on mine, so I'm trying to be conservative (2 X 6 beams 14 feet long including tapered allowance where tied to rafters = 12 foot ceiling, and here it's wind (hurricanes) not seismic activity we worry about so Simpson H-1 hurricane ties at rafter to plate). Any info you can share would be much appreciated!

I did consult a structural engineer. I had a friend do the drawings and paid to have it engineered. I didn't go all the way but got to a point where I was comfortable that the building wasn't going to fall down. California has some really stupid rules here and I wasn't able to do some of the things they wanted but those things absolutely had nothing to do with structural integrity. I hope this helps, any questions you may have I will answer to the best of my ability. Good luck with your project, do you have a build thread going? If so please share.

 

[Thruxton]

Many thanks- just what I was hoping to hear. I've been putting of starting a thread on my rebuild but now I owe you and a couple of other GJers, so I'll try to get it up ASAP.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Many thanks- just what I was hoping to hear. I've been putting of starting a thread on my rebuild but now I owe you and a couple of other GJers, so I'll try to get it up ASAP.

Cool I look forward to seeing it.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Small update. I am now onto the detailing touches. I hung the cabinets that I had in there from before. I also bought one of those cheap masonite cabinets to house the garden tools. Of course I had to fortify the cabinet and I wanted to hang it on the wall so I could clean under it.

Here is the work bench that a friend built for me as a house warming gift back when I bought my house in 1997.

Here is the Masonite cheapy cabinet from the Depot. I put 2) 2x4s at the top and bottom and screwed it all together for strength. I also layed a piece of plywood left over, from the rafters we removed, the back of the cabinet. Then I screwed the whole thing to the wall so I could clean under it.

Next weekend we will install the lifts, then it will be time to put all my junk back in.

 

[wingcarenvy]

Well its been a long time since I have updated. I still have details to work out but the majority of the work is done. I bought 2 four post lifts from Metro lifts and installed them. Assembly was very simple and I had both of them assembled and installed in an 8 hour day.