A Monster Garage Vacation

Well, dear loyal readers, you may have noticed we have not been posting lately.  It's not because we are finished the garage (hahaha), but we were doing this instead:


View from our hotel room





Classic shot!

Yes, we went to New Orleans for a week!  Rob had a conference and I tagged along.  What a blast.  Incredible food, music, and architecture.  Not too mention the craziness of Bourbon Street.  And pretty good weather, considering there was a huge snow dump of 6 inches back home while we were away.  I'll try and post more photos, but if not, those of you who live near us, I'll bring out the photo album later!

(oh and two nights before we left, we had a dinner party for 14 people, and part of the festivities involved a surprise christening of the garage.  I was hoping to have the dinner party in the garage (lots more room than our house and way cool), but we didn't have it in a state for guests--like no heat, lights, doors or windows!  But we trooped out there in our boots and coats, and our dear friend Herb was going to sabre off the top of a champagne bottle to toast the grand opening (using a butter knife.  Just look on YouTube to see how this concept works).  What better way to welcome Monster Garage!  However, the bottle didn't cooperate, so we just popped the cork, which was still fun, and drank out of plastic glasses. And while we toasting, our shingler Terry came by to finish installing the eavestrough--so he parked his truck outside the door, and shone the lights at the garage to illuminate his work but it also helped shine into the garage.  Then he was done, but got stuck in the snow in the back alley, so the party crowd pushed him out.  Yes, this is a typical Saturday night at our house--isn't everyone's like this???

However, the gauntlet seemed to have been thrown on how easy it is to sabre off the top. And with three other unopened bottles just calling to people...  So Herb's husband Tony took one swipe, and whoosh, it blew off.  Then Shad did some trash talking and whoosh, it cut off for him.  And Adi was the last to join in.  All rookies and no practice. Wild and wonderful.  What a great way to christen Monster Garage.  We will have to have a more formal grand opening ribbon cutting in the summer.

So three corks blew off, but I only found two.  I sure hope we don't drive over it! But look how clean the cut is.  Amazing--a talent we all should develop.  Great at parties.

So we returned, and Monster Garage building began again this past weekend.  After spending most of the morning at Home Depot and the Co-op, we Tyveked the garage for its first pass.  The roll is 9 feet wide, and 150 feet long, so literally we started at one edge, and did a full wrap. Like a giant xmas present. And then tucking it under the eavestrough and around the gas line and gas meter. A little tricky in the wind, and boy, does that stuff make noise when it rattles--like a thousand cymbals.

And pre-printed on the wrap are little red stripes about a foot apart sideways and up and down.  Those are a stapling pattern, so you just staple on the dots--way fun!

And you may notice that the word Tyvek is upside down.  It doesn't affect the grain or strength of the wrap--it was just the way we unrolled it.  But I sure hope the Tyvek police don't come after us!

So that was Saturday.  Then on Sunday, it was time to finally move the window out of our living room from behind the couch (where it has lived for a month) and get it installed.  You first need to apply this blue vinyl with sticky tar on the back, to act as a weather proofer.  Just don't get it on yourself.

Then the door.  So we moved that out of the study (where it had lived for two months).  And what was supposed to be a "20 minute job--easy" quote unquote from Rob, took three hours.  He seems to live a time warp. We'd get one end level, and another would get out of plumb. Back and forth.  Up and down.  Shims in and out. Yikes. 

So at 8:00 p.m., the whole fleet was finally able to pull into the garage--with tonnes of room for more!

Home at last!

Of course, we didn't have time to put on the door handle or lock.  Pshaw--who needs them. Overrated, considering we have nothing inside.  Next week.  But it looks pretty gosh darn good. And of course the rest of the Tyvek. Oh and maybe some lights inside and outside. And maybe some insulation.  Gee, it's time for another vacation!!!!