Getting Started

When we bought our house 9 years ago, one of the requirments was that it have a detached garage in the back yard. Suzanne found the perfect house. Only problem, the garage was less than perfect....unless of course you don't mind a lack of storage, a floor with more curves than my wife and rain water pouring in through the bottom of the walls every time we have a heavy rain.

So, after months of planning...many months of planning we were ready to start. I could spend hours talking about the mistakes we made....but i'll save that for another post.

The basic order of things was....Demo, Foundation, Framing, Roof, Stucco, Drywall, Paint and then Move in.

Sounds simple...right? Yea, RIGHT.....


Well....this is what we started with....

Notice the fence? It's been there since 1955. We called it the 'Termite Hotel'. The only reason it is still standing is because it's being held up by the bushes on one side and our garage on the other.


This view is of the back wall. What you can't see is that the yard behind the wall is about 6" above the floor. Hence, every time we had a good rain, the ground would get saturated and water would start to pour in through the bottom of the wall.

Guess what? Anything on the floor got wet. Unless it was in the middle. There was about a 2" difference in height from the center of the floor to the sides....