Garage Progress

We've been making slow progress on the garage. Because of the tremendous amount of local housing construction, our little project hasn't been high on our subs priority list. It's taken a few weeks longer than expected, but here's what's been going on...

We had the soil dug up for the grade beam. This frost wall is super important up here where we have lots of freeze/thaw cycles that can compromise the structure. The bobcat accidentally hit the line for our outdoor electrical panel but, thankfully, it didn't do too much damage and was a quick fix for our good buddy the electrician.

Next up, the foundation forms and re-bar for our concrete. Once this passed inspection, we had the grade beam poured.

Next was our garage pad. We had to remove an existing basement window (local code won't allow this opening once the garage is up) and the sill sat below the finished pad, so it had to go. I asked the contractor to give the pad a brushed finish so the epoxy I plan to apply will adhere better. Because the pad was a few inches higher than our patio, they created a rounded transition from the garage door.

The rest of the garage went up pretty quickly. The trusses were delivered right on time and the guys got to work. Before we knew it, we had walls and a roof! This is the point where I got the most excited, it really is going to make an awesome area for my workshop.

The original soffit and fascia on the rear are still in place, and I think I may just leave it. The ceiling will eventually be drywalled so it won't be seen anyway. The existing garage door will be removed and reinstalled at the entrance to the new addition and we'll remove the existing light fixture.

The electrician comes tomorrow to rough in our lighting and indoor and outdoor outlets...time to shop for an outdoor fixture! The original was just too small for the space and really didn't shed much usable light. Because this rear light will now provide light to the east side of the patio, I want it to be more practical.

Our exterior contractor is super busy and is going to squeeze this job in as soon as he can, he's on deck for next week. Stay tuned for more!

Garage Addition Saga

In construction it seems that, no matter how much you plan, things will inevitably go awry.

I posted quite a while back about our garage addition and the construction quote I was waiting for. When the quote came in, it was high. Much, much higher than I had hoped. It immediately put this project on hold.

After feeling sorry for myself for a few months, I called up my cousin (a custom builder) to see if he could help me out (or at least call in a few favours with his subs to save me some moolah). I didn't expect him to take on this project himself. He builds very high end homes, and I knew that my little 14' x 19' garage addition wasn't something that he'd likely be interested in taking on.

Much to my surprise, he offered to have his crews complete it for me for less than half what other contractors had quoted me. Yes, you read that right...less than half! The catch was that we would have to find someone to complete the exterior.

Quick like a bunny, our architect complete drawings, the engineer finished the foundation drawings, and I had building permits from the town.

That's when things got frustrating...

The engineer required enormous footings for this addition. Much larger than were required, in our opinion. It almost doubled the cost of the build in concrete alone. It also would have required us to tear out half of my brand new patio and create a huge mess which would drive my neighbours nuts. There had to be another way....

After a lot of discussion with the engineer, he agreed that we could use 3 1/2" x 16' screw piles for the foundation (traditional concrete piles were not an option for us; our soil is far too sandy to drill as deep as we needed, and it still would have been a messy job). We still had to cut the patio, but only 12", I could live with that. Armed with this new set of foundation drawings, I had to submit an amendment to our building permit.

Tick tock.

Thing is, folks, 16' screw piles are hard to come by, and we ended up having to have them custom manufactured.

Tick tock.

Yesterday, these piles finally got installed. It is a slick process. It's super simple, the guys were hilarious, and they had all 5 in place in less than 3 hours. After all the drama, I was so happy to get this show on the road!

 

As long as the weather holds, we can expect the grade beam to be poured next week. Then walls and roof...we could have a closed in garage in less than 2 weeks!

 

 



Clever Countertop

I linked up...





I needed a countertop over my washer and dryer. The existing countertop in the laundry room is Caesar Stone Quartz, but at $1,500 there was no way that I could afford to install a slab of quartz as large as I needed. After a few quotes, I realized that it was going to cost me $250-$300 for laminate in the size I needed. Uhm, noooooo.

I picked up a slab interior passage door at Home Depot. It was 32" deep which was perfect, but I needed to cut down the length to make it fit. A circular saw made quick work of it (make sure you stick painters or masking tape to the door where you plan to make the cut so the door doesn’t splinter). And remember, measure twice, cut once!

The door came already primed so I did a base coat of leftover white paint from my pine dresser project.

Next I grabbed a bottle of grey craft paint and diluted it with a few drops of water and white paint in an effort to get the colour as close as possible to the existing countertop. To make the small specs, I dipped an old bristly paint brush in and, with a flick of the wrist (literally) applied it to the door. After all was dry, I gave it a light sanding and gave it 4 coats of Varethane, sanding a bit between coats.

I measured and marked the wall at 39 1/2" (make sure you have a bit of clearance above the washer and dryer for air flow) and mounted pieces of 2x2 lumber to the wall studs with deck screws – hey, use what you’ve got! I painted the lumber with leftover wall colour (these won't be seen, so they can be rough - like mine - ha ha).

I used construction adhesive on the tops of the wall braces and set the door on top. I grabbed some weights from the basement and set them on top while the adhesive set. Then I taped off the wall and countertop and finished the edges that met the wall with white caulking to give it a more finished look and fill in any gaps.

 I think it looks great! And it's a pretty close match to the existing countertop...yay!

Here is a cost breakdown for this project:
$32 for the door
$0 for lumber...I scrounged for scraps at a nearby construction site
$0 for screws
$1 for craft paint
$0 for construction adhesive
$0 for caulking
Total cost = $33

I love the smell of concrete in the morning

Ah, I love concrete! Having our basement floor poured means that we are that much closer to getting the house done. Now that the floor has had a week to cure, the furnace can be hooked up to the ductwork, which will allow them to heat the entire house, which will allow the drywallers to get the mudding, taping and sanding done, which will allow the painters to prime and paint...and on and on. Meaning...that we have officially entered the "finishing" stage of this project!

We already know how we plan to use the basement once it's finished:

Future bar and lounge area:

Future bedroom and bathroom:

Future utility and craft/sewing rooms:

Definitely not DIY

I took a quick trip to the house today with my friend Kristel to check on progress. The drywall, although now completely hung, is officially a week behind schedule. The mudding and taping will be left to the experts, and should start on Monday and take a few days...famous last words. There is an art to finishing drywall that I cannot even begin to understand, let alone execute, so I'm happy to leave the job to those with a clue!

It was super fun to walk Kristel through the house and show her what has consumed all of our time (and cash) for nearly a year! I'm not sure if she liked it, but at least she pretended to, and that's really all that matters.

Everyone told me that, once the drywall went up, the house would seem alot smaller. I have to say for the record that I found the exact opposite to be true. Sorry folks, you were WRONG! There are not alot of decisions left to make about finishes, etc so now we just wait for everything to come together, and hope that it's remotely close to how we wanted it to look.

Master Bedroom:

View looking through the ensuite bath to the closet:

Dressing Room (giggle):

Bonus Room:

Dining Room:

Main Floor (living room, dining area, kitchen, stairs and front entry) Hi Kristel! :