Our First Tenant

Believe or not, Monster Garage does serve a purpose, in addition to being a never-ending construction project.  It was designed for our cars, and stuff.....snow blower, lawn mower, ladders, bikes, etc.

Another purpose was to store the 1954 Austin Healey Rob inherited from his parents.  Now, for the past two years since Monster Garage has been under construction, the restored Austin Healey (see previous blogs for that adventure!) has been living at a friend's garage (thank you Gonnie!).  But Gonnie's son and daughter-in-law recently bought a new truck....a new big truck, so in order to store it in their garage, they needed to move their stuff to Gonnie's garage, which mean the Austin Healey had to come home sooner than expected (we were planning to move the car later this summer anyway, once we had done the interior garage work).

So Rob spent most of his evenings these past three weeks at Gonnie's, trying to get the car in tip top shape to drive to Saskatoon.  It had been leaking fluids, so he had to stop those.  Then he had to charge the battery...numerous times...and then finally ended up buying a new one.  Many, many test drives, as he learned the different gearing system and overdrive system.  Driving out the old gas, and putting in new.  Buying tie down straps because the new battery dropped out.  You know, little things like that.

Well, the big move day was this past Friday.  Rob took the day off from work, and I was taking the afternoon off, in case I had to drive down and meet him and rescue him.  He was supposed to leave at 9:00 a.m. to beat the long weekend holiday rush on the highway.  However, the night before he had inadvertently severed the battery cable (by draping the cable over the driveshaft--oops) and had to be towed back to Gonnie's garage.  (the tow truck driver loved the car--took lots of pictures of it!)  Thus Rob needed to be at Canadian Tire at 8:00 a.m. to get a new cable.  Of course, they didn't have the part he wanted, so two other stops later, he had the cable and replaced it. All systems check.  He texts me he's heading off.  Then about 20 minutes later, he texts saying he's heading back...minor fuel leak issue.  Probably good to take care of that before a fire starts. Gee, I owner if it's this much trouble launching the space shuttle!

Okay, all good now.  So he finally leaves at 2:00. With tools, overalls, spare parts, etc--just in case there's a breakdown.  He texts at stops along the way, and I'm trying to calculate if he's making good time.  He clears the big hill in the Lumsden Valley.  Whew. Stops for ice cream in Davidson.  Clears the Blackstrap Hill.  And finally he is heading down our back alley:

And pulling into Monster Garage:

Yay! Home safe and sound.  Rob was just beaming and the car is more beautiful than I remember.  He mentioned that every car passing him was doing a double take, and whenever he stopped, people would comment on the car.  We put the tarp on the car and then turned around and headed to the lake near Regina, so we went back the way Rob just came. (my turn to drive in it come this weekend--can't wait).  But as Rob was going up the steps, I noticed two big red marks on his leg.  I thought they were reactions to a bug bite, but it turns out that the exhaust from the car is channelled down the middle of the seating area, so hot air was blowing on his leg the whole trip.  One red mark turned into a giant burn blister that keeps growing daily.  Ah, a memento from his first drive!  I'll have to make him a fire-retardant leg cozy, sort of like an Evel Kneivel suit.



And so arrives our first tenant in Monster Garage.  Nice to have it home!

Son of Monster Garage

So, as you will have recalled reading, we started again this spring on Monster Garage after a winter hiatus.  Well....it seems that we have spawned another Monster project, this time at the Regina condo...called Son of Monster Garage!

We own a condo in Regina where Rob lives during the week while he works, and then he commutes to Saskatoon on the weekends, or I come down, or we meet at the lake.

Rob comes home to the condo after the May long weekend, and notices a musty, wet dog smell.  He walks around the condo and ...squish...he steps in wet carpet in the living room by the pony wall/kitchen.  Hmmm...he calls the building manager and it turns out that the next door neighbour's dishwasher had leaked and flooded into our condo and living room carpet.  So the insurance inspector comes, and they cut out a 6 x6 foot of wet carpet and bring in a de-humidifier to dry out the condo (and the black mold that is forming). 

This runs for a few days and the wall is still leaking water.  So they come back and discover that the water is leaking into the kitchen lino and cupboards.  And they also discover asbestos in the drywall compound (now asbestos is fine as long as you don't disturb it, but when they come to replace the drywall, they will have to take special precautions i,e. hazmat suits!).

Rob is quite excited about this turn of events because he had always wanted to replace the carpet with hardwood--so we'll do that and pay the difference.  And that goes ditto for the kitchen lino and cupboards.

Meanwhile, the water is still leaking out of the wall, so they come back again and cut into the drywall behind the kitchen sink, and find holes the size of loonies in the copper sewer (grey water) line we share with the neighbours.  So out that comes.

Now here's the kicker....somehow....that "leak" has made its way to the closet, bathroom, and bedroom doors, as well as the bathroom lino and bathroom sink counter!  Well, the leak actually didn't but it was a good excuse for Rob to do even more renos, since we were already doing some, why not tack on a few more!  So, he had always disliked the floor to ceiling bi-fold doors of the closets, and the doors to the rooms used to be floor to ceiling as well, but were just filled in at the tope with an odd panel.  SO...Rob decided to replace the doors, and put in proper headers over the doors--thus he would build the new frame and drywall, and when the drywall team was in the condo doing the wall repairs, they could just mud and tape Rob's new walls, and we pay the extra.

This meant a trip to Rona to buy lumber and drywall and doors.  And to get the lumber cut.  And to spend one hour in the Rona parking lot after it closed, cutting the drywall ourselves because the drywall sheets wouldn't fit in my car and we didn't want dust all over the condo.

So we hauled 3 doors and 2 closet bi-folds up 6 floors in the elevator:

The cut lumber:

And here is the hall closet newly-made header:

And the bedroom closet header:



Oh I forgot to mention that Rob also thought it would be a good time to move some electrical plugs to better locations, and new ones.  So he's been in contact with an electrician to come by some time.

So we have Monster Garage in Saskatoon, Son of Monster Garage in Regina, and Lake Monster renos.  We have renovations going on in three cities.  It never is boring!

Getting Wired

Well, after a winter hiatus, Monster Garage is underway again for 2013!  It sure was nice to park inside--especially after the winter we had with all that snow.  So no scrapping or brushing off the car.  Just jump in and go.   And we both could share the garage. The Tyvec took a bit of a beating with the wind, but nothing a few staples can't fix.

So this weekend was inside wiring.  Metres and metres of wires running through the walls and along the ceiling.  Wires for lights and wires for plug ins.  You can never have too many of those things.

And of course, one needs the largest drill bit in the world to drill holes for the wire.  We bought a new bit at Home Depot, and Rob is reading out the label which says it drills 10 times fastest and is named the Daredevil.  Now, is it only me, but I don't think the word daredevil and power tool should be in the same sentence!  Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

So this is what a normal weekend is like!

This weekend was an anomaly.  All we did was buy stuff at Home Depot and Canadian Tire.

We started out with the best of intentions.  We did sleep in on Saturday (very unusual for us).  I did my run; Rob had a haircut.  Then out we went to Home Depot for an hour.  I knitted while Rob trolled the aisles.  A fellow walked by me and laughed.  I said it helped me pass the time while my guy was hunting for stuff.  He said he wife does the exact same thing.  Great minds!

Then we came home.  We were a tad tired, plus it was minus 15.  We had a little rest, because we were going to friends for dinner at 5:30, so no point starting anything.

On Sunday we slept in again!  And woke up to minus 23.  Game over.  Certainly not going out in that.  So we did long-abandoned house chores.  And then nestled in to watch the Grey Cup. I even had time to knit and quilt. It was glorious!

So our poor little Monster Garage was untouched.  But it sure was nice to have a normal life like other people on the weekend.  Heck, we have a roof, doors and windows--what more do we need?

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!!!!

It's like Christmas! (instead of Halloween)

I came home today and it was like Santa had come early.  Lo and behold, there was a shiny new garage door!

And if you are a real keener, here's the inside stuff:

I'm glad we chose to have Steelcraft install both the door and the opener we bought at Sears.  I opened the opener instruction booklet in order to figure out the remotes and keypad, and saw:

-a quarter inch of instructions (totalling 40 pages)

-16 "Warning" boxes

-8 "Caution" boxes

-5 assembly steps (4 pages)

-12 installation steps (15 pages)

-4 adjustment steps (4 pages)

-1 page of programming instructions

-2 pages of problem shooting

-2 pages of using the remote

-very large safety stickers to put on the door

-monthly safety checklists

Can you say, OMG???????  That would have taken us two days to figure out.  That is not an instruction booklet--that is a master's thesis in engineering.  I'd much rather be knitting or quilting than do that installlation.  Thank you Santa!

The garage door is coming...the garage door is coming!

This past weekend was spent prepping the garage for the arrival of the overhead door, coming on Wednesday. So exciting!  I must admit, I have enjoyed parking in the garage, given all the snowy weather we've had the past couple of weeks--and having a garage door will make it even better.  Then just wait til we get the window and regular door installed!  It is rather funny coming out in the mornings to a dry car, but with snow drifting in the doors and window openings.

Part of Friday night was spent installing an electrical panel in the garage, so we can later have heat and electricity for all the lights.

So no prep work is complete without a Saturday morning (and I mean all morning) visit to Home Depot.  Looking for this, looking for that, but mostly looking for someone who knows their stuff.  We ended up with 4 double sheets of drywall, in 10 and 12 foot lengths, drywall screws, Styrofoam insulating board, and more lumber.  We have to install the drywall prior to the the garage door mechanism going in, as that will cover up parts of the ceiling and walls that we will never be able to get behind to drywall later.

Saturday afternoon was spent doing a bunch of stuff.  First, insulating roof soffit vents, so when Rob blows in the insulation later, it doesn't plug the soffit.  At first, we used this nifty little piece of thin molded styrofoam...

...which looks way cool, but not exactly what Rob wanted for the ends.  This type of piece, as it turns out, goes all up the roof; Rob just wanted an end piece.  So off he went to Rona.  I googled the manufacturer's web site to find an end piece and watched a video on installation.  So after an hour of searching and going to Home Depot, Rob came back with waxed cardboard pieces, with scores in them so they fold and bend into place just at the edge where the soffit meets the wall.  We installed 12 of these:

Then Rob installed electrical wire and ran it to two light conduit boxes and a plug-in junction box.    The lights will be installed later, and the plug-in will be to run the garage opener.  Rob then put around the boxes these plastic molded pieces, that form right around them to act an a vapour barrier (like a big condom, sort of).  The plastic pieces block out the cold air.  They were super neat--sort of like chocolate molds but much bigger.  Mmmmm...chocolate...that's a lot of chocolate! 

Then came putting up vapour barrier and taping the seams on the front part of the ceiling:

Then we hauled out the drywall lift--you may recall we used this contraption a few weekends ago to try and get plywood onto the roof--not so great for that.  But for this, it was the cat's meow!  Slap it on, crank it up, steady it into position, and screw it down. We will blow insulation on top of the sheets later in the project.

We got three drywall sheets installed and called it a night at 10:00 p.m.  Man it sure was cold out there (-10)--I had the usual ski pants, ski jacket, ski mask, and added to the ensemble a long old winter coat and hot shots for my ski mitts.  It took an hour for each sheet--measure the space, cut the sheet, lift the sheet onto the lift, crank the lift, position, and screw a million screws into it.  Well, only three more to go on Sunday.

So we are up and out by 8:00 a.m., as Rob wants to leave by noon.  The rest of the sheets go up.

And from there, we moved to cutting the Styrofoam to insulate around the door frame, in between the studs. 

The Styrofoam bits sure went everywhere.  They have static cling, so we were wearing them for awhile.







And this is it being installed.

Then another round of vapour barrier over the insulation, tacked down with extremely sticky gooey glue and staples.  We installed 2x6s at each end and along the top of the opening, so the installers have something to anchor the garage door to. And finally, we ran a temporary electrical cord through the rafters to the new plug-in space, so the garage door installers can use that to plug in the opener, until we hard wire a new plug-in (and yes, we can do that--Rob got a home owners permit from SaskPower--they sure are trusting!  Just kidding honey).

We had Rob on the road by 5:00--so a little off schedule.  And then in Saskatoon, we got a bit of a blizzard, so I moved my car back into the garage, and Rob raced the storm all the way back to Regina.  And because time was so tight, we justt dumped the tools in the dining room and kitchen--that's where they have been living, but at least we get them somewhat orderly.  But this was a complete and utter disaster, and to add to the fun....we are having a dinner party this weekend for 14 people, so all this will have to go somewhere.

Doesn't everyone have an electrical panel in their kitchen?



Or an air compressor in their dinning room?

So I spent the next two hours packing everything up and moving it into the study.  We'll just shut the door and hope no one goes in there!

So the garage door people come tomorrow to install the door and the opener.  That will be exciting and another step further on this journey.  Though I did ask Rob if they will leave the door up or down--if down, how will I get in without a remote???? Of course, I can always go through the other door or window--I know they're open!