Under Construction: Part 1

Hello there dear dusty blog.  Yes, I am still alive.  It has been a wild 6 months or so.  The fall was packed full of trying to finish school.  And then there was graduation and the holidays.  And now somehow we have decided to buy a house, so there was a move.  I swear each move there is more and more stuff that we have accumulated and it makes it that more painful.  Although I will say the only part that is not painful is moving all the toys in the garage.  That is always fun.  I hope you can forgive me.

The new house is pretty cool.  It was built back in 1899 and the previous owner has gone through and updated all the infrastructure.  New heating & cooling, plumbing, electric, fixtures, etc.  What we like the most is that all of the old architectural details were kept.  These houses just have character.  But there was an added bonus / challenge.  There was no garage.  So on one hand I potentially got to build the garage of my dreams, and on the other I had to deal with building it on a tight time frame as I needed to get my stuff out of the old garage sooner rather than later (I don't think the old landlord would appreciate the squatting).

My original thought was to go with a 3-car brick garage like the picture below.  Once I got a bid though for what that would cost, I quickly reconsidered going with a nice vinyl siding garage.

My original plans

The new lot is 50' wide, so being a responsible person, I went with a modest 24' deep by 34' wide three car garage.  I am going to break this up into three different posts:

• Part 1:  Laying the Foundation (this post)
• Part 2:  Building the Structure
• Part 3:  Finishing the Job

First they dug up the old parking pad

Then poured the footers

Next was the foundation

Single door (top) and double door (bottom)

Next the dry rock laid down

And finally the pad is poured and cured

I am so thankful that the weather cooperated to allow the concrete to be poured.  It turned pretty nasty right after this and the last thing I needed was to wait till the spring when it warmed up.  The work was done by Charlie Haverstick and his crew and they were awesome.  They were here every day getting the work done and they completed the job done on time.  I would definitely recommend them: http://www.haverstickandsonconcrete.com/

Continue to Part Two