Snug as a bug...

Here's how we spent our weekend. Saturday we worked all day painting the interior of the new garage. First we put a coat of Kilz on walls and ceiling. Then we put on a finish coat of "Cafe Au Lait." Seemed kind of appropriate, since the exterior is going to be painted "Espresso." Maybe we should call the new garage "Starbucks."



Sunday afternoon, Dale worked to clear out the old garage so we could park the Honda in it. So here's the result of that. I love it! Amazing that I can get so excited about pulling into a garage and walking directly into the house. What a concept! While he was working on the garage mess, I was in the yard schlepping stones and digging. It was in the 60s, so it was nice to be outside.

Door #2

Here's the second door in place. I'll be glad when we can get it painted, but the weather isn't cooperating. We're still not able to park in this garage, since it's half-filled with yard equipment & miscellaneous junk. That's what we have planned for Saturday--making room to park in it. The opening looks too narrow to actually drive a car through! I don't really need side-view mirrors, do I?

Construction Project Completed

Though we don't have any pictures to post up tonight, our construction project is completed as of yesterday, Monday, January 21, 2008. Garage doors and openers were installed, and we now have one garage to park in overnight (the new one) and will be able to use the original one once we move stuff out. Finding where to put it will be the challenge. Maybe in the new garage? ;-)

We'll post pictures soon.

Finally, A Door!

Finally, a couple of installers from Garage Door Brokers came by this morning and worked in 15 degree weather to get this much done on the door. The hardware is in place, and the opener is mounted, but the job is not finished yet. It is just too danged cold for them to finish today. Here's an up-close shot of the new door, followed by a shot from the corner of the yard, showing the whole garage. [Both photos enlargeable by clicking in them.]

The old garage wasn't framed right by the crew from Jeff's construction company, so they will be out Monday morning to adjust the framing according to specs. Monday morning the installers will return by 10 and complete the new garage installation, then do the door installation in the old garage. I had to take down the fluorescent light in the garage and install an outlet in the ceiling for the opener to be plugged in to.

So, we're getting close to finished, at least with the construction. Because of the cold weather, we haven't been able to return to painting. We can't wait for 2-3 days of 50 degree highs and 35 degree lows, so that we can get back at it. The new wood has to weather for several weeks before we can do anything to it.

SATURDAY'S WORK

Today the weather was warm enough for us to get outside and do some things. Leslie overdid it, working to build a retaining wall of rocks along the alley side, as shown in this picture. That's a lot of hauling of big rocks, and her back took the brunt of it. But the results were worth it, don't you think? She also planted grasses and I think iris bulbs along there. [Clicking on each picture enlarges it.]
Meanwhile, I removed the original door handle & lock & installed a deadbolt lock on the sunporch door. This will allow me to park the truck in the garage and come in the back door. I still need to install a replacement door knob and lock set, but I have the set ready to be put on.

This next picture shows another thing I did: paint the strip over the garage door on the north side of the garage. This gives you an idea of what the walls will look like.
I thought I would show the interior of the new garage, with the lights I installed last Saturday.
Following is another picture of the garage interior, taken from the corner you see above. This one shows the recycled old garage doors. They will do nicely.
The Missouri Southern semester starts Monday, so I am afraid I will get to work on the garage only on Saturdays from now on. I have taken one of Art Saltzman's classes as an overload, a class I have never taught, so the semester will be rough again. Art died on Tuesday, January 8, of a brain aneurysm. What a shock.

Boil Order

We've experienced something the last few days that we've never had to do. Everyone 1 block west of Range Line to the state line and north of 50th st. to Airport Drive are under a boil order. We have to boil our water for 5 min. before we can drink it or cook with it. No big deal--that's easy enough to do. But the restaurants are being challenged. The water company says it will be at least Tues. before the water is safe. The order went into effect last Wed.

Today we're going to do some work on the mess left behind after the construction team left. Also need to clear out the old garage so we will have room to park the HOnda there if we ever get doors on the garages.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

CONSTRUCTION COMPLETED

Just a short note that may be expanded later on when we have the time. As of yesterday morning, construction is completed on the garage, the driveways, the front sidewalk, the sewer line, the new back steps, and the new electrical line. What remains are the two garage doors (Garage Door Brokers is taking a long time with our order) and our work: painting and staining, plus planning what little remains of the back yard. I still need to install one more exterior light on the garage, plus re-do the first one. There are still some leftover boards and a ladder and a wheelbarrow left by the crew, but I expect them to be picked up today.

We will probably post a couple of photos for the interim, then later post up final photos.

ALMOST...

The project is more nearing completion now, after a flurry of activity over the weekend and today's work by the crew. First, a review of the weekend. Leslie & I worked 8 hours on Saturday stripping the two original garage doors, which were to be cut down a little and reused as yard-side entry doors. She used the heat gun and a scraper, and I followed along and did some detail scraping, then primed one of the doors. We bought a quart of primer, which we had tinted a color close to the final coat, which will be the color of the house--Devoe's Espresso color.

Before I helped on the doors, I installed the inside lights. With energy saving bulbs, there is a lot of light inside the garage at night. So we were able to do one door and install the lights on Saturday. It also included a couple of trips to Lowe's.

Sunday, right after lunch, starting just before 2:00, we worked another 8 hours, and got the other door stripped & primed, plus Leslie stripped and spray-painted the hinges that were left out. Turns out the pins and one more hinge were in Ian Tate's toolbox. (I found out just today what Ian's last name is, as I wrote a check to him for the work over at Marie's house. I contracted with him to replace 4 aluminum casement windows with vinyl-clad double-hungs. She got home from Arkansas just as the crew was leaving. She's thrilled about the new windows.)

Back to the story. Seeing the light fading, I decided arond 4:00 to put up a coat of paint on the garage walls. I first did the back side, the one that faces the garage apartment--because I thought we might be storing hay back there. Then, with the light fading even more, I decided to paint the alley side. I wound up using up one can of paint and had to open a new can. (The colors didn't quite match, I found out this morning.) I was working in the dark at the end, with only the garage light of the Esters across the alley lighting the wall. I wanted the neighbors to see the final color on the alley side; that's why I felt I had to do that Sunday night. We finished up at 10:00 Sunday night, dead tired.

Might I add that our work was aided by record-breaking January temperatures? It was nearly 70 on Saturday, and I think 73 or 74 or higher on Sunday, shirt-sleeve weather.

Today I installed one garage light, just to be able to appreciate the final effect. I took a picture in the dark, which shows the primer coat on the doors and a strip of final coat above the doors and surrounding the light. The light is mission-style and matches the front porch light perfectly, although the light is so bright you can't see the mission-style horizontal and vertical lines. I will have to do some more work to finalize it, but you can see the effect. Here is what it looks like: http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=93188-17771-4484RT&lpage=none

One other thing: Ian ran a separate line for the microwave on Monday. After we bought the new microwave and had junked the old combination range and microwave, which ran on a 220 circuit, the new microwave created problems in the kitchen. Kitchens are supposed to be wired with 2 separate circuits, and ours had only one. Now that the microwave is off the other circuit, we hope that we will never blow fuses again.

Below you can see the finished back steps. We like it and can't wait till the treated wood weathers some before we can paint it.

Here are the pictures. Click on each one for enlargements.

As I write this, a storm is blowing up. It's 10:48 PM. We'll post up daylight pictures in a day or two, after the crew leaves for good. They are coming back tomorrow to put in three panes of glass, two on one of the garage doors and one in a garage window they broke while sledge-hammering the old steps.

Still Almost Complete

Sorry, guys, there will be no pictures tomorrow, not yet. The back porch is not finished yet, the new doors for both garages haven't been done and delivered yet, the lights in the new garage haven't been installed yet, and there is still one rewiring project inside the house--new circuit for the microwave. Projected date of completion for all but the garage doors is Tuesday.

Tonight I parked my truck in the driveway to the new garage. I didn't drive it all the way in because a ladder and the old garage doors are stored in there. But I probably will tomorrow night.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we plan to strip the old garage doors and perhaps put a primer coat on the garage walls. It depends a lot on our energy.

We hope all are well and intending to enjoy the warmer weather tomorrow. If only it weren't going to be so windy....

NEARING COMPLETION!

There wasn't much to report on yesterday, but there is today. The garage is virtually finished; it waits on the new garage door to arrive & be installed. This first pic is a far shot of the garage with pergola brackets & lattice installed. Pretty cool, huh?

Following is a closer shot, showing more detail. The lattices hinge at the bottom and have hooks & eyes at the top, so that they can be rotated out of the way for painting or repair work. The plan is to have small vines growing on them, not heavy ivy.
Following is a pic of the developing porch and stairs. The treads are composite, while the framing is treated lumber. Ian, the team leader, nailed a piece of 2 X 4 up so that we can't open the door and fall out. It was especially important until today, because there was no porch flooring yesterday.

Ian told us that they plan to be finished tomorrow. So we hope to post up pics of the completed project by Saturday.

The last pic is a shot of the new box drain for the original garage. This ought to be much better at channeling water from rains in the future.

A related item of interest: today's Globe has a story on the renovation of the Bagcraft Building at 10th & Main. In the picture, second from the right, is Jeff Neal, owner of Columbia Traders and owner of the Neal Construction company. The team that worked on our project will be working on the Bagcraft project. He squeezed us in before they start work on Bagcraft. Here's the link: http://www.joplinglobe.com/homepage/local_story_002231217.html?keyword=leadpicturestory