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It's finally cooling off, (60s in the am, not much more than 90 at the high end) the Tundra and garage are going to get a bunch of attention soon.
It went from 70s in the morning at 90s in the afternoon at the beginning of October to 40s and mid-70s here. There was no easing into it either
Originally Posted by BreezyTL
Nice looking place! When you were building, did you have an option to go 2.5 for the garage? I wish my place was 2.5 instead of 2, or at least deeper for that matter. Your attention to detail is incredible! Thanks for giving me some ideas.
The property is rather narrow towards the front, and the house had to be set back from the property lines by x amount of feet (I forget the exact number). I think widening the garage would've breached that. With that said, I do wish I got a larger garage, even if that meant opting for a different lot. I keep thinking that an additional 2' in both directions would've been great. The next house has to have a 3 car garage though.
Speaking of the garage, I've taken on the large project of cleaning that up now that the FR-S has been sold. I've spent probably two months in planning, and products started to arrive at the beginning of the month. One of the things that kicked off this whole project (and caused it to snowball ) is this:
I figured since I got flooring for the garage, I might as well paint the cinder block before the tile goes down, otherwise it'll never get done. So I picked up two gallons of Drylock and got to work:
Here it is with a few rows of the tile, just so I can get an idea of colors I can paint the wall:
I decided I wanted to get rid of the two 6 foot long storage racks I have, so I picked up a second 4' x 8' ceiling mounted storage rack mounted (one for long term parts storage and another for holiday decorations). But I also wanted storage along the back wall for tools, detailing supplies, etc. So I came up with another layer to this ever growing snowball:
From left to right, the changes/additions are:
27" deep shelf to house umbrellas, shoes, and other random items, along with the recycling bin (on the top shelf). A handrail for the steps will also be mounted to it. Space is left underneath so I can store my shop-vac.
New steps into the house. The construction of the original steps was really wide, even though the steps themselves were still 38", and it left me with a bunch of wasted space on either side. Pics of the new steps are below.
12" wide cabinet. 26" deep (not including door) and 96" tall. This will be used to store detailing and painting supplies.
25" wide cabinet above the existing sink. 26" deep and 24" tall.
Two 24" wide cabinets. Both 26" deep and 96" tall. Will be used to house tools, jack stands, and floor jacks (the lowest shelf will have a 4" gap between it and the doors, allowing the jack to slide under the cabinet and have the handles obscured from view when the door is closed).
30" wide refrigerator. Because suburbia.
31" wide cabinet above the fridge.
Two 24" wide cabinets above the toolbox. More tool storage. Above that is the tire rack for wheel storage.
All cabinets will be wall mounted, with a ledger board mounted to cinder block foundation for additional support on the bottom (and to assist with mounting/leveling).
First up was the stairs. I forgot to take a before shot but it was a pretty typical stair case made with 2x6s and 4x4s. Here it is with the handrails removed. During removal, I realized that the builder must have used a blind man to built these stairs, because of the three stringers, only one was touching the concrete (the middle one). The other two were fastened to the 4x4 uprights with - and I'm not kidding - FOURTEEN nails on the left side and FIFTEEN on the right. Oh and those stringers had split. Probably because the amount of nails that were used. And the middle stringer, while it touched the concrete, was not securely fastened to the wall
Here are the new steps mocked up, using metal stringers (for ease of construction, and they also look cool) and some 2x6s:
Here they are cut down to size (38"), fastened down, and stained. I've since sealed them, but it didn't really change the finish much. The piece of wood against the wall will most likely get painted. It was a reused piece of 1x from the old stairs that didn't take stain very well.
Since county code requires risers if the opening between steps is greater than 4", I plan on making some drawers that mount underneath the steps for a bit of extra storage. Those will come at a later date though.
Back to the cabinets - my girlfriend was working out of town last week, and her rental was upgraded to an Expedition. So I took advantage of that when she got back home Friday and picked up most of the plywood I needed (HD had all but two sheets; and yes she makes weird faces in pretty much all photos):
Before I cut any of the ply, I'm going to mark out where the cabinets will be using painters tape, and I need to paint the walls first. Which brings me to my current situation... Since the garage isn't considered a finished room, the builder obviously didn't tape and mud the walls as they would in, say, a bedroom. Before I put a drop of paint on the walls, I'm mudding and filling any imperfection I find. And there are a lot. It's been a pain in the ass since I still have a bunch of stuff in the garage, so I'm constantly playing tetris with stuff so I can get at certain walls.
This is one of the better joints:
And here's that same wall after mudding, smoothing and sanding:
Not perfect, but it's my first time doing any of this. It's kinda like sculpting, which is something I always liked in middle school It's good practice - and it's just the garage, so if it's not perfect, I'm ok with that. I'm still going through and fixing the walls in most areas that will be seen. Then it's time to prime and paint.
And in case you were wondering, yes I do have top down sketch of the flooring layout
The red outlines are the CR-V and the R. The cabinets are numbered so I can easily tie them back to the cut list and the construction plan. The grey rectangle in the left #2 cabinet is the main water shut off, which must remain easily accessible. And finally, the faint black outline on the right wall is for my folding work bench. It'll be ~4' long, and extend out about 22-3/8" from the wall. It should be plenty for what I need a workbench for.
I'll post more pics as I go along - but it'll probably take another couple weeks since I'm working on it an hour or two at a time, when I have the chance.
Outside of the garage, I recently had irrigation installed in the backyard and a bunch of top soil and seed put down. I don't have any decent pics, but the grass has started to pop up within the last week, and it's looking pretty good back there. We're still planning on building a deck, but not right this second. I want to take care of some of the other projects throughout the house before tackling that one. Maybe late summer/early fall 2020. I think the next thing we're going to tackle is the laundry room. Right now, I have my washer and dryer on pedestals, but we could really use a counter top to make folding easier, so I came up with this:
We may ditch the upper cabinets, push the cubbies up to the ceiling, and then mount a pole to hang clothes from - but I fear Casey will just end up using it as a second closet
Last edited by civicdrivr; 10-27-2019 at 06:07 PM.
I'm just kidding...I wish I was more of a measure twice cut once guy. I cut like 10 times then I'm like fuggidgood enough.
Plans look great...garage looks great...girlfriend with goofy faces looks great.
Much love, Morgan.
I love that you're a Morgan and not a Morgcan't.
You're making all of your own cabinets? That's a pretty good endeavor...
Also, I wish I had 70's and 40's to work with here. Instead I have 30's and 20's.
Yeah,I have a few other projects in the house that require building cabinets, and I figured I'd like some experience building them before I tackle those.
Originally Posted by thoiboi
excited to see what it looks like outside of CAD Excel!
FTFY I use what I can to map out this stuff The drawings themselves are not perfectly to scale - for example, the drawings of the laundry room and back wall are down to the nearest half inch, but the plywood materials are 11/16". The overall outside dimensions are accurate and the measurements on my cutlist are as well. I'm still massaging the layout though to make cutting easier - right now it's looking like I'll be making about 130 cuts on 12 or thirteen sheets. But, for cost reasons, I may shrink the cabinets down a little bit. Right now they're at 26" deep, not including the door. This is mainly so I can store my floor jacks, but if I shrink it down to 24", I can use way less plywood.
Things have been pretty quiet on the house project front. I've started a few projects but between holidays, work and travel, I haven't had time to make any meaningful progress, with the exception of one - an entryway table.
This was something we've been talking about building since September... of 2018 . My girlfriend gave me some ideas of what she was looking for, so I threw a sketch together, planned out the build, and took a trip to the big orange home improvement store. The majority of the table is built out of 2x4s. The slats on the bottom are 1x4s, the top is two 2x10s that were cut down to size, and the X's on the side are 2x2s. It was about $40 worth of untreated pine - hold your scoffs @SamDoe1
Since the 2x4s and 2x10s from the big box stores have that ugly rounded edge, I used my table saw to take off about an eighth of an inch on each side for a nice square edge. The 1x4s and 2x2s were left as is. Once it was together I was able to mark out the angles for the Xs on the sides and the overall size of the top, cut everything down, and finish assembly with some trim around where the top meets the base. Here it is after final sand:
For a finish, we settled on one coat of Varathane Espresso followed by a matte sealer on the base and paste wax rubbed with #0000 steel wool on the top. And yes, Casey is basic with all decor
It's certainly not perfect, but we like it and it works well in the space we have. I learned a few things building this one, and I've got two buyers lined up for tables just like this over the next month or so, so I'll apply a few changes to those for a better product.
Cost: $40 in wood, ~$20 in hardware (which will be used across many projects), $10ish in stain and supplies.
Didn't make it out of Brazilian rosewood? GTFO peasant.
Table looks good man. What did you use to put it together, just screws? I ask because home store untreated pine is not very dry wood and isn't all that stable dimenisonally. You should be fine but it'll probably warp with the seasons. If you just used screws (pocket holes), you should be ok but if you glued it together you may get some cracking or similar.
Nice work though! If your GF needs some more "basic" decor, hit me up. I'd be down for making you guys some custom stuff if you're interested.
Didn't make it out of Brazilian rosewood? GTFO peasant.
Table looks good man. What did you use to put it together, just screws? I ask because home store untreated pine is not very dry wood and isn't all that stable dimenisonally. You should be fine but it'll probably warp with the seasons. If you just used screws (pocket holes), you should be ok but if you glued it together you may get some cracking or similar.
Nice work though! If your GF needs some more "basic" decor, hit me up. I'd be down for making you guys some custom stuff if you're interested.
For my skill level, I'd rather just mess around with cheap lumbar.
Just screws. We bought the wood months ago and I had it stored to hopefully dry out a little bit more before assembly (also a good excuse to be lazy about it lol). When I graduate to building a dining room table, I'll be getting dimensional wood from one of the local lumbar yards. But for this, it was more of a learning experience.
For my skill level, I'd rather just mess around with cheap lumbar.
Just screws. We bought the wood months ago and I had it stored to hopefully dry out a little bit more before assembly (also a good excuse to be lazy about it lol). When I graduate to building a dining room table, I'll be getting dimensional wood from one of the local lumbar yards. But for this, it was more of a learning experience.
10-27-2019, 05:57 PM
It went from 70s in the morning at 90s in the afternoon at the beginning of October to 40s and mid-70s here. There was no easing into it either 
) is this:
I love you too J
