When we bought our house it came with what was listed as a “one car garage”. While it might physically be able to hold “one car” you could only use it if you were trying to hide from pursuers in a car chase. You know, where you sneakily back in and turn out your lights. The problem is, unless you had T-Tops on your Firebird like Smokey and the Bandit, you wouldn’t be able to use your doors and exit the car. And oh yeah, the garage doors are bolted shut in order to keep them from falling off their hinges.
I think we call this style “rustic revival”.
The plan early on was to convert the “garage” into a usable space. Save the framing which is still in great shape, repair the concrete floor, but gut the entire thing down to the studs and rebuild it. “We have the technology, we have the capability to make”… the garage into a home gym. New siding, insulation, drywall, electricity and that’s right… run cable so we can watch TV. The space is about 10’x18’ so when we got quotes for the job, we weren’t expecting a major investment, something reasonable. What we got were several quotes starting around $10-15k and up for a bare bones overhaul on a 180 square foot glorified shed. I’m not a contractor, but that seemed ridiculous. Needless to say, the garage is filling up with junk from outdoor projects several years later and the elliptical is sitting in the middle of our library/study/playroom.
Enter Lazy Guy DIY.
“Hey honey (which I would never call her for fear of bodily harm), how serious are we about this website and furniture fabrication thing? Do you trust my business decisions?”
“Ok, good. Because I’d like to turn the garage into a wood shop.”
For most of my projects I either work in the basement or the yard. The yard is good when the weather is nice on the weekends when I have the free time, but it’s also really dark when the sun goes down. The basement has it’s perks (like a TV and no rain!) but then it’s directly under the kiddo’s room so that means no power tools. Process of elimination says we have a winner.
So why is this a long term project Lazy Guy? Excellent question my friend. First off… like most garages, it’s filled with a lot of crap. Lawn and gardening equipment, leftover insulation, a 300 pound tv, a pink Barbie Jeep… the usual. Then the structure itself. I mentioned the garage doors earlier, you could call them doors, it’s mostly patchwork lumber nailed together from all sides slightly drooping in the middle. That’s gotta be replaced. Oh, and the main door… that’s not an exterior door the previous owner’s put up there. It’s a cheap interior door that looks like it’s made of cardboard. It soaks up water like cardboard too.
The most glaring issue though, is the lack of electricity. I either need to remedy that permanently, run an extension cord every time I go out there or open up a “period specific” workshop where I only use man-powered hand tools. In the dark. Oooh, or by candle light!
So more details to come on this build and the transformation of Lazy Guy DIY. With a legit workshop I plan on posting tutorial videos on YouTube and the site.
~Lazy Guy
