May 22nd we bought our house.
Our first major project that we decided to do was to renovate our garage.
We are not finished, but have made substantial progress.
A HUGE THANK YOU to friends and family who have helped us with this, especially our friend Eric who, as you'll see, we couldn't have done this without!!
A lot of people I know are curious but live too far away to come and see it, so this is for them.
Here's a random picture of Noah playing where you can see the side of the garage before.
The window is small and broken.
There are electrical and cable wires running all over the place.
There is a single small door that is broken at the bottom.
Here's another 'before' where you can really see the small broken window.
Before any construction could be done we had to go through the massive amount of stuff that we had 'stored' in there. Seriously, it was getting scaring-ly close to resembling something like the show 'Hoarders'! ;)
There were baby clothes,
my old clothes,
housewares,
and LOTS more...
I took photos of a lot of it, thinking about selling it, but in the end we found a local rescue mission and donated these EIGHT garbage bags full of clothes, plus others with shoes, dishes, pots and pans, linens and all sorts of other stuff.
There was still a lot of stuff left though, so it had to be moved to the back yard in order for demolition and construction to begin.
On a Monday night, my brother Michael and sister-in-law Jillian, came over and Michael and Peter started demo.
On Tuesday morning Eric came over and we started the first of the construction work. Michael came back to help, too.
Eric and Peter removing the window.
...and taking it to the giant dumpster we rented...
Which was gigantic and barely fit!
Unfortunately it was a little too close to the garage door so instead of just tossing things from inside the garage into the dumpster, we had to either push them under the door and then walk around, or carry them through the backyard and through the side gate and to the dumpster. :| Oh well.
After the demo, Eric framed the window and then Eric and Peter cut the new window opening and chipped the stucco for the new window.
Noah was very curious.
This was also the day that Jose trimmed 5 trees on our property. Talk about a busy day!
While Eric framed the windows, Peter finished the demo by pulling down the extra and broken ceiling framing.
still working on window #1
Time to put in the window!
Inside the garage, looking out through the new window, at the back of our house (and all the junk from the garage).
Michael had to remove several bushes of jasmine in order to make room for the second window and door.
The dumpster was gigantic and we thought we'd never fill it, but with all the demo and the trees, we did!
Admiring their work.
Great job!
We had wires running out of our house (note orange wire behind Peter) for a long time... it started to drive me crazy.
The next week Eric came back over with our friend Johnny and the three guys worked on the electrical, removing all the old stuff and installing all brand new.
A few days later our friend Matt came over and hooked it up for us.
(Peter's "weekend" is Tuesday/Wednesday, so that's when the work took place each week.)
The next week it was time to start the door.
My parents were in town and Michael came back down from Burbank.
(There are other cute pictures of Michael and Em, but I can't post them here, so remind me to show them to you in person if you want to see.) :)
Here you can see Emily & Grandpa sitting in the new doorway for the french doors.
and here are the doors, being installed by Eric and Peter.
That week we went to Northern California for my cousins' wedding, then took a family vacation in Cambria. While we were gone, two professionals came and worked on the garage. One installed a solar powered attic fan and the other fixed the stucco around the windows and french doors.
When we came back Peter and Eric spent a day re-framing part of the ceiling and adding some frame work to the walls.
Then it was time to insulate. Peter did it all (thank you babe) and yuck, enough said.
After insulating we had a 'dry wall party'. (ie: we needed many hands to help with drywall so Phil, Michael and Michael joined Eric and Peter for the day; Jill helped me with the kiddos.)
Emily loved watching. (As did her brother.)
They got a lot of the drywall up that Tuesday.
What a difference!
Peter and Phil did more on Wednesday.
Peter and I finished it on Thursday evening.
At this point we realized we were exhausted and running out of time before our trip to Iowa so we hired a guy to do the mudding and taping for us. He came Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and now the drywall is finished!!!
We are getting ready to go to Iowa now, so we're moving a few things back (temporarily) into the garage along with our car for while we're gone. (Please ignore the couch, baby changing table, car seat, foot stool, etc.)
(You can see the recessed square hole covered with dry wall for attic access.)
These holes in the ceiling are for the can lights, which are ready to go as soon as we paint.
Ready to be painted!
There was (is) an ugly cement footing that we were concerned about, but now that the drywall is finished it only sticks out about an inch. We learned how to notch out the cabinets that are going in on one side, so you'll only see it on one wall, and it will be painted to match the wall so I don't think it'll be a big deal after all.
Here it is close up.
In this photo you can see the attic fan and if you look closely, you can notice that the new stucco is a slightly different color, so eventually we'll repaint that too.
Ta-da!
Next: painting, carpeting, cabinetry along one wall and a built in desk along another (piano and musical instruments on the other.)
We're getting closer! :)
