I've been talking and thinking about doing this for 3-4 years now. Two days ago we finally took the first "ground breaking" step toward making it a reality.
The garage on my house started out as a flat-roof, open-sided carport when the the house was built 40 years ago. Some previous owner put sides on it, but no garage doors. When I bought the place 15 years ago, the flat roof was leaking badly, and the front wall where the two openings are was rotted badly enough that I had to rebuild it before having garage doors installed.
While the house foundation is sound, the garage foundation has had numerous problems from cracking and movement. I've always planned to one day tear it down to the ground and start over. My original plan was to just rebuild a two-bay garage of the same size, but with a peaked roof. Eventually, I realized that by making use of the slope, a tall RV bay could be added without ending up with a roof-line taller than the rest of the house.
Discussing the project with the DW resulted in further "scope creep", such that we'll also be adding a fair amount of square footage to the living area of the house as well. My garage/RV bay/man-cave has ballooned considerably since I first started dreaming, but this is what we've settled on. The old garage is about 28' deep, and 24' wide. The new garage will be 30' deep and 60' wide. The RV bay will have one wide door, rather than the two narrow doors shown. I was planning to allow 14' of vertical clearance, but I'm not sure I really need to go that high. Twelve feet would be plenty for my camper, the garage depth and driveway approach will never accommodate an RV much longer than mine.
About 10 years ago I had an asphalt driveway paved down behind the house, and then had a Jamar RV shed constructed over it where I'm currently parking my truck and camper. It's sitting right where my new garage RV bay will be, so it'll have to be moved. That's what we've started, which doesn't sound too difficult. Except.........
My property is on the side of a hill. There's no naturally level ground anywhere, so a pad will have to be constructed. Also, about a year ago (anticipating the loss of my garage and the storage space inside it) I constructed a 12'x20' storage building right next to the house to hold all of my man-stuff while the garage is being built. Once the garage is built, the storage building will be taken apart and moved farther away from the house. So that's two level pads to construct.
I also have a ton of trees on my property, mostly white oak, some of them pretty big, and pretty close to the house. Of course, there are trees in the way of everything I want to do.
So, Wednesday morning, bright and early, the tree cutting pro's got started. The weather was gray and gloomy that day. This is where my metal RV shed will be moved. I'm going to reduce it's height a little and use it to park other equipment under.
Getting the boom truck setup for another tree.
They were having fun maneuvering that 2WD boom truck around on my slope.
This tree was hanging over my RV shed.
My storage building. They dropped a big limb on it's roof, but it doesn't appear to have suffered any damage.
My truck and camper out of harms way in the front yard.
Wish I had one of those trucks to play with.
Pulling one down close to the power lines.
I'm saving these for another project.
I'll add more as we make progress.
:):)
The garage on my house started out as a flat-roof, open-sided carport when the the house was built 40 years ago. Some previous owner put sides on it, but no garage doors. When I bought the place 15 years ago, the flat roof was leaking badly, and the front wall where the two openings are was rotted badly enough that I had to rebuild it before having garage doors installed.
While the house foundation is sound, the garage foundation has had numerous problems from cracking and movement. I've always planned to one day tear it down to the ground and start over. My original plan was to just rebuild a two-bay garage of the same size, but with a peaked roof. Eventually, I realized that by making use of the slope, a tall RV bay could be added without ending up with a roof-line taller than the rest of the house.
Discussing the project with the DW resulted in further "scope creep", such that we'll also be adding a fair amount of square footage to the living area of the house as well. My garage/RV bay/man-cave has ballooned considerably since I first started dreaming, but this is what we've settled on. The old garage is about 28' deep, and 24' wide. The new garage will be 30' deep and 60' wide. The RV bay will have one wide door, rather than the two narrow doors shown. I was planning to allow 14' of vertical clearance, but I'm not sure I really need to go that high. Twelve feet would be plenty for my camper, the garage depth and driveway approach will never accommodate an RV much longer than mine.
About 10 years ago I had an asphalt driveway paved down behind the house, and then had a Jamar RV shed constructed over it where I'm currently parking my truck and camper. It's sitting right where my new garage RV bay will be, so it'll have to be moved. That's what we've started, which doesn't sound too difficult. Except.........
My property is on the side of a hill. There's no naturally level ground anywhere, so a pad will have to be constructed. Also, about a year ago (anticipating the loss of my garage and the storage space inside it) I constructed a 12'x20' storage building right next to the house to hold all of my man-stuff while the garage is being built. Once the garage is built, the storage building will be taken apart and moved farther away from the house. So that's two level pads to construct.
I also have a ton of trees on my property, mostly white oak, some of them pretty big, and pretty close to the house. Of course, there are trees in the way of everything I want to do.
So, Wednesday morning, bright and early, the tree cutting pro's got started. The weather was gray and gloomy that day. This is where my metal RV shed will be moved. I'm going to reduce it's height a little and use it to park other equipment under.
Getting the boom truck setup for another tree.
They were having fun maneuvering that 2WD boom truck around on my slope.
This tree was hanging over my RV shed.
My storage building. They dropped a big limb on it's roof, but it doesn't appear to have suffered any damage.
My truck and camper out of harms way in the front yard.
Wish I had one of those trucks to play with.
Pulling one down close to the power lines.
I'm saving these for another project.
I'll add more as we make progress.
:):)
As the old saying goes: "Time flies when you're having fun".
Here it is almost ten months since my last update and there have definitely been some fun times. Working on the garage, taking trips in the camper, enjoying spending time with family (especially the grand-daughter). There's also been some not-so-fun stuff, and that has been partly responsible for the delay in updating this.
The fun stuff:
We finished sheet-rocking the ceilings in the garage. The lower bay required renting a scissor-lift. Scaffolding would have been too much trouble to move around.
Closing up the ceiling in the lower bay made the garage easier to heat when it's cold, but it also made it harder to ventilate when it's hot. So, I installed an attic fan in the lower bay that I had removed from the attic over the main house several years ago.
The temporary wiring has since been replaced with the proper stuff.
I installed it on top of the ceiling joists rather than cutting one. I initially planned to buy a new style shutter that's designed for this type of installation, but after running it without a shutter I realized that most of the noise I used to attribute to the fan when it was in the house was actually the shutter rattling. The fan with no shutter is actually pretty quiet! I'll probably just finish this hole off with trim and use some 1/4" hardware cloth as a screen. Since I have easy access to the attic, I can always just throw a blanket over it in the winter to keep the heat from escaping.
The next project was to install the mini-split HVAC unit for the new living area above the garage, and the gas fired heater in the garage lower bay.
Because I still have landscaping to do around the garage foundation, I built a shelf on the back wall to set the outdoor unit on. The shelf is supported by four metal brackets fastened to the wall studs. I ordered the brackets from Rockler Woodworking.
The HVAC installers set the outdoor unit.
And the indoor unit.
And then ran all the associated plumbing and wires.
Works good, lasts a long time..............................................NOT!!!!
To my infinite (and beyond) sorrow, the boss was not happy where the indoor unit was on the wall. I thought we had this all worked out, but I apparently misunderstood and had them put it in the wrong place. Totally my fault, but nothing a few more $$$'s wont fix. Actually, I've found with this project that there is virtually no problem you can't make disappear if you just throw enough money at it.
So, the guys come back out, work some magic for a few hours, and the inside unit is now where it should have been installed the first time (dummy!!!). The hole in the siding is behind the cover over the outside plumbing, so it will never be seen, and I'll be able to easily patch the siding from the inside by removing a piece of sheetrock. No problem!
The dear boss and the dear deer (see the one laying down?) are both happy now, and my life is again worth living.
We've now used the mini-split for both cooling and heating, and I can say without any reservations that it works great. It heats and cools very well, it's very quiet both inside and outside. You can hardly hear it when it's running. It seems to be pretty efficient, too. Our combined gas/electric usage is virtually unchanged from last winter, despite the fact that I've burnt almost no wood for heat this winter. The weather this winter has not been conducive for using the wood-stove for heat. The nights are cold enough, but the the daytime temps have mostly been too warm. Having to start a new fire in the stove every night is a pain.
A gas-fired heater was hung in the lower bay close to the ceiling. The flue runs horizontally out the side wall. This thing works good, too. It brings the garage up to a comfortable temp quickly. I've found that I need to install a fan to help circulate the air between the bays though, because the heat tends to accumulate in the upper bay.
The attic fan and heater controls. I like the timer switch. Don't have to worry about forgetting to turn it off.
Now, the not-so-fun stuff:
Like a lot of people, I've found that as I get older some of the well used (and abused) joints start wearing out. Knee and shoulder injuries are pretty common for active guys my age, with shoulders probably being the most common to have problems. I destroyed the ACL in my right knee about six years ago, and had that fixed. Fortunately, it doesn't give me much trouble today. But, I've apparently been working without rotator-cuff muscles in my right shoulder for several years, because the injuries were already too old to fix when I first started seeing a Doc about three years ago because of the pain. The only fix available for that shoulder is a reverse shoulder replacement ๐ , but hopefully that's a few years down the road yet. The left shoulder is injured as well from a fall on the ice a few years ago, but it's not in as bad a shape as the right.
Anyway, sometime last summer I managed to tear the deltoid muscle in the right shoulder. I'm not sure what I was doing that started it, and I didn't even realize what was happening because it was a small tear with no external signs. The shoulder continued to have full mobility, but I continued to tear it little by little over 3-4 months, until just before Christmas I lost shoulder mobility and developed an ugly bruise on my arm. The bruise started out small and looking like I had torn the bicep, so I was scheduled for arthroscopic surgery to fix that. By the time surgery day rolled around, I had a technicolor bruise from my shoulder to the elbow.
When the Doc saw that, he said "That's not just the bicep". He started out with the scope, but eventually had to make a 3" incision to stitch up the deltoid. In addition, the long head of the bicep was cut loose (tenotomy) to relieve some of the pain it was causing. The Doc was also able to confirm while he was in there that the rotator cuff is irreparable.
I'm doing physical therapy now, and can actually do quite a bit with that arm, except move the upper arm away from my side much. I've got several more weeks of re-hab to go before I'll be able to return to work.
So, I'm at home a lot lately. Rather than going on a Netflix binge, or reading all those books I've been meaning to get to, I've been overseeing a steady stream of workmen taking care of all the stuff that either the boss or I would have had to stay home for.
The first thing I had done, was to finish out the wall in the garage that the upper bay shares with the house. The wall originally had a layer of white Styrofoam bead board, a layer of black fiberboard sheathing, and a layer of fir siding on it. The entry door frame was of course built to match that thickness. To make the surface come in at the same place, a layer of blue foam board, a layer of OSB, then a layer of sheetrock was hung on this portion of the wall. The rest of the garage will just have sheetrock on the walls.
We're now working on the wall in the new living area directly above the one in the garage. To add some strength and rigidity to the wall, and to help smooth out some of the irregularities that were uncovered in the construction process, I had a layer of OSB installed on the "new room" side of this wall as well. The OSB also makes it easier to install the tongue and groove boards that will cover part of this wall (no blocking needed). The original header at the top of the wall wasn't built to support the span in the entryway we are going to end up with, so another header was set under it. The new header also brought the top of the opening down to the same height of the door openings on each side.
The T&G boards going on.
The half-wall and a temporary support post can be seen through the plastic. The post will eventually be replaced with one made from a tree that I'll harvest from my yard. The top surface of the half-wall could be a thick slab cut from the same tree.
That's the current state of things.
:):)
Here it is almost ten months since my last update and there have definitely been some fun times. Working on the garage, taking trips in the camper, enjoying spending time with family (especially the grand-daughter). There's also been some not-so-fun stuff, and that has been partly responsible for the delay in updating this.
The fun stuff:
We finished sheet-rocking the ceilings in the garage. The lower bay required renting a scissor-lift. Scaffolding would have been too much trouble to move around.
Closing up the ceiling in the lower bay made the garage easier to heat when it's cold, but it also made it harder to ventilate when it's hot. So, I installed an attic fan in the lower bay that I had removed from the attic over the main house several years ago.
The temporary wiring has since been replaced with the proper stuff.
I installed it on top of the ceiling joists rather than cutting one. I initially planned to buy a new style shutter that's designed for this type of installation, but after running it without a shutter I realized that most of the noise I used to attribute to the fan when it was in the house was actually the shutter rattling. The fan with no shutter is actually pretty quiet! I'll probably just finish this hole off with trim and use some 1/4" hardware cloth as a screen. Since I have easy access to the attic, I can always just throw a blanket over it in the winter to keep the heat from escaping.
The next project was to install the mini-split HVAC unit for the new living area above the garage, and the gas fired heater in the garage lower bay.
Because I still have landscaping to do around the garage foundation, I built a shelf on the back wall to set the outdoor unit on. The shelf is supported by four metal brackets fastened to the wall studs. I ordered the brackets from Rockler Woodworking.
The HVAC installers set the outdoor unit.
And the indoor unit.
And then ran all the associated plumbing and wires.
Works good, lasts a long time..............................................NOT!!!!
To my infinite (and beyond) sorrow, the boss was not happy where the indoor unit was on the wall. I thought we had this all worked out, but I apparently misunderstood and had them put it in the wrong place. Totally my fault, but nothing a few more $$$'s wont fix. Actually, I've found with this project that there is virtually no problem you can't make disappear if you just throw enough money at it.
So, the guys come back out, work some magic for a few hours, and the inside unit is now where it should have been installed the first time (dummy!!!). The hole in the siding is behind the cover over the outside plumbing, so it will never be seen, and I'll be able to easily patch the siding from the inside by removing a piece of sheetrock. No problem!
The dear boss and the dear deer (see the one laying down?) are both happy now, and my life is again worth living.
We've now used the mini-split for both cooling and heating, and I can say without any reservations that it works great. It heats and cools very well, it's very quiet both inside and outside. You can hardly hear it when it's running. It seems to be pretty efficient, too. Our combined gas/electric usage is virtually unchanged from last winter, despite the fact that I've burnt almost no wood for heat this winter. The weather this winter has not been conducive for using the wood-stove for heat. The nights are cold enough, but the the daytime temps have mostly been too warm. Having to start a new fire in the stove every night is a pain.
A gas-fired heater was hung in the lower bay close to the ceiling. The flue runs horizontally out the side wall. This thing works good, too. It brings the garage up to a comfortable temp quickly. I've found that I need to install a fan to help circulate the air between the bays though, because the heat tends to accumulate in the upper bay.
The attic fan and heater controls. I like the timer switch. Don't have to worry about forgetting to turn it off.
Now, the not-so-fun stuff:
Like a lot of people, I've found that as I get older some of the well used (and abused) joints start wearing out. Knee and shoulder injuries are pretty common for active guys my age, with shoulders probably being the most common to have problems. I destroyed the ACL in my right knee about six years ago, and had that fixed. Fortunately, it doesn't give me much trouble today. But, I've apparently been working without rotator-cuff muscles in my right shoulder for several years, because the injuries were already too old to fix when I first started seeing a Doc about three years ago because of the pain. The only fix available for that shoulder is a reverse shoulder replacement ๐ , but hopefully that's a few years down the road yet. The left shoulder is injured as well from a fall on the ice a few years ago, but it's not in as bad a shape as the right.
Anyway, sometime last summer I managed to tear the deltoid muscle in the right shoulder. I'm not sure what I was doing that started it, and I didn't even realize what was happening because it was a small tear with no external signs. The shoulder continued to have full mobility, but I continued to tear it little by little over 3-4 months, until just before Christmas I lost shoulder mobility and developed an ugly bruise on my arm. The bruise started out small and looking like I had torn the bicep, so I was scheduled for arthroscopic surgery to fix that. By the time surgery day rolled around, I had a technicolor bruise from my shoulder to the elbow.
When the Doc saw that, he said "That's not just the bicep". He started out with the scope, but eventually had to make a 3" incision to stitch up the deltoid. In addition, the long head of the bicep was cut loose (tenotomy) to relieve some of the pain it was causing. The Doc was also able to confirm while he was in there that the rotator cuff is irreparable.
I'm doing physical therapy now, and can actually do quite a bit with that arm, except move the upper arm away from my side much. I've got several more weeks of re-hab to go before I'll be able to return to work.
So, I'm at home a lot lately. Rather than going on a Netflix binge, or reading all those books I've been meaning to get to, I've been overseeing a steady stream of workmen taking care of all the stuff that either the boss or I would have had to stay home for.
The first thing I had done, was to finish out the wall in the garage that the upper bay shares with the house. The wall originally had a layer of white Styrofoam bead board, a layer of black fiberboard sheathing, and a layer of fir siding on it. The entry door frame was of course built to match that thickness. To make the surface come in at the same place, a layer of blue foam board, a layer of OSB, then a layer of sheetrock was hung on this portion of the wall. The rest of the garage will just have sheetrock on the walls.
We're now working on the wall in the new living area directly above the one in the garage. To add some strength and rigidity to the wall, and to help smooth out some of the irregularities that were uncovered in the construction process, I had a layer of OSB installed on the "new room" side of this wall as well. The OSB also makes it easier to install the tongue and groove boards that will cover part of this wall (no blocking needed). The original header at the top of the wall wasn't built to support the span in the entryway we are going to end up with, so another header was set under it. The new header also brought the top of the opening down to the same height of the door openings on each side.
The T&G boards going on.
The half-wall and a temporary support post can be seen through the plastic. The post will eventually be replaced with one made from a tree that I'll harvest from my yard. The top surface of the half-wall could be a thick slab cut from the same tree.
That's the current state of things.
:):)
You can say that again! Hope to take them out in a few weeks if work doesn't get in the way.
Got 2/3's of the upper bay ceiling done today. I worked with the guys pulling lights and garage door supports down, then putting them all back up. I fabricated a temporary support for the garage door tracks and motor that would allow us to remove the supports from the ceiling one section at a time. You can see part of it hanging from the far left support beam, ready to support the last door track when they come back.
The white sheetrock reflects the light so much better that it's noticeably brighter now.
I think they're going to earn their money doing the lower bay. The 16 ft. ceiling is going to require renting a scissor lift.
:):)
Got 2/3's of the upper bay ceiling done today. I worked with the guys pulling lights and garage door supports down, then putting them all back up. I fabricated a temporary support for the garage door tracks and motor that would allow us to remove the supports from the ceiling one section at a time. You can see part of it hanging from the far left support beam, ready to support the last door track when they come back.
The white sheetrock reflects the light so much better that it's noticeably brighter now.
I think they're going to earn their money doing the lower bay. The 16 ft. ceiling is going to require renting a scissor lift.
:):)
The crew is here today getting started hanging sheetrock on the garage ceiling. Starting in the upper bay, and there are thunderstorms rolling through the area. Thought I was going to have to leave one car outside until I moved it into the lower bay, and realized I might be able to get both down here if I squeezed them a little. There's even room to walk around them. :C
There have been a few times I've wished the lower bay was bigger!
:):)
There have been a few times I've wished the lower bay was bigger!
:):)
The tongue and groove ceiling is in, yea!
The finish will be done later.
They start installing the sheetrock on the upper bay garage ceiling tomorrow.
:):)
The finish will be done later.
They start installing the sheetrock on the upper bay garage ceiling tomorrow.
:):)
We've been pretty busy around here, but I have a few progress pictures to show. The insulation has been installed in the ceiling of the upper garage bay, and the cathedral ceiling of the room above it.
What we ended up going with is about 2" of closed-cell foam sprayed on the backside of the roof decking and the sub-floor. Closed-cell foam is about R8 per inch, and it completely seals the surface from airflow and vapor.
This is what the spray foam looks like after it dries.
The remaining space in the cavities between the rafters and floor joists was filled with fiberglass batts. R30 in the new living area ceiling, and R19 in the upper bay ceiling. This seems to be a good solution that kept the costs within reason, and accomplished what I wanted.
I also installed insulation in the roof area behind the gable before closing it up.
Aside from the obvious need for insulation in the roof over the new living area, I wanted to reduce the drumming noise the floor was making when walking on it. Both goals were achieved, and we're very happy with the results. The floor is much, much quieter now, and the room no longer heats up on a sunny day. We aren't having to close the room off from the rest of the house as much now.
A few of the things I learned about spray foam: There are closed-cell and open-cell foams. Closed cell has about twice the R value of open cell. Both seal the structure up better than just about any other insulation. Open-cell is also a good noise barrier, closed cell not so much. Open-cell expands a lot and is very soft and fluffy when it cures, closed cell doesn't expand much at all and is very hard when it dries. Spray foam is kind of expensive. I don't think I could afford to do it to an entire house. It's a very messy operation, everything must be masked off and any over-spray on surfaces that you will want to hang sheetrock on must be scraped off.
Now we are moving along with installing the ceiling in the living area. We're using #1 1x6 pine T&G boards, and it's looking really nice.
There is a lot more labor involved in installing this than I thought, and I'm glad I didn't try to do this myself. The boards are 16' long for one thing, and they are spending a lot of time making sure the joints are nice and tight. I wouldn't have been able to do this by myself.
I haven't decided on a finish yet. If I stain it, it will be a light colored stain. I'm also considering just a clear finish. We'll have a good supply of scrap pieces to experiment with.
After they finish this ceiling, they will hang sheetrock on the ceilings in the garage, then the remaining fiberglass insulation will be installed.
:):)
What we ended up going with is about 2" of closed-cell foam sprayed on the backside of the roof decking and the sub-floor. Closed-cell foam is about R8 per inch, and it completely seals the surface from airflow and vapor.
This is what the spray foam looks like after it dries.
The remaining space in the cavities between the rafters and floor joists was filled with fiberglass batts. R30 in the new living area ceiling, and R19 in the upper bay ceiling. This seems to be a good solution that kept the costs within reason, and accomplished what I wanted.
I also installed insulation in the roof area behind the gable before closing it up.
Aside from the obvious need for insulation in the roof over the new living area, I wanted to reduce the drumming noise the floor was making when walking on it. Both goals were achieved, and we're very happy with the results. The floor is much, much quieter now, and the room no longer heats up on a sunny day. We aren't having to close the room off from the rest of the house as much now.
A few of the things I learned about spray foam: There are closed-cell and open-cell foams. Closed cell has about twice the R value of open cell. Both seal the structure up better than just about any other insulation. Open-cell is also a good noise barrier, closed cell not so much. Open-cell expands a lot and is very soft and fluffy when it cures, closed cell doesn't expand much at all and is very hard when it dries. Spray foam is kind of expensive. I don't think I could afford to do it to an entire house. It's a very messy operation, everything must be masked off and any over-spray on surfaces that you will want to hang sheetrock on must be scraped off.
Now we are moving along with installing the ceiling in the living area. We're using #1 1x6 pine T&G boards, and it's looking really nice.
There is a lot more labor involved in installing this than I thought, and I'm glad I didn't try to do this myself. The boards are 16' long for one thing, and they are spending a lot of time making sure the joints are nice and tight. I wouldn't have been able to do this by myself.
I haven't decided on a finish yet. If I stain it, it will be a light colored stain. I'm also considering just a clear finish. We'll have a good supply of scrap pieces to experiment with.
After they finish this ceiling, they will hang sheetrock on the ceilings in the garage, then the remaining fiberglass insulation will be installed.
:):)
