The (slow) garage/house project

[bashr52]

After looking through this site for years, and seeing others build their own setups, I'm finally in a position to start on my own project. A job change last year forced a relocation to Virginia, and due to the small selection of houses available in this area that both my wife and I could agree on, we decided to bite the bullet and just a build a place we could both live with. After 20 something years, I'm finally getting a garage larger than a single car with low headroom! She got to pick out the house style, and other than some say on the layout and structural changes, I'm letting it be her baby.

The house is around 1800 ft^2, but will be close to 2200 once we finish off the back porch. My wife is finishing up some additional nursing certifications that will allow her to eventually work from home, so the back porch will become her office and a section will be additional living/play space for out daughter.

I will try to keep this thread mostly garage related, unless people are interested in house progress as well. The pictures are a little behind the current status of the house, but compared to the pace I'm used to in NY, everything moves really slow in VA so not much more has happened since these pictures

The garage is a simple 30x40 pole barn with 12/8 attic trusses. My ultimate plan is to convert the upstairs into some kind of a gym and/or small efficiency for friends/family to crash in when they are in town. Before the house went onto the block foundation, I did run a branch off the main drain line toward the garage for future septic hookup. The pipe is currently just capped and under the house.

Here are some progress pictures, and close to where we are at this point. I had a company come down from PA to put up the garage, and a small group of guys did the whole thing in about a week.

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It is hard to tell from the pictures, but the ceiling height is 14 feet.
View media item 92463View media item 92468View media item 92467View media item 92469View media item 92470The room upstairs is 14.5x40 to the knee walls, and ceiling height is around 8.5 ft.

 

[bashr52]

Once the framing guys left, a few days later the next crew came in to do the garage doors. They are 12x12 insulated versions, planning ahead for future heat/AC. This is pretty much the state of things now, the house is currently being sided and the garage is next on the list. Roof will be the same material/color as the house, as well as the siding.

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The house is currently being wires with a 200 AMP service, and I had the contractor run a conduit under the house for a future 100 AMP sub panel in the garage. Concrete will have to wait for funds to replenish, as we still need to pay for the garage roof, and finish the upstairs of the house, back porch, etc once we can get occupancy. We are trying to cut costs as much as possible and do what we can ourselves, buying our own materials/lights/cabinets/etc to have money left over for all the other projects.

 

[Deezler]

Excellent planning ahead. Congrats!

 

[Motoman1100]

That looks legit! Congratulations on finally getting the place you wanted.

 

[bashr52]

In case anyone is interested, here is the house layout. As I mentioned before, the back porch will eventually be enclosed and turned into more living space.

First Floor
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Second Floor
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[Unruh]

That place looks like a little slice of perfect! I seen all that potential in the garage and started coming up with ideas. I can only imagine what is going on in your mind! Keep us posted, I’m excited to see the progress.

 

[fourbyford]

Congrats on the build! The design and placement of the house and garage have resulted in a great look... I especially like the steep roof pitches. And, the floor plan works well. Dont know if you've had deep, covered porches before... we have them on three sides of our farmhouse and spend lots of time there... pretty much year round. I'm sure you'll enjoy yours.
The title of your thread includes the word (slow)... from looking at the pics, seems like great progress... what is the actual timeline on the project? Any significant set-backs?

 

[el monte slim]

Even though I'm getting to the age that I don't want a two-story anything, I must say the house and garage plans you're working from are exceptionally good.

I can't ever recall seeing the second floor in a house of 1800 ft^2, which has an open-office area, full bath, two bedrooms with closets, and four enclosed-storage rooms. It's a brilliantly efficient use of the available space! I really like the layout of the first floor, and both covered porch areas are great as well. I can't help but love the 14' garage ceiling height that still has room for living/storage space above. Nice!

Kudos for the way you're going about things to contain costs. If at all possible, please post pictures of both the house and the garage as work continues to progress. This thread is a keeper!

 

[onemanarmy]

That garage is awesome. Planning a vehicle lift?

On the house, why not move the storage door in the third bedroom a bit to the right and make the closet bigger, like on bedroom 2? Plus those bi-fold doors are terrible in general

 

[bashr52]

Agreed on the bi-fold doors, I hate them with a passion. The good thing is, since I'm finishing up the second floor myself, I can move stuff around and change things up a bit.

The position of the house/garage in relation to the road was forced due to the HOA rules. They have some dumb rule that garage doors cannot face the road. Their reasoning is so no one can see into your garage, in case there is a bunch of junk or something that may ruin potential buyers off to the place. The main problem with that is the 3 houses up the road from us all have their garages 90 degrees to the road, but on the downhill side facing the development entrance.... Instead of only being able to see into the garage when you are right in front of the place, you can now see into it for the entire time you are driving up the road.

The 12 foot doors and 14 foot height were driven by the future lift install, but also the fact that I will be storing my boat in half of it. It may just be deceiving due to the lack of floor or anything on the walls, but the building looks really small when you're standing inside of it. I have my tractor inside now, and my utility trailer in the other half (15' long), and it looks like the thing is full already.

The main roof pitches all have to be a minimum of 12/8, which is what is both on the garage and house (minus the porches).

We bought the lot in July of 2018, and signed the contract on the house build last December. The lot was completely wooded when we started. We bought that lot for a reason. It's quiet, private, and I can make all the noise I want in the garage and no one is close by. I started clearing the lot soon after we bought it, but after we signed the house contract I let the builder come in with some bigger equipment and take down all the big stuff in the way of the job site.

The foundation crew was in and out in a few days, and the framing crew had the whole thing done in a week. Now that we are onto sub contractors, that is where the slow part comes in. The electricians have been the fastest sub so far, in and out in 2 days (but they are only doing the first floor). The utility company will not hook up power until they have a copy of the electrical inspection certificate. They say about 2 weeks for that. The inspector only works one day a week, so he should be able to come by and sign off next Tuesday.

Our house contractor is also doing the roofing/siding on the garage, but no material has been ordered for that yet.

 

[bashr52]

Another rule I had to work around with the HOA is their rules on garage size. All houses need to have a minimum of a 250 ft^2 attached "2 car" garage, or a maximum of a 500 ft^2 detached "4 car" garage. Who can function with 4 cars in a 500 square foot garage? Since I wanted to build a 1200 square foot detached garage, and they wouldn't let me face it toward the road, I was able to get around their rule by rotating the house and garage 90 degrees from the road and then attaching them with a breezeway. Technically they are attached, and there was no limit to size of attached garages!! The contractor doing the siding was able to finish the breezeway this week, and is working on the remaining siding on that side of the house.

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[fourbyford]

Well done!!

 

[el monte slim]

HOA's are the bane of all mechanically-inclined people with hobbies.

 

[bashr52]

Here is where we are at as of Saturday morning. Siding on the house is about 90-95% done. They just need to do the dormer, and finish the soffit/fascia. They are supposed to start the siding and roof on the garage this week. Electrical inspection is supposed to be tomorrow, then it will be a matter of hounding the utility company until they come out and hook up the service...

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[bashr52]

After some bad weather at the beginning of the week, we stopped over there at lunch today with plans to have a picnic. We couldn't get in the driveway due to the number of people there working. Septic is going in today, inspection set for 4:30 today. The crew was there and half the garage roof on already, and the plumber was inside finishing up the water line prep. Things are finally starting to happen. I guess HVAC is due in at the beginning of the week as well.
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[bashr52]

We stopped over to the house yesterday, and they had put up the material on the porch roof so we (aka the wife) decided the house would look more complete with the lights/fans installed. So that is what I did. They also got the septic inspected and buried Friday, just need to finish the grading today and we should be good. Garage roof is also complete. Porch railings/stairs/decking should go down this week, as well as the last little bit of siding installed.

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[bashr52]

Things are still slowly progressing along. The 2 man crew working over there got the decking, railings, and new stairs built on the front porch last week. They should be back today to finish up the stair rails. The only thing they have to do after that is the fascia around the back porch roof, and then put up the temporary ceiling to stop critters from getting inside until we free up the funds to enclose it.

I was able to negotiate a deal with a crew from south of the border to do the siding on the garage. I saved over $500 instead having the crew that did the house do the garage as well. They started on Friday, worked a good portion of the day on Saturday. They were running low on material as some of it was back ordered and will not be delivered until today, so I had them just do the front side so I could get my barn lights up. I also got the light installed in the breezeway.

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[captain14]

Looks good so far. Is there any plan for water runoff from the connecting roof of the house to garage? Or is the ground going to be graded well for drainage?

 

[bashr52]

We will likely do gutters, or some sort of grading to take care of any potential issues. The grading/gutter solution has to still be explored, that will be on the clean up list once the house is ready to go. The one good thing about the sandy soil we have around here is it doesn't hold water very well

 

[Mikkeli]

Great progress so far! Waiting for some photos of interior.

 

[bashr52]

Great progress so far! Waiting for some photos of interior.

Thanks! Once something happens inside the house I can shoot some pics. For now its still just studs. We did finally get the power hooked up, but we're waiting for the plumber to finish up, and HVAC to finally show up. They were supposed to be in last week and were a no-show. They said either Wednesday or Thursday this week, but no show again yesterday.

I did get tired of having my boat sit outside at the rental house and getting full of leaves/pollen/rain/**** and moved that over to the house on Monday. It's already filling up, and I have yet to move in any of my tools or machines. I can't do anything permanent until I get a floor poured and painted....

My wife isn't keen on the idea, but I will eventually built a lean-to on the opposite side of the garage (facing the tree line) where I will park the trailer and tractor. The plan is to have the lift and car storage on the right side, boat on the left with tool boxes and machines along the back and side wall where there is room. Layout will be determined by space once floor is in and I have the car/boat in their places.

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[bashr52]

Since someone asked, here is what the inside currently looks like. This is the main slow part of the build. From the outside the house looks finished, inside it's a different story:
Entry hallway. Utility room and coat closet
View media item 92949Kitchen from hallway
View media item 92950Kitchen from living/dining area
View media item 92951living/dining area from kitchen
View media item 92952Hallway from dining area. 1/2 bath, coat closet, utility room
View media item 92953Master bedroom
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View media item 92955Master closet
View media item 92956Master bath from closet
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[bashr52]

Staircase from living room:
View media item 92958Landing. Bathroom ahead, bedroom on either side
View media item 92959Bedroom 2 with large closet:
View media item 92960Bedroom 3
View media item 92961Second full bath:
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[bashr52]

After over a month, I finally bugged our contractor enough about the lack of progress that he got on the plumber to come back over and finish up. He finished up last week and the HVAC crew came in to get started. They delivered all the ducts and distribution blower, cut some holes in the floor, and left. I haven't seen them since. We were out of town for 2 days last week so of course that is when people actually showed up to work. They did not put any provisions for duct work in our master bathroom, and put the thermostat hookup in the dumbest place they could find, instead of in the location we had marked out for them. One of the holes was also cut in the floor under one of our kitchen cabinets, so not sure what their plan is there. I guess they want to try and run a vent out the front side of a base cabinet?

Our builder hit me up for the next bank draw yesterday, but as part of the next mile stone it specifies HVAC roughed in. Some holes in the floor does not qualify as roughed in to me, so we will be withholding funds until things are fixed/installed to our liking. Not getting paid may help motivate them to actually work on finishing the place....

 

[bashr52]

Back on the garage front, my parents just listed there house back in NY for sale, so I had to get the last of my stuff out of there. A trip back home last weekend with a truck and trailer yielded what I hope is the last of out stuff, including my car. Since there is no concrete in the garage yet, I had to use leftover building materials to build a raised platform to put the car on. I didn't want it sitting directly on the sand, and although I have done some more grading around the garage to prevent water from pooling inside, I didn't want to run the chance of the car being exposed to pooling water/sand/debris gathering around it. Boat, car, and tractor are not located inside, trailer moved to along side the garage.

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HVAC was 99% roughed in last week, insulation was supposed to go in at the end of the week. The crew apparently showed up and couldn't figure out how to open the front door and just left..... Hoping they come back today so drywall can go in and we can actually do something to make the house look more complete...

We're still arguing with the contractor over the missing pocket door between the bathroom and master closet. Still not sure how he can be the contractor in charge of building a house without ever having stepped foot inside....

 

[bashr52]

We finally have insulation. Inspection is slated for today, and there are a dozen pieces of drywall on the porch waiting to be installed. Hoping for drywall next week, and we could potentially be in there painting by the weekend. Timing would be about right, I have to work next weekend and my inlaws are going to be in town for a week starting Saturday. We've been sitting around waiting on the contractor, and now that we have other plans, the house will be waiting on us to get some work done. Figures!!

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[Roundhouse]

Gonna be a nice place

It’s amazing how incompetent most contractors and Subs can be

 

[bashr52]

This picture shows the opening between the bathroom and master closet:

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The plans show a 3 ft pocket door in this location. The contractor claimed the biggest door they could install in this location was 24", and the plans were drawn wrong. The opening measures 73"...... After going back and forth with him about why he can't fit a 36" door in a 73" opening, he claims the framer said it won't fit, but he'd go over and check it himself. He never went, I kept asking about it, and magically he now has a 36" door to be installed.

I'm pretty much acting as my own general contractor on the job, directing our hired GC on what is/isn't happening and what I'm not happy with.......

 

[vavet]

Congrats from a fellow Virginian. Where abouts are you?
Building a house can be extremely frustrating, especially when you have timeline and the GC does whatever they want. We did it about 4 years ago.

I saw one comment about rotating the house 90 degrees to the road. Do I understand the the garage is behind the house relative to the road? When you take pictures of the "front" of the house and garage, the road is actually to your right and not behind you?
That's a cool way to get around HOA covenants.

I don't understand the fascination with side-load garages here. One of the reasons we built was so we could have a functional, easy-to-use garage for our daily drivers. Many houses we looked at when trying to find a house were situated on the lots in a way that made using them difficult or impossible. If they'd simply had front-load garages, they'd be much easier to use.

We built in a HOA community that is still being developed. I was able to situate the house on the lot to later permit me to build a detached garage, as long as we were careful. It's only an acre and we had to account for well, septic, and secondary septic fields. It's absolutely possible, but I had to stay on them and remind all the different entities many times. Even when they were locating the underground propane tank, they were going to put it in a place where my additional driveway is now. UGH!
Our rules don't have anything specific about max detached garage size, but they do cover location and orientation. If the garage doors face the street, then the garage must be 30 feet behind the house's rear foundation line. If the doors don't face the street, then the garage must be behind the rear foundation line.
Ironically, the GC for my garage build screw up on that one and poured the footings too far forward. The HOA allowed a deviation, thankfully. The main GC in the community has violated that rule several times over on new builds, including one they built as a model and recently sold, with the stipulation that they'd build a detached garage. That one has a street facing garage door that is forward of the house's rear foundation line. It's not even CLOSE to being in compliance.

Anyway, good luck! Welcome to VA.

 

[EMonroeWilson]

It's shocking. There are some things I just don't feel like doing myself due to time or investment into equipment. Then I deal with contractors and realize I should have just done it myself. It would have been less of a headache and probably be done better.

Gonna be a nice place

It’s amazing how incompetent most contractors and Subs can be

 

[bashr52]

Congrats from a fellow Virginian. Where abouts are you?
Building a house can be extremely frustrating, especially when you have timeline and the GC does whatever they want. We did it about 4 years ago.

I saw one comment about rotating the house 90 degrees to the road. Do I understand the the garage is behind the house relative to the road? When you take pictures of the "front" of the house and garage, the road is actually to your right and not behind you?
That's a cool way to get around HOA covenants.

I'm on the eastern shore of VA.

That is correct. The road is to the right of the house in these pics. The front of the garage is in-line with the front of the house, so the front porch is actually past the front of the garage. It helps to block it from view from the house across the street from us (they love to see what is going on at our place).

Every garage on the opposite side of the street from us is side-entrance, but positioned to the right of the house so they basically face all the incoming traffic. That totally defeats the purpose of not having your garage farce the road per the HOA rules if you ask me. At least if my garage faced the road, you really could only see into it when you drive by if you were directly in front of the house! Plus, we bought a wooded lot and set the house back in the trees just for this purpose.

A road facing garage would also have helped when parking my boat inside as well, I could just back into the driveway and park it in it's spot. Now I have to pull up and do a 3 point turn to get it positioned correctly, and means we will need to have an additional paved pad for doing such maneuvers.

There are also not supposed to be 4-wheelers, go karts, ORV's, etc allowed in the fields/roads/empty lots, and all boats/trailers need to be parked behind your house or inside a garage and out of sight. None of these rules are being enforced, there is one house with two go-karts that the kids bomb around in, and one of the recently sold houses has a boat along side the garage. I'm all for that, let people do what they want as long as it looks nice and isn't hurting anyone or anybody's property. It does piss me off however at the elective enforcement of the rules. They were up in arms over our layout, garage size, position, etc but not about other things on the rule book.

When I say HOA, the developer owned the majority of the lots, I mean the guy that has been designated as the representative and "property manager". If he doesn't personally like something, he will stonewall as much as possible. We just found out the bulk of the lots were just bought up by another agency who is now actively marketing them. I guess the property manager is staying on until the end of the year, and Jan 1st we will have the decisions turned over to an actual HOA. If we were building at that time, we likely could have built the house anyway we wanted too.

 

[bashr52]

It's shocking. There are some things I just don't feel like doing myself due to time or investment into equipment. Then I deal with contractors and realize I should have just done it myself. It would have been less of a headache and probably be done better.

Exactly. The framers messed up when they ran the 2nd floor joists and put in the staircase. They didn't have enough headroom between a joins and the stairs, so they just cut it off and added a 2x4 post to support the beam right on the landing of our staircase. We wanted to have a clear railing there, no full posts or anything just a set of newl posts and the railings. I asked the GC, he had no idea, said there's nothing on the plans for that? He was supposed to have his son (another GC in the area) come look at it and do something with it, but nothing ever happened. I just went and strapped it to the joist above it and removed the post. It isn't load bearing, and the only thing above it is an outside closet wall.

Any little changes or things I do not like in this process, I'm just taking care of instead of arguing with the GC and waiting a month for something to happen.

 

[bashr52]

We finally got the house in primer last weekend. We worked both days in 95+ degree heat. It took most of the day on Saturday to clean/vacuum the walls and floor to get all the sanding dust off and ready for paint. I started spraying the smaller rooms and closets until I had an issue with the spray gun and was close to out on primer. In all, it took 15 gallons to do the whole house. A trip to Lowes on Sunday for another 10 gallons of primer, and a day of spraying, we are ready for paint this weekend. The electricians were back over there yesterday installing switches, outlets, and some temp lights. No we can operate normally without having extension cords everywhere coming out of one working outlet in the place.
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[nc.detail]

Great progress! Thanks for sharing

 

[captain14]

After last weeks heatwave you must have been beat after working all weekend. I just did some basic stuff and still feel it today.

Good luck on the next portion of the build!

 

[bashr52]

We are starting to see the light finally. We got AC just in time for the weather to break and the heat to subside. We spent the first weekend working over there after the system went in with it off and the doors/windows open....

Our well went in last Thursday, they hit water at 30 feet, dug down to 210. Preliminary tests are all good, just waiting for them to trench it over to the house and the plumber to come back and hook it all up. We are still having issues with him, I happened to be there last week when he was there scoping the place out, and although he was not able to do everything due to the lack of kitchen counters and tile in the shower, he was going to at least set the toiled and sink in the half bath and hook up the final connection for the septic so we could flush a toilet if we brought water. None of that happened. It looks like he packed up and left shortly after I did that day. Super frustrating. We managed to get the cabinets painted and the counters stained and island top installed last weekend, my wife is going over daily this week to add the layers of water proofing. The plan is to have the counter tops and sink mounted this weekend, and get the shower tiled. Hopefully with the holiday and the 3 day weekend we can get it done. Then there will be no excuses as to why the plumber can't make the final connections on everything.

Here are some progress pics to get up to speed on where we are now.
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[Ronin22]

I love those wooden countertops, beautiful kitchen!!!

 

[bashr52]

Thanks. They are just maple butcher block from Lumber Liquidators, but my wife found a nice stain that really brings them to life. Out last house we did the same countertops, but we we just sealed them as-is. Now that I have seen them with a coat of stain on them first, it makes our old kitchen look super plain.

We should have them fully installed and the under mount sink in this weekend.

 

[bashr52]

All three days on the holiday weekend were spent at the house. Started tile first thing Saturday morning, was there until 1 am on Monday morning spreading grout... I went home and crashed for a few hours and was back at it Monday by 930. I had enough of tile for a while so my wife worked on cleaning up the grout haze and cleaning tile. Still have some work to do before we can seal it up and call it good, but we're close at least.

While she worked in the bathroom I worked on the kitchen. Other than a few minor details and getting the appliances in, that part is finally done!

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[iced98lx]

Looking really great! I share your frustration with GC's and subs in general. Makes me really hold tight to the few guys around here we have found that are good/reliable.