Garage Move Day--Plan for the Worst, But Hope for the Best

I wonder if the Egyptians felt nervous the night before they built the pyramids!

(before) (after)

This is it--the day we move the old garage down the back alley to our neighbour's. The forecast was for rain, but the morning was sunny but with a cold wind. We'll take it!

But you can't start any project without the proper attire--I got custom shirts made for me and Rob--Monster Garage 2010 on the front, and "Boss" and "Crew" on the back--you figure out who is the boss and who is the crew!

The plan called for Rob to cut the old garage off, jack it up, slide it onto metal rollers, and just roll two doors down.

Oh, don't forget the pre-prep work--I won't go into the gory details--but needless to say, at 10:30 a.m. we finally started pushing the garage off the pad. (I asked Trevor if he was excited--he replied he was planning for the worst but hoping for the best--I felt the same !) Well, it was really Rob and Trevor--I just shouted out if we went off the rollers. That push of 25 feet took an hour. The devil is in the details...the hour involved jacking, pushing boards, shifting rollers, and a lot of grunting.

So now we have the garage perched in the middle of the back alley. At that point, I put out the

barricades to block the alley so no one would drive into us...or the garage!

There must be a testosterone magnet within construction projects...because by this point, we have drawn in most of the men in a 10-mile radius: Scott, Trevor (two Trevor's on one job site), Jason, Ross, and Shad. But without them, we would still be in the alley, and I wouldn't be writing this until after midnight.

So, the original plan was to push it off our pad, turn it, and then push to Trevor's. However, the turn just didn't seem to work--push and pull as we might, the garage was determined not to move.

So we gave up on that and went to Plan B...which is not turning, and just pushing it sideways down the alley. We just have to move the garbage bins and piles of dirt, but there was enough clearance. But this deviation from the plan took 2 1/2 hours...okay, at this point, Trevor #1 went to get beer to fuel the crew, and Scott and Trevor wen to get more robust tools (yes, you can never have enough manly tools!)

But once we got the garage ready to go south, man did it go! It took only 30 minutes to go from behind our house to behind Trevor's. It was like a well oiled machine--4 people pushed, and the rest of the team kept leapfrogging ahead, moving boards and metal rollers. Oh, did I mention that Scott and Trevor (twin brothers) brought 5 metal rollers 24 feet in length--absolutely perfect to slide the garage along. They were lifesavers!

So, now we are poised at the back of Trevor's garage pad. So we just have to huft it up the sloping ground and then land on the concrete pad. Oh, you think that's so easy..it took 1 1/2 hours! More jacking, moving boards, and shifting rollers. And Scott had to cut a pipe, which was the most exciting part, as it involved a big pipe cutter that through a lot of sparks. Very cool!

We slide the garage up and onto the pad. Lots of groaning and grunting.

But I'm pleased to say that at 4:00 p.m., after six hours of work, the garage landed on its new pad. Yay!

It was amazing--it was so much fun and went smoother than any of us thought.

(The garage at its new home with Trevor and Natalie). So we planned for the worst, and it turned out for the best!