Between 265 & 485 SQ/FT The Mary Kay Garage

[pickles]

And just like that, surprisingly, we are done at the upholsterer. Car was driven back to WW Motors.
They are going to do an extended test drive. I’ll call on Monday to presumably confirm that I can pick it up next Friday. Then get two plane tickets for me and my son.

 

[xtremek]

ROAD TRIP!!!!! Very cool news.

 

[billconner]

Very exciting!

 

[captain14]

Is your road trip home planned out?

 

[pickles]

Is your road trip home planned out?

Only vaguely. Basic plan it to fly to Dulles early Friday morning, pick up the car and make it most of the way to Tail of the Dragon area. On Saturday will do the Tail and then go west. We hope to get to Goshen Indiana by Sunday night or Monday morning to see my uncle. Then home back to Chicago Monday night.
If anyone has recommendations of places to see, eat or stay I’m all ears.

 

[Terranova]

I’m just getting back to GJ after a hiatus and read most of your thread. Really like the garage and small area approach.
what I’m really looking forward to is a road trip! Post lots of pictures.

 

[pickles]

Very disappointed! No road trip this weekend. WW Motorcars did an extended test drive on Monday. During that the found out to heater core is leaking and needs to be replaced. Not sure how long that will take but I’m out of town anyway the weekend after this one so it looks like a July trip home sometime. Oh well.

 

[captain14]

Better to have them find it now than 127 miles into the trip.

Now you have more time to get route suggestions.

 

[xtremek]

^What he said.

 

[pickles]

Yeah guys. I totally agree. I’d really want to avoid a breakdown on this long trip. Much worse than any delay.

 

[Ford52PU]

I’m sure you know but just in case you don’t, AAA is on you not a specific vehicle but on you so if you break down in your daily driver around town or in the Pink Cadillac on the way home your covered. I’ve used it so many times on my Triumph Stag (RIP) but it also helped for my wife when I was away and she needed a battery. We have the family plan.

Good luck

 

[pickles]

I’m sure you know but just in case you don’t, AAA is on you not a specific vehicle but on you so if you break down in your daily driver around town or in the Pink Cadillac on the way home your covered. I’ve used it so many times on my Triumph Stag (RIP) but it also helped for my wife when I was away and she needed a battery. We have the family plan.

Good luck

Thanks. I have AAA and also Hagerty. I a, hoping not to use either but figured having them is a good backup. I’ve used AAA for my daily driver cars a couple of times and it’s really really handy. Great value for money.

 

[captain14]

Thanks. I have AAA and also Hagerty. I a, hoping not to use either but figured having them is a good backup. I’ve used AAA for my daily driver cars a couple of times and it’s really really handy. Great value for money.

Maybe have AAA plan a scenic route home? I forget about their route planning option.

 

[pickles]

Home Theater Update

Since I don’t have any possibility for some road trip photos in Mary Kay maybe you guys might enjoy some home theater updates as a substitute.

I‘ve posted about this before but we live in a 120, 130 year old house in Chicagos Lakeview neighborhood. Like many houses around here it was originally built as a two flat, one family on the first floor and another one the second. We converted it to a single family house years ago, doing a pretty much gut remodel including and addition to the back of the house.

But at that time we did nothing to the finished basement. During Covid we started doing some basement work. Primarily we converted our spare bedroom to an exercise room. Last fall I decided it was time to update the rest of the space Including making what was once our kids playroom a home theater. I’ve been making slow progress on it since. Here are some photos

The basement while fully finished was very out of date. The goal was to update and also to make it match the style of the the rest of the house. I hated the handrails on the stairs to I ripped them out and put these in which match the style upstairs pretty closely.
I also bought and hung three new doors. Again the goal is to match what we have on the main and second floors

Here is a view down the hall that leads from the stairs and the theater past the gum on the left, past a bathroom, and towards my workshop


The bookcase on the left is new.
The above part of the bookcase also is a secret door.
So far I’m pretty satisfied on how this has come out. The carpet is going to all be replaced so I didn’t bother trying to protect it and I ripped our parts of it when convenient. The carpet company is coming to measure tomorrow and I’ll schedule the install as soon after that as I can. I still have a few things to do before the carpet gets installed. Mostly just paint touch ups like I’ve been working on off and on today.

 

[pickles]

As for the theater itself. It’s a small space, ten feet wide and about 17 feet long. I did all the work here except for the electrical which I did farm out. I will also farm out the carpet installation. We ordered a chaise love seat. Initially I had hoped that the chase would be delivered after the main work to the theater was done and the carpet was in. That didn’t work out so it’s been here still wrapped in plastic for almost three months
Here is the view into the theater standing at the bottom of the stairs

I’ve been trying to keep the cost of this project down. Home theaters can quickly get out of hand. I’ve done all the work myself except for the electrical work and the carpet. The subwoofers are 18 inch things that I made from kits bought from Monoprice. The front and side and rear speackers are all Triad speakers that I bought used. The atmos ceiling speakers are Monoprice ones that I bought years ago when I purchased 4 pairs of speakers by mistake thinking I was buying
four speakers. The receiver is a Marantz that I purchased with Amex points. I bought the projector, A JVC, today also with Amex points.
The goal is to have a small space where I or the wife and I can enjoy a movie. Kids will be gone soon, one is already in college, but I think with a beanbag or two we can fit the whole family in a pinch. I really used to enjoy movies but I had largely fallen out of the habit Of watching them. I am hoping this project rekindles the interest.

 

[xtremek]

That's quite the outfit.

 

[Twomato]

Monoprice FTW. Greetings from 60521.

 

[pickles]

60521. Not far. I once dated a girl from 60521.

 

[racer-john]

And just like that, surprisingly, we are done at the upholsterer. Car was driven back to WW Motors.
They are going to do an extended test drive. I’ll call on Monday to presumably confirm that I can pick it up next Friday. Then get two plane tickets for me and my son.

Who'se looking after that rust on the bottom of the of the driver's side fender?

 

[pickles]

Racer, I know, I know. Originally I had planned on them repairing the rust in the front fenders (the other one looks the same) but it became obvious that I would not have the car for summer if I did that. In the next year or two I’d like to find a place more local that could repair that rust and give it a repaint. For now I just hope to have it for summer.

 

[pickles]

So no real Mary Kay update yet. They found a new heater core from what I hear but I’m not sure how far along they as far as actually getting it installed. I understand these things take as lone as they take but it is frustrating because my son goes to camp in New Hampshire next weekend. He will be gone for four weeks and then starts school. Long and short he’s not going to be doing any road trip back from Virginia with me. That was supposed to be most of the fun so I may end up just trailering it back instead. Will see. At this point I just want to enjoy some of the summer with the car.

I do have some better updates on the home theater project however. Carpet was installed this week and it’s really nice having a finished space again.
I spent some time today hanging the projector and hooking up the receiver. We also unwrapped the couch that was delivered a few weeks ago and that has been sitting in plastic
I still have a lot to do. I have to install the rear speakers and finish building the subs. I still need to buy a subwoofer amp and also the screen. Will try to do that this week. I still need to work more on the space including installing door hardware and baseboards. Also need to put together some acoustic treatments and probably a thousand other things. I was able to enjoy listening to a couple of CDs today however and that’s significant progress

 

[pima67]

Apparently, you avoided the recent flooding episode at your place.
As an aside I grew up on the south side near 89th and
Stony Island (40's to mid 50's). My niece lives near Margate Park.
Chicago is a great place to be from!

 

[jbrentd]

Nice work on the theater room. We converted our game room to a theater room when the kids outgrew their toys and it gets used a lot. What size screen will you end up with?

 

[pickles]

Nice work on the theater room. We converted our game room to a theater room when the kids outgrew their toys and it gets used a lot. What size screen will you end up with?

I haven’t ordered a screen yet but I am hoping to get to it this week. I’m thinking of buying a 100 inch wide 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio screen from Seymour Screens. The edges of the screen would be just inside the blue tape in the photo below.
If anybody has knowledgeable comments about that I’m all ears. I’ll be sitting ten feet from the screen.

I’m also hoping to order an AV rack this week. Looking at a Slim 5 from Middle Atlantic. I need to decide on height however. 21 RU, 29 RU, 37 RU? Rack will go again this wall as part of a built in bookcase and set of drawers that will store my CDs and movie disks. This area is just outside the theater proper.

 

[82355]

Read through this entire thread this morning. Very interesting. I have zero desire to live in town, let alone a city, but I love old buildings (your house), and seeing the work arounds to make the garage fit the look and the tight areas.

It's a shame you could not build a bridge between the house and the roof top deck. Is your bedroom the only room at the back of the second story though?

Why no water plumbed to the garage? A sink on the deck would be nice for cooking/entertaining.

Just curiosities, I LOVE the garage.

Martin

 

[pickles]

Martin, Thanks so much. City living isn’t for everyone and it certainly makes my only two hobbies (cars and woodworking) a little more expensive/ inconvenient than they would be in areas where space is cheaper but I like it. A relatively short commute to my office is another big bonus of living here for me.

I had not even thought about water in or on the garage. Not sure if it’s possible for both code reasons and because of the cold in the winter. I know a number of people who have decks on their garage or house and I can’t think of any of them that have water on them So I’m going to assume it would have been pretty difficult or expensive. One thing you do sometimes see is people build a small room on their roof which will have a sink, fridge, even a dish washer. Usually a tv and couch or two as well. That stuff is inside and then they have a large patio door or set of french doors with access to the outside deck. It’s a great solution - just takes money. I’ve thought about maybe doing that someday but we probably don’t need that space. Regardless it’s pretty far down the money priority list if it ever happened.

One of my projects is to improve the deck space by adding a propane grill , an area to prep food and store utensils/ plates and probably an outdoor fridge for bottles water/ beer/ soda. I want to have access to stuff to drink and we already keep a hose up there for watering the plants and cleaning stuff off. Works out ok.

Even if I could have built a garage to house bridge I probably would not have. The only room on the back of the second floor is our bedroom and for security and privacy reasons I would not have wanted direct access from the outside. I love sleeping with the windows open when the weather is cool and would not give that up.

Glad you enjoyed the thread. Hopefully I’ll have some more interesting projects coming soon

 

[jbrentd]

We have a 100" screen and the front row is about the same distance. Works well for us. I think I used this calculator (or one like it) when I was in the middle of that project.

Projection Calculator Pro - Projector to Screen Distance

Find screen size and throw distance for all projectors, as well as seating and lighting recommendations.

www.projectorcentral.com

 

[pickles]

Mary Kay update, and it’s not a good one. Engine is apart. Valve problem. And they have asked for more money.

 

[manbike26]

Mary Kay update, and it’s not a good one. Engine is apart. Valve problem. And they have asked for more money.

That's not ideal.

What a bummer, sorry to see this.

 

[ToolPolisher]

The silver lining to them finding that is it will driver better than before!

 

[PugetDude]

Might have to rename Mary Kay...

 

[captain14]

At least they found it in the shop instead of the scenic drive home In the evening in the middle of NoWhereville.

 

[pickles]

Captain, Agreed, anything is better than having it on the side of the road hundreds of miles from home. At this point it’s going to start getting cold soon and I’m more and more likely just to trailer it back to Chicago. Will have to see how much longer it takes and to see if they find any other problems.

 

[billconner]

I'm sure it thrilled your wife.

 

[pickles]

We keep going further down the Mary Kay rabbit hole

 

[smschriefer]

What are they doing to it? Is the engine going to be dipped and then the block skimmed?

 

[pickles]

They needed to replace the camshaft. I told them to open the engine up and do what needs to be done. To my knowledge they don’t have to do any machining work to the block. But the way this project is going we might find out that this is no longer the case. I hope not.

 

[Chrisb62]

Might want to consider 502 with 600 horses as a alternative.

 

[davejo]

I like how it appears you are rolling with the punches. Let me know if you need if you need a lift from the airport to your car or other boots on the ground logistical assistance. I'm on the north end of the shenandoah valley

 

[cycle61]

Might want to consider 502 with 600 horses as a alternative.

Obviously this is the correct answer.