The Gray Garage

[Dan in Pasadena]

I'm calling mine "The Gray Garage" for reasons that will become obvious.
(No, not because it's full of Gray brand tools, unfortunately).

BACKGROUND
My detached garage is 18'x18' built in 1930 on a very small lot. The prior owner added a storage area behind it by building right on top of the property's 42" block wall!
He knocked a 6 ft. wide opening in the back but didn't properly engineer it - I'll come back to that later.
Sometime in the '70's he added the connected 13'x28' workshop you see below (lousy cell photo). When I moved in the shop quickly filled w/the belongings of 3 college aged kids who are now all 30 and only recently did we get EVERYONE'S **** out of there.
Here you can see my "new" workshop adjacent to the garage:

The PLAN
We own an 11-1/2' camper, 2 Jetskis w/trailer, & added a 22 ft. ski boat last summer. Storing toys is EXPENSIVE so a total garage/shop reset was in order.
For everything to fit behind our gate, the garage is becoming a (hopefully tidy) toy storage area - but I'm ok w/it because I get to remake the big junk area into a dedicated workshop.
As part of this reset, I'll widen the 6 ft opening to 12 ft and install an engineeered structural steel frame. Still later I intend to put in a tile floor ala Jack Olsen.

...and so IT BEGINS...
First, **** removal (frankly) from the garage & small shop behind:

(Yeah embarassing to show this SO messy but others will need to see the "Before" later)

This allowed me to replace a termite ruined wood window w/ a Craigslist freebie & sheath one wall w/OSB leftover (again free!) from a temp fence put up to replace a masonry wall that was felled by the 12-01-11 Great Pasadena Windstorm:

PAINT & REORGANIZE

Here's where the "Gray" finally comes in. I'm cheap, so that 42" block wall I mentioned was painted it w/a $5 mismix gal from Home Depot awhile ago:

I wanted to match it but that would be pricey so I found a 5 gal can of gray on Craigslist for $20. It's a bit blue onscreen, but it's gray in person:

Here, I've split the two cabinets on either side of the newly sheathed wall & window. The lower wall is now painted gray but no photo for the moment:

Later I repainted the cabinets I'd painted yellow. Another CL search netted me...wait for it...MORE gray! (Getting my drift now?) So I decided gray is the theme with white above to maximize light bounce and my Craftsman & former Jack Olsen-owned HF box providing red highlights.
Before (when they were clean):

After:

We FINALLY put in a modern sectional garage door.

Before (ancient, cheap, damaged, filthy):

After (Yes, it's plain but considering what I've had this is a giant improvement) And it goes with the dark stained wood in our backyard

ALL this has been leading toward my widening of that 6' opening at the back of the garage using 10" deep beams. Here's how the opening looked before this weekend:

Here's the back wall today:

Apologies for so long a post - but at least I used a lot of pictures.
Feel free to offer any suggestions or criticism. I can use it!

PS: Those rectangular concrete shapes in the floor? The old man prior owner told me they were service pits! You KNOW I've gotta break through one of them to see if I could make them useable again.

 

[Amazzen]

Dan,

Welcome and good luck with the revamp.

You're going to love it here, BEST community on the Web!

The more pics the better,

Paul

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Thank you Amazzen and don't I know it. I've been here awhile. Always envious of the time to do a full garage redo.

In addition to providing a great inspiration, a lot of guys here especially Jack Olsen - who is somewhat local to me - have been very helpful in getting me to this point.

Photos of the back wall demo, steel erection and footing placement are upcoming in the next week.

 

[Amazzen]

Dan,

Glad you're inspired, that's the just the right motivation to get at her.

You certainly have the makings of an awesome place and with your experience in the community, its going to be GREAT.

I think I prefer total makeovers versus greenfield builds because it kind of glorifies the old place.

Not that you need any more inspiration but....Make her proud!

 

[Cougar67]

PS: Those rectangular concrete shapes in the floor? The old man prior owner told me they were under car service pits! You KNOW I've gotta break through one of them to see if I could make them useable again.

Don't those rectangles seem oddly placed to have been useful service pits? Did he have a wife?

I love the evolution of your space. The small garages are my some of my favorites on here. You've packed a lot of toys and enjoyment in yours.

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Yeah, they are kinda wide spread. Guess we'll see what's down there when I demo out the slab in that area.

Just to show the break line between my gray lower wall and the white upper, here's another poor cell photo I JUST took with flash. The OSB texture is obvious and I still managed a clean line. It's the "paint the tape with the covered color" trick, I just painted it twice! Worked like a charm.

 

[Scuderia-F1]

From a guy with a limited shop area, I find these threads VERY inspiring!
You´ve managed to use your shops limited area very well, and I´m looking forward to see where this goes.

 

[kngkong]

Looking cool Dan. I can envision great things happening in The Gray Garage this summer. Nice to have the garden out the doorstep. I have something similar with mine.

 

[82_454_shorty]

Keep up the good work Dan!

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Didn't get much done today - medical appointment.

Just temporarily loaded of the "Chemical Cabinet". I put things together by type. Spray paints together, smaller paint cans above, 1 & 5 gallon cans below. Automotive chemicals and polishes together.

I will be sanding and painting the interior of the cabinet but haven't decided if I'm using gray to matchthe exterior or a gloss white. Opinions?

I WILL be adding doors to keep the dust out.

 

[Mmfh]

I know this is all about the garage, and its pretty cool the way you've got it going, but truthfully I'm thinking about lounging in your backyard with a couple of beers.

Nice looking place!

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

...truthfully I'm thinking about lounging in your backyard with a couple of beers.

Nice looking place!

Thanks a lot. Our backyard was redone after we took a trip to Kauai. That influenced our plant selections - banana trees, giant Birds of Paradise and such. Pasadena is actually right below the San Gabriel mountains so every few years it'll reach freezing and we've lost some stuff, but most survive.

A couple more of the back and front yards.
Front Yard border - it's been a very mild winter.

Backyard a few summers ago with Sooner the "Wonder Dog"! and Dudley, my forever best friend that left us a couple years ago at age 14. He's why I started the "Show Us Your Garage Dog" thread.

..now.... back to garage stuff!

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Ok, the demolition of the rear wall of my garage continues. This is to allow me to store my 22 ft boat in there and my garage is only 18x18. The rear area is 6 ft deep and my trailer has an articulated tongue I can fold during storage.

I saw cut the stucco with a tile blade on my Cman circular saw, then pried it off in relatively neat squares and stacked it. I sawcut the concrete slab the same, using a spray bottle to cool the blade. Then demo'ed the slab on one side - so far - w/small single jack and a long steel digging bar. I'm down 36" now but shooting for 48". This will be the footing for the 10in. deep I-beam column that will support the I-beam across the top bolted to the wood framing.

Rear Wall looking West or Toward Front of Garage - Before

Rear Wall Looking East or Toward Rear - Stucco Removed

Slab Demo/Removal For Column Footing

Apologies for the cell photos. You can see the slab is damaged but I can't remove it as there is no perimeter footing. The structure is directly on the slab. Long term plan is to tile it ala Jack Olsen's garage....assuming I do enough grinding & leveling to make it look ok.

All opinions are welcome.

 

[fergus]

Well Dan, now you've got your work cut out for you! Cool ma, keep it up!

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Tell me about it!

The deeper I get into that hole, the harder it gets to dig! Laying on my 57 year old belly pulling dirt out from arm's length is hard on the neck and back.

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Apologies for the lousy cell phone pictures.
Ok, so after 1-1/2 mo. of fooling around with finding/buying cheap structural steel off Craigslist, buying a used HF portaband to cut it, arranging for welding (I ended up doing it myself - badly) here are the results. Just to remind you, the back wall BEFORE:

And here's the AFTER:

On the other side I had to splice the beam. It was 12'-10" and I needed it to be 14'-4":

You can see the splice. That came out ok because it was downhand in a comfortable position. The overhead welds look like **** frankly. But they're plenty strong even if they are ugly as sin.

P.S. No, there will NOT be close up photos of my welds. Take my word for it - ugly.

 

[RivennHewn]

I'm thinking I'd use a couple of mending plates on that I-beam.

I'm sure you trust your welds, but that looks a little scary to me.

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Oh, you mean on the splice? Yeah, I suppose I could. There ARE splice plates on one of the columns - put they're by someone else before I bought them. I did bevel the spliced ends and the pentration is really good. A little undercut but all in all I'm reasonably pleased since I hadn't stick welded in...uh....ahem...like 30 years!! (Eek, I'm old)

Anyone need 3/4 of a 5lb box of 6011? I guarantee I'm never using it again.

 

[SD_R/T]

This allowed me to replace a termite ruined wood window w/ a CL vinyl freebie & sheath one wall w/OSB leftover (free!) from a temp fence put up to replace a masonry walled felled by the 12-01-11 Great Pasadena Windstorm:

My apologies if you covered it and I missed it.....but how did you address your new window on the outside? Did you patch the old stucco? I am looking at a similar condition (my garage is 1925 and stucco) and was scratching my head at how I was going to address it. Cool garage!

Also, am I the only one wondering if you put those steel beams in place yourself? One strong dude!

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

...how did you address your new window on the outside? Did you patch the old stucco? I am looking at a similar condition (my garage is 1925 and stucco) and was scratching my head at how I was going to address it. Cool garage!

Thanks for the compliment. It WILL be cool when I "finish".
No, I didn't patch the stucco yet. I don't know how much you know about window installations but frankly it isn't that hard. PM me if you need some tips.

I'll nail black paper to the exposed framing (very little of that), I'll use chicken wire and tie it to the old stucco wiring, then stucco patch goes on in 2 or 3 layers. I use ONLY "La Habra" brand stucco patch. It adheres excellent and (do you know?) you have to use a stucco float for the final finish? Its like a firm red sponge mounted on a conventional wood hand trowel. Gives the original sand finish. If you have textured stucco to patch you'll have to experiment a bit. Good luck and make SURE to post about it!

...Also, am I the only one wondering if you put those steel beams in place yourself? One strong dude!

Ha ha, Yes, I DID raise that beam all by myself and unfortunately no, I am NOT a "strong dude". I'm 57 so my strongest days are behind me. I had no one to help and was impatient to get it done (NOT good)

I cleared everything that could get crushed. I placed a 6 ft. ladder on one end, an 8 ft on the other. It was a definite effort to get one end up to 8 ft. Getting the other end to 6 ft was easier. Then I used an extra heavy ratchet strap to get the low end up the last couple feet. The strap itself got in the way toward the end so I was on the top of that 6' ladder and was supporting the beam on top of my thigh, then basically muscled it APPROXIMATELY into final position with a dull mind and a not-especially-strong-back - think of it as one max effort curl. I do NOT recommend this to anyone else. Be smarter than me and do it right with lots of help from strong young guys!!

 

[xtremek]

Looking good

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Thank you.

Today I'm going to paint those beams and will try to install the OSB and pegboard I am using to sheath all the walls. I'm using 2 wall types because the PO had old pegboard already up. It was solid but just dirty so I painted it. Then I had 4 full sheets of OSB left over from a temporary fix so I used them...and last, I'm a cheap *******!! lol.

I'll post better pix of all that once its done.

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

I stopped off at OSH for a quart of Rustoleum Hammered finish in grey. This took all of it! I rolled it on with a throw away $2 foam roller. It came out nice I think but its weird paint. It gets tacky real fast. It's difficult to lay out your roller marks...as you can probably see.

I put two coats on most of it. I'm gonna have to get another quart....damn!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

CLOSE UP OF TEXTURE:

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

So over the weekend I finished the steel work by concreting in the columns. This'll all get covered (eventually) with tile.

The holes are 3 ft deep and I kinda went overboard with the hole diameter. I was shooting for 18" but ended up nearer 24"+. One hole had break out because my slab is in bad shape. I'm embarassed to admit the job ultimately took 28 (!!) 60lb bags of Quikcrete.

Excavation:

After Concrete:

...and, "The BIG Hole":bounce:

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

More to come as I am COMPLETELY reorganizing my space. Cabinets getting moved and painted. A few wall areas not previously covered will be OSB and pegboard in one case.

 

[fergus]

Man, you really got in deep on this one. That's pretty cool...Any particular reason you went steel instead of wood (LVL, etc) on the beam? Sure is nice to have all that wide open space eh?

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

...Any particular reason you went steel instead of wood (LVL, etc) on the beam? Sure is nice to have all that wide open space eh?

It's required from an engineering stand point. It's not the depth or load carrying capacity of the beam that's the prime consideration in this modification, it's the rigidity of the replacement for the wall being removed and that resides in the corner connections on this frame.

Imagine the garage as a cardboard box flipped upside down. With one side removed (garage door) the box (structure) is still pretty stable. Now imagine that same box with a 2nd side removed - the side opposite the 1st side that was removed (the garage door side). The box (structure) is now very unstable particularly with an load that moves side to side, ala seismic loading....and I live in California.

So that was the reason for the steel frame. There is not an equivalent amount of rigidity with typical corner connections in a wood structure. Don't get me wrong, it COULD be done. And then me being who I am I over did the hell out of it

Oh and P.S. Once the boat goes in there all the way to nearly touching the back wall there's less than 6" clearence to the door!

 

[fergus]

Oh gotcha. I wasn't thinking about it being opposite from the front door/wall. Dang those boats...always taking up all the room!

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

...Dang those boats...always taking up all the room!

Yeah, it's a REAL tough problem to have! As I said earlier in the thread, I'm only ok with the boat taking away my garage cause I'm getting the attached 13'x28' former storage area (for cr@p!) as my exclusive new workshop. More on that space upcoming.

 

[shopnut]

That's one heck of a beam, Dan. It just begs to have a hoist trolley hung on it - don't you think?

I bet that's a nice one to have checked off the list!

It's hard to tell from the latest pictures, but it looks like it's really going to "open up" the place.

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Yeah, I actually thought of that hoist trolley idea. I don't know WHAT I'd use it for but I'd like to have one to find out. I have no idea where to find one, but one will come along.

Yes, getting this job checked off the list is a big relief... it kicked my old ****, ha ha. Now if I can just get the tile down - ugh!

The main garage is now 18x26' - still small by today's standards but a big improvement over 18x18. The shop is 13x28 so I think I have plenty of room, though it has a low ceiling about 8 ft and tapering downward about 3-4" at one end.

 

[Jack Olsen]

This is going to be a great shop.

 

[abstamaria]

Very interesting, Dan.

Andres

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Thanks for the comments guys.

I know this thread would be more interesting if I'd wait til more was done, THEN post photos but honestly? I get excited as one thing gets done and I can move on to the next. Right now I'm moving existing cabinets, emptying the contents, painting, making doors for some that didn't have them before, etc. I'll have more progress in a few days.

 

[fergus]

Jeez Dan, that must be one heck of a big lot for Pasadena, seeing how you've got the garage, plus the little workshop out back PLUS the storage area. Either that or your resulting back yard is 5'x5'.

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

The lot is 50x100 which is typical in SoCal. I'm sure that's shockingly small to guys in other parts of the country.

I moved the photos of the back yard here from post #1.

I'm standing on the steps on the large covered patio in this photo and you can see the garage to the left. To IT'S left is the shop whose back wall is literally built on the yard's perimeter block wall.

The shop wall you can just see to the right in this photo is to the left of the main garage.

So, yeah it's a small grass area.

 

[Zeke]

Very cool, Dan. Lot of work has transpired and I perspired along with you.

 

[shopnut]

Yeah, I actually thought of that hoist trolley idea. I don't know WHAT I'd use it for but I'd like to have one to find out. I have no idea where to find one, but one will come along.

If you buy things on ebay, search on "hoist trolley", "manual trolley" or "hand trolley". I found my 1-ton CM for $30 (new). Shipping is not terrible either - some types break down and can fit in a USPS flat rate box. Most are adjustable for beam width.

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

Thanks for the tip Shopnut! I definitely will do an ebay search for a small trolley hoist.

I've been out of town since the 11th and hadn't checked this thread. Actually, I've been out of the country! I'm sitting by a pool on the last night of a long planned Costa Rican vacation as I type this on my iPhone. Ain't technology incredible?!!

I'll post some photos in Free Parking once I get back.

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

....I know this thread would be more interesting if I'd wait til more was done, THEN post photos but honestly? I get excited as one thing gets done and I can move on to the next..... I'll have more progress in a few days.

Ok, so a "few days" turned into a couple weeks but at long last, the boat is INSIDE the garage. Yippee, Yahoo!

Here is "Sooner" the Wonder Dog supervising all activities in HIS garage.

That is the boat's tower mounted to the wall on the right. Milk crates aren't there anymore.
The teak swim platform is mounted high at rear of wall. Tower misses clearing the garage door while mounted & folded by only 3" - DAMN.

The rest of the main garage is spartan now. I don't know what to do with the fluorescent light, but I don't like it there. MY OCD kicks in seeing that dangling cable, I'll fix that today.

That hydro trailer @ left rear will be sold. Once the tires on the left are gone the dolly will not be visible. I intend to build a Olsen-esque bifold door cabinet there for brooms, dustpans, etc.

Last, yes the garage door can be closed as this trailer has a folding tonque. There's only 2" clearance(!) to the back of the door and 6" clearance to the rear wall. The "Blind Spot" sign will be mounted to remind me not to hit the wall or I beam column - IF I can see it in my mirror, ha ha!!:

I'm spending the day out there again. I'll use a REAL camera today, I promise. Thanks for your patience on the lousy iPhone pix. All, comments & suggestion are appreciated. You guys will have a better perspective than I do, so feel free to comment. - Dan