“In the Garage”

The new garage is pretty much done. The siding was completed in November.

We wanted some continuity between the three buildings besides matching shingles. The matte black color of the garage panels matches the shed, but the reveal profile is similar to the siding on our shop/house.

To add interest to the gable ends, we used the shed siding profile in the upper triangular sections.

The interior was far from complete. Insulation came first. It was a quick job. The walls are stuffed with fiberglass batts. Some poor guy had to cut hundreds of 24″ wide batts in half to fit our 12″ spaced studs. Apparently they don’t come in 12″.

The R-38 ceiling insulation was blown-in once the drywall was up. Carpenters built a 2 ft wide catwalk from scrap plywood, running the whole length of the attic. This helped the insulation crew reach the far ends of the attic. Now I know why it’s called a “catwalk”.

Smokey immediately regretted testing it out. Sam almost had to rescue him but he clumsily descended the steep ladder with a petrified look on his face. Smokey never went up there again. Buster thought it was great.

Drywall was another quick job, and it changed the look of things overnight. We hired the same company that installed the drywall in our shop.

The drywall crew painted the walls white. Once they left, we hung ceiling lights. Sam and I sampled a few types and chose 4′ long LED lights. Sam and Kevin wired them.

We got a big gooseneck barn light to illuminate the end we use most frequently.

Sam and Kevin wired all the light switches and outlets over a few days. There are upwards of 50 outlets… Kevin got pretty fast at that job.

By Thanksgiving, the garage was almost done! We decided to use the big empty space to make wreaths and garland. Plus it was basically a refrigerator at that point, so we didn’t need to carry the greenery in and out five times a day. We left the Ram board over the concrete, so the clean floors wouldn’t get covered in sap. We kicked off the season with a jumbo 48″ wreath to display on the garage.

Since Sam was busy with work and I was getting very pregnant, we didn’t advertise- we only accepted orders from repeat customers. It still managed to be a big season. The BZ Elves cranked out 400 ft of garland and many wreaths!

We cut the season short and cleaned up the garage. Sam and Kevin erected shelves and set up the air compressors. We previously had two air compressors in the attic of our shop/house. Although the shop is well-insulated, air compressors are noisy and obnoxious (and we occasionally forget to turn them off at night). Sam had a brilliant idea to move the air compressors to the garage and run hoses between all three buildings. He got a new compressor and moved one of our old ones to the garage. (He left a backup one in our attic.)

Sam had already buried a hose between the shed and the garage during the excavation stage of the new construction. He just needed to run another line from the shop to the shed.

It didn’t take long to dig a shallow trench between the two buildings, but the hose still had to get inside the shop. The least complicated solution was to drill a 1 1/8″ hole through the 10″ thick concrete foundation. Yikes! I didn’t know they made concrete drills that large!

Drilling went surprisingly well. Nothing bad happened. Sam hooked all the air hoses up, and no one has to listen to the air compressor anymore.

(I just noticed my shadow haha) Installing the heat pump was next on the list. Sam mounted the heat pump on the outside of the garage and ran plumbing to the indoor unit in the middle of the garage.

Sam and Kevin hung ducting along the center of the ceiling. The diameter of the duct tapers as it moves away from the air source.

We initially planned to heat/cool only one half of the garage, but we ultimately decided to make the entire space climate controlled. Sam cut a hole in the dividing wall and continued the ducting down the other end.

Once that was complete, Sam spent the good part of a week choosing cabinets and a label maker to organize his fastener collection. One side is standard, and the mirror is metric.

Sam even printed pictures on the labels, which is very helpful for me. It’s like our own personal hardware store!

Lastly, Sam set up his bike area, “Bean’s Moto Booth.”

Sam also got a new e-moto bike, an E-Ride Pro SR.

Amidst all of this, we got a Christmas tree. It was a beautiful rainbowy day when we went on the hunt.

We wanted a smaller modest tree, since I wouldn’t be able to decorate it from the scissor lift this year. Sam cut it to a reasonable looking height, but when we stood it up inside, it was nearly 18′ tall! Oops! At least it was skinny.