Well hopefully by now you’ve had the chance to catch up on the Alaska trip. Now something new!
First project…..
I expanded my Garage by about 30 square feet. I know that doesn’t seem like much but it was so helpful! I’ve got a nice place for some storage and a deep sink now!
I’ve never built anything more than my work benches out of wood so I was pretty nervous to start this project. The way our house was built left an overhang of roof off the side of the garage of about 3 feet by 10 feet and the cement pad for the garage even extended out….like they wanted to build it this way but ran out of wood at the last minute. I’ve always hated how it makes the garage look not symmetrical. I knew that if it was ever going to get done I would have to just wake up one morning, surprise myself, and start doing it cause if I tried to plan it out I would over think it and it would never get done.
So a couple weekends ago I woke up around 6 and started cutting my house open with a sawzall.
I first had to get rid of the soffit that was in the way so I convinced myself that I knew the right way to do that and just did it……no turning back now. As I was cutting Evie came outside yelling at me….”DAD!!!!!! Why are you cutting my ceiling?!?! THAT’S MY FAVORITE CEILING!!!!”
Once I had a nice hole cut I made up a way to stick a wall in there. I honestly have no idea how I made it work but its up and I didn’t get many pictures along the way so here’s what I’ve got.
Now that the structure for the new wall was up I felt comfortable taking out the old one. That was the fun part! Who doesn’t love demolition?! In one of the pictures above you can see a door on the side of the garage…..We’ve never been able to get it open. I always hated that door just cause I couldn’t use it and I felt it was mocking me…..well I couldn’t wait to kick that door down. So I did….and as I picked it up off the floor I found the reason we could never open it…..someone had put screws through the frame and into the door….and they were not hidden I just didn’t notice them….all these years I could have used that stupid door instead of being mad at it.
Its amazing how many trips to Home Depot are required for home projects…..I should have just opened a charge account. But I did manage to actually finish the wall over 2 weekends. Not a ton of pictures cause I wasn’t planning to show this to anyone. I installed some electrical in the new wall…two outside outlets and two inside outlets. I even did an outlet up high outside for Christmas lights and put the outlet on a programmable timer switch…cause I could. Then I insulated the wall and put up the boards inside. I prefer to use OSB in a garage instead of drywall cause it lets you hang stuff anywhere and its generally tougher. Then I moved everything in and decorated.
I still need to add a couple lights and do the plumbing to the sink but I’m sure happy with it so far! I’ll get some better pictures when I finish all the way.
Second project…..
This one is much more exciting I promise.
My cousin Jason (from the Yellowstone Trip) had this old enduro taking up space in his garage and I convinced him to let me restore/modify it! Its a 1974 Yamaha DT100 and it is dying to be the subject of a scrambler/tracker build.
I haven’t accomplished much on it yet other than getting it running. I had to do that first to make sure it was worth restoring.
I love this old registration sticker! I really want to find a way to incorporate it with the build.
And here are a couple of pictures I’m using for inspiration. I’m aiming most for the look of this first one here.
I know my garage is a mess right now but I’m loving all the cool stuff in here!
And you may notice that the KTM is nowhere to be seen..well that’s cause it’s at the dealer getting some warranty work done to it. The rear shock failed and getting it replaced has been a serious pain. KTM doesn’t have any parts available for the shock so it has to be completely replaced and they don’t have one of those either….this could take a while…luckily it’s almost winter….and even more luckily….I only had 4 days of warranty left!
And to finish off…here’s what I got to deal with this weekend….I guess the house didn’t get enough attention the last couple weeks…
P.S. I hate plumbing!