The Playhouse (Garage)

For almost 40 years, I have attempted to work on my projects in various arenas.  First it was at a rented house with a decent small garage.  Then our first house  had no garage and the work was done in the basement or in the yard.  Our next house had a pretty decent garage, but the projects still seemed to overflow the area.  When we moved to Evergreen in '76, the house had a reasonable size two car garage.  However, my equipment and Pat's car (in the winter) relegated me to a small area to try to build my cars and work on various projects. 

In assembling photos of my projects for our web page, every file had at least one photo of me working in the snow or rain (if you make it thru the various pages you will see a few)!  It is fun to think about all the weather related hardships, but it sure will be nice not to have to face the problem in the future!!

I had always dreamed of a large garage.  Because of the frustration of building the motorhome in the elements (read rain and snow what seemed like most of the time), I decided that I would build a garage big enough for the motorhome and maybe even a bus conversion (to a motorhome) someday.  The design ended up being 36'X56' with 14 foot tall walls. 

I planned to do most of the work to keep the cost down.  Turns out that even the best laid plans and budgets don't always work out.  I ended up contracting out the concrete work, but the rest of the project will be done by me.

Let's look at the progress.

May 20, 1999.  The fabricated steel beams arrived.  This is a building system designed and fabricated by Miracle Steel.  The design is for a steel building, but uses 2X8 purlins for the roof and 2X6 girts for the walls with tabs welded on the beams for attaching these planks.  Instead of a steel exterior, I will use a composite roof and wood siding so that I will be in compliance with our covenants. 

June 10, 1999.  Excavation begins.  The two critters in the picture are  our grandsons.  They sure had a lot of fun on the dirt piles.

We hit rock at almost ground level at the back of the site.  This was about 5 feet higher than the base of the foundation.  This called for an extensive blasting operation.  The blaster drilled over 150 holes over a two day period beginning July 13, 1999.  Unfortunately, the blasting did not take place until September 14, 1999.  Part of the problem was a lot of rain during that period.  However, the real problem was the blaster--he really did not give my project any priority.  He was in serious financial trouble and was apparently going for the high dollar jobs.  This sure put my project behind schedule!!.

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