I haven't provided a detailed update on the other actual work recently. It really hasn't improved. About a month ago, we finally came to an agreement on all outstanding disagreements. I have a check waiting for him on some things he is owed. I also sent him an email of all the things we had agreed on in a contract form so there were no surprises and for me to be covered. I told him I would have two copies for him to sign when he came to pick up the check one for him and one for me to keep. I also stated at the top of said document that not only did the signature constitute his agreement to the document but so would cashing of the said check for X amount. This agreement included completing the project in a reasonable amount of time, 2 months, barring any weather issues, which would not be held against him. It also mentioned that a cost of 1% (of the remaining total of change order work still to be done, the final two draws, and the check he would be picking up) would be deducted per day from the remaining money he is owed for failure to meet that reasonable timeline of 2 months. The work left honestly should take a competent contractor a month or less. Since that email, 11 business days and 17 total days have passed. It has been complete radio silence.

At this point, I am considering finally GCing the rest of this project myself. If I decide to pull that trigger, I plan to pay this contractor zero additional dollars, regardless if he ever shows back up due to how in breach of contract he is. October 17th, when that email was sent to him, was the first day of calendar year 3 of this project.

His communication is just the worst. I should have moved on last November, honestly. This April at the latest. I am almost starting to believe with his radio silence that he was planning on picking up that check and completely disappearing altogether, the fact he has not responded when there is money to be had.

 

That sucks that you're this close to the finish line and nothing...

 

Random question. Google has dropped support for their Nest Protects. What Smoke / CO detectors are the go to these days? Couldn't remember if this was covered in a different thread or not but figured since you just did your mega mansion garage you would be up to date on this stuff!

Could be either wired or wireless, smart or dumb. Wireless preferred since I don't have wire run to every location needed. If a smart device, prefer to work with google products.

 

Huh? Google only dropped support for the first and second gen Nest thermostat, nothing else. The Nest Protects are still going fine, you just can't buy new ones. First alert makes the replacement but it doesn't have the motion sensor or light anymore.

 

I have a paid for monitored alarm system so I don't do the smart home ones through a small company using a Honeywell system.

 

Mine are set to expire in January is what I meant, and yes you can't buy new ones. They do still link, even though I am having an issue pairing a second after changing to a mesh network. Just looking for other options that are out there. I will miss the hall illumination feature though. That was a nice touch!

 

I did the same, but went with a Qolsys panel as I wanted the better range and frequency hopping PowerG sensors.

Provider is my Surety with a 3rd party monitor for $22/month.

Guessing you're doing AlarmGrid with Honeywell?

 

I am using a small local guy who does the installs. Use a monitoring service down here called Security Central. He installed the original alarm at my parents house they have had for 20 years down here. I used him once I got my first house that was wired for an alarm and now here. I still have not had the Honeywell system installed yet as I am still on the old GE system in the house until we connect the garage to the house and then we will do the upgrade then.

All I know is that these are the model keypads I will have. https://a.co/d/04GYVP8

 

Life has been very busy the last two weeks, between personal travel and also some work travel, which the work travel is rare but does happen a few times a year.



The yard is still progressing nicely. The project to make the front lawn look like an athletic field or golf course rough seems to be going well.











I do have a few spots that are showing a small bit of color change with just a bit of yellowish green. I was due for the next round of fertilizer, which I did get down this weekend, so hopefully that will fix that. Otherwise, I might also put down some disease x just in case later this week.





I also knocked out a project in the garage I needed to get done. I finally got the lower stair railing installed. Being that it is one piece, it took a little inventive process. With having the access under the stairs I took the access panel off and built my self a helper off the framing.









Even being custom order and going back and forth with the builder of the stairs multiple times on the measurements they were still off a little bit.





Thankfully, a 3/8in piece of poplar I had made a perfect spacer.





Was hoping to keep them protected through the process but quickly realized I had no way to true them up accurately that way.





6in large washer head Timberlock like screws, hopefully will keep these secure up top as they sit exactly above a set of 4 wide 2x10s used for the platform edge.





Really happy with the outcome of these and glad I pulled this piec out of the contract and did it myself vs the cable railing they wanted to use.













With some of the Harbor Freight sales going on right now, I finally saw the best price recently on the oil drain and decided to grab one.

 

Yard looks great, stair rail, too.

 

I'm still so jealous of your garage, so much awesome.

 

That grass is crazy! Glad to see the project coming along!

 

Grass and stairs are looking great, nice work!

Jason did so much construction his neighbors are selling their house

 

 

We are getting to the end of the year now, and I have a ton of unused vacation so starting this past week, I will have one less work day each week. Normally working 4x10 anyway it's a nice lower stress end of the year with multiple weeks of more days off than working. Another benefit is I get a lot of things done.

Got the oil tank together and it fit well in the planned location for it.




Then on to tackling the bathroom doors, finally. This solved two problems. Finally, would have doors on the bathroom, and I got the space they were occupying back.

Made a small jig to easily use my trim router to route the tracking slot on the bottom.




They closely match the doors into the shop area.


I hate drilling holes into my concrete floors if I can come up with any other way. Thought up an idea to recess the T track brackets into the SwissTrax and then make a plate on the other side. Used the trim router to make both areas first on a test scrap.




Seemed good enough so on to the real thing.

 

Then I tackled what I have wanted to get to for a long time, but kept my patience so as not to risk damaging them until all other work was done. Finally, time to install the TV's in the loft.

Decided for this TV install to invest in some surge protection outlets. Most of my TVs in the house are on arms, so I usually use small strip ones. With these being flush mounts, I went with the outlet kind.




After measuring about 100 times to be absolutely sure, I finally drilled holes in the wood walls and installed the mounts.


First one installed and going through setup.


After the girlfriend went to bed, I snuck back out to watch a little hockey. Hopefully, I will get the other two installed later this week, and even if it is in a bag chair, I can watch sports out there the rest of the year.


Harbor Freight suckered me in with the 40% off Icon ratchets to continue building out my setup this morning.

 

Place is coming together nicely! I'm surprised you didn't do a panel level surge protector to just cover the whole thing at the top level.

 

You know, I have been slacking/thinking about this for the house panel for a long time. Since my 400amp service first comes into the Primary house panel I would assume I only need one one that panel to then cover the sub panel for the house as well as the two sub panels in the garage? Or would I need one per panel?

 

That I'm not sure, I'd guess it would just be one for the main panel though? Would be good to consult an electrician on that one.

I suppose having one on each panel wouldn't hurt.

 

You get those other TV's up yet, AZ demands an answer!

 

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday. As I always do, I ate too much. It wouldn't be the holidays, though, without doing such.

On Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I managed to get the other two TVs installed after some new, slimmer power strip plugs showed up.



I had spent a good bit for what they were on two keystone optical couplers. They turned out to be complete junk. I abandoned them because I would have been super annoyed to have them come apart while the TV was installed. Instead, I used my optical extension cable and tabled the connection together and put it in the wall in the conduit.


Wednesday night I got to test out. Super happy with how the setup turned out. Yes the film was still on the TVs as I wasn't sure I was done positioning them.


Saturday, I got to watch the final Penn State game up there. I had hoped to get to watch the entire season up there but oh well. At least I was able to get one game on the new setup.


The afternoon was also the first time all the dogs were together up there. They are definitely not very happy that there are no couches to be on. To say they have gotten accustomed to being able to sit with us on the couch would be an understatement.


My audio plan worked as I had hoped. I have two GoogleTV 4k and one Google TV Streamer connected each directly to the TV. I use the optical audio out on each TV into this audio selector box. This way I can change the audio that is playing through my receiver when games go to a commercial without having to change the channel to another game.


Took a little bit to get the spacing all dialed in, but they are all equal now. Super happy with the lower profile mounts I went with. They were very easy to work with.





As of yesterday, I have a line on a used couch for the time being, so hopefully by the middle of this week I will have something besides the bag chair I have been using to sit on.

 

Looks great, good to see your priorities are right, with Vegas on the big screen

 

Setup looks great bud!

 

How much were those sick Swisstrax speaker stands?

Setup looks amazing!

 

Thanks

Hopefully, I don't have enough left to actually have full boxes when I am done with the garage, but I imagine I will. That is actually the flooring for the other bay still.

 

Fantastic setup and do I see 4 dogs, I thought you only had 3?

 

There is 4 there and we have almost always had 4 except when some pass until we find another good rescue fit. But the most recent addition was still 2 years ago almost now. We were down to 3 for about 2 years though as she couldn't bring herself to get another for a while.

 

I was able to get a few small projects completed in the garage this past weekend.

Got the pulls and a latch installed on the bathroom door. The only thing left is to get around to picking a light for in the bathroom, installing it, and then installing the bathroom mirror, and then I can check off that project. Hopefully, I will get around to all that before the end of the year.


I have been searching Facebook marketplace for a couch in right facing sectional build for about 2 months now. Not much had popped up I was super interested in but I was trying to skimp in this area and skip on buying something new for the time being. Well two weekends ago one of the couches I had actually designed the space around before actually popped up barely used. I was able to get a decent deal and picked it up last week. Super happy with it, although I realize now I can actually fit a larger couch no problem. I still need to get two chairs and an end table for the area but at least I can retire the bag chair I was using up there since I had gotten the TVs installed.



The dogs are much happier now going over there, now that they don't have to be forced into such horrible conditions of using plush dog beds on the floor.


I was also able to get the handrail installed on the second half of the steps. This last project really finishes off the loft part of the garage other than those three pieces of additional furniture I need to buy and an entertainment console I need to build. That last one might not start till Q1 2026 at the earliest though.


The garage has been through some car projects in the past couple of months so Sunday I took a little time to give the bay its first cleaning really. I was pretty much out of countertop space since the Lexus project so it was nice to get most of that cleared off. Vacuuming pine needles out of SwissTrax is a bit fun.
[imghttps://jrphotodesign.net/public_photos/house2/garage/Detached_Build/garage_flooring/IMG_20251208_083520.jpg][/img]

 

Most guys end up on the couch when they're 'in the doghouse'
You've got one hell of a doghouse to retreat to

 

Yeah, I joke with my girlfriend that there is no punishment in having to retreat to the garage.

 

What kind of hand railing is that? Metal or wood? Looks really nice!

 

It is metal. Both the handrail and the full staircase handrail on the lower half came from Optimum Works. https://optimumrails.com/

My builder kind of laughed at me when I told him what I wanted for a railing design and that it would cost a ton. I had him originally put in for cable railing and a handrail similar to what I installed here on the rest of the stairs. I then spent a bunch of time and research to find a company that could build what I wanted in roughly that budget and then just pulled that work out of the contract and did it myself. I thought the cost from Optimum Works was extremely reasonable. I managed to get both rail systems and the freight from Cali to hear for only 10% more than he had budget for a cable rail system and a single hand rail. He told me what I wanted would have cost 2.5x his budget.

 

Would have been the same price just more in is pocket at the end of the day... Contractors are scummy, and the price to do things are outrageous once you do the research yourself. The bad thing is people just pay for it because they don't have the know how to do it themselves.

 

Some more positive updates. The pavers were delivered yesterday morning, and then the builder came by and dug the holes for the 3 bolt on fence posts that are part of the breezeway gate and the trash can hide wall.



He was going to do the other 3 posts holes that get set in concrete but decided to wait for those till after the grading for the pavers was done. He had built these wooden posts, which he was going to use to try to keep dirt out while they graded, but decided it might not work. I used them to test where the other posts would go.

 

The crew doing the paver work made good progress on day one. They arrived at about 9am and left at 5pm and got a huge amount of it done with a 3 man crew. The grade itself was pretty level but everything needed to be lowered between 3 and 5in of dirt removal to get to allow for the base. I worry about the thickness of the base put down but everything seems to be done differently in this area because of how hard the clay is. They pour concrete straight on the clay if it is undisturbed. They only did 2-3in of base instead of 6-8in that I thought was normal. One step closer to being complete. They are coming back tomorrow and hope to wrap it up then. Amazed if they really do complete it all in 2 days with all the cuts needed with the diagonal pattern and then the straight boarder that goes in.

 

It is nice to feel like we are making major progress. They really got most of the large work done yesterday. They still have to come back to do some detail cuts around the power conduit, drains, and downspouts but the majority out back is finished. It is nice to finally have an even walkway between the two buildings.

 

That looks fantastic!

 

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you all have a good and relaxing holiday with some quality family time.



They were able to get some more work done this week. The paver crew was back to finish up the last little bit of cut work and then put down the poly sand.



I had them rework one area. I get what they were initially trying to do with keeping a full size boarder. However the wall is not perfectly straight, which was by design to keep a certain width of ground for my tractor to get to the other side of the propery. I think it loks better this way with the infil staying full size.

















They also got a little work done on the finalized drains.



I am happy with the solution we finally settled on for going over the stone ledge.





We had to create this unfortunate series of fittings to get this pipe perfectly in line with the gutter. I am going to install a filter station above ground for a cleanout here, since it will be hidden in a planter bed and hopefully it will keep this from becoming an issue down the road. If it does, it will be in a planter and not under concrete so it can be dug up. I also have gutter guards, so I don't expect much debris to make it down.





They were also able to get started on the two slot drains. We expect the 18in drain basin that fills into a 6in smooth pipe to handle all the water the driveway sees but these are backup as well as a drain to handle water exiting the garage when I was inside since I was not allowed to have a drain inside per the county.









The pups are still loving their new couch. They hung out with me in there while I spent a night watching hockey on Tuesday with 26 of 32 teams playing before the holiday break.

 

Merry Christmas bro, that paver work and walkway look great!

 

Was able to get a little work done after work yesterday. I ran a new wire from the closet switch box to the under stairs portion on the closet. I want to put a light in that half as well, since it will be the access size for the hot water heater, my fiber distribution, and I plan to use the lower half of the understairs area to store the paints for the house and garage so I can get them out of the house garage. I haven't figured out what light but I am leaning towards a wafer recessed light since headroom over there is already at a premium.









With that ran I was finally able to start installing the rockwool insulation on the inner wall. The plan is to install rockwool on the interior walls of the closet/understairs area and then also the underside of the stairs as well. This closet is going to house my air compressor so hoping to help limit the noise a bit by going this route vs fiberglass insulation. For the stairs, the plan is to fill the recesses and then use double layers of 1.5in rockwool sound board.







I have not decided yet what I will cover the walls with then. I hate doing drywall but I know it would likely be better than zip panel. I kind of want to do zip panel for a quick, smooth surface like the rest of the shop area.