I’m on a roll with these Before & “Afters” 🙂 I’ve waited so long on the garage before and after post because immediately after it was done (and really during) we dirtied it all up with tools and crap everywhere. Now, I don’t like things TOTALLY clean for the before and afters, but I also don’t like crap everywhere, so much so that you can’t tell what that hell is going on.
So here is the saga of the garage. When we moved in it looked like this
Gross, broken down, and crappy.
We made this space work for a while. Despite trusses looking like they were going to swing down and decapitate us, the huge crack in the foundation, and the walls that looked like they were going to fall over, we worked in the garage and stored everything in there and it worked out okay.
But, this year, after we finished the art room, we got started fixing up Chris’ “art room.” First on the list was trying to get the walls plumb, they were many inches out
We tried ourselves at first
But we soon realized we were way out of our league and would need to hire professionals (grrrr). We stalled for a bit at this point, but soon, with a great gift from my mom and Clarke to help us pay for the endeavor we started getting quotes on what it would take to get the garage structure back to where it needed to be. We found a GREAT company located in the north Bay, Bay Area Underpinning, and they were amazing. They quoted us a great price, their work was awesome, and they were super nice and friendly (and totally understanding and supportive of us trying to do as much of the work along the way to keep the cost down). And they got to work!
It was a pretty crazy process of installing new trusses, cutting off the mudsill (with the garage all jacked up so you could physically SWING the walls), repouring the footers , demoing the back of the foundation and repouring the concrete, repairing the garage doors, making an organizing plan…well, you get it, there was A LOT of work to be done
It took A LOT to get there. Once all the structural stuff was done, it was a matter of putting the organizing plan into effect and putting everything back together (as well as refinishing the garage doors and reroofing). And after more months than we anticipated (but isn’t that always how it goes?) we are DONE! (once again, like the art room things are never TOTALLY done. In a few years we may rip out and repour the whole foundation because there are lots of small cracks and issues, and Chris has already broken one window playing basketball on the hoop I got him for his birthday…) but, WE’RE calling it done 🙂
We’ve got LOTS of storage in the back (courtesy of free wine boxes from Chris’ dad that we labeled with chalkboard paint)
There is great storage for all of our paint as well
And our drill bits, and small miscellaneous items
A great lumber rack and work table that Chris built to the correct height to be the table saw feed table
And then there’s also the WONDERFUL pegboard 🙂 with all the tools nice and labeled, a hook for our radio (with an ipod cubby), and plenty of shelving for all of our power tools
Well, what do you think? We love it! It’s wired so Chris can work out here at night with lights, we have a PROPER place for all of our tools, it’s nice and organized so it all makes sense. And best of all, it’s totally practical and we did it for a great price. It’s so great to have this project done, and Chris deserved a garage that wasn’t falling over.