The Garage - 4 Weddings and a Funeral

Wait, I meant four walls and a door...

All the walls are now built inside the old garage. This was a pretty easy process. The hardest part was moving all my belongings around in the garage so there was room to build each wall. Lifting the 16 foot laminated 5.5 x 12 header into place by myself wasn't particularly easy either!

My garage door finally arrived at Home Depot this week. I arranged delivery Thursday (yesterday). As soon as I got home from work I finalized the levelling and temporary bracing of the front wall, then demolished the old front wall (the waste can be seen in these pictures). I put OSB sheathing in the inside of this wall so the door could be installed in its final resting place. Long term the entire inside of the garage will be sheathed in 7/16" OSB. Finally I ripped and installed pine door jambs to give the rough opening a finished look.

After reviewing the VHS instruction video and instruction manuals, I started installing the door. All indications are that it is an 8 - 10 hour job. Since I have no other exits from the garage at this time, once I started I had to finish the job! I had an emergency plan to cut a hole through the old wall with my chain saw if I needed to make a hasty exit.

All in all the process went according to plan. I started at 7:30 PM and finally opened the door for the first time at 11:30.

Today when I got home from work I installed the locking latch and lift handles. I still need to improve the rear brackets I made hastily and install weatherstripping around the door. I will also eliminate the top gap (visible in the picture above) which is a simple adjustment, but can't be done until the temporary bracing that is in the way is removed.