9.02.2011

{renovate} the garage ... three years later

It recently occurred to me that a few years ago I shared pictures of our garage *before* and our garage *progress*, but never of the finished garage. Then I remembered it was because, 2 years later, we still hadn't finished painting it. PLEASE someone tell me we're not the only ones who lose motivation when we're this | | close to finishing a project?! Really, all we had left to do was finish painting the trim. Which is exactly what I set out to do last weekend.

As a reminder, here is the garage in 2008. Notice the tarp on the roof? Notice how the garage door doesn't eve come close to fitting?


It's hard to tell, but the structure was actually leaning a little also, and was just a plain mess. Not structurally sound is an understatement.




Oh, and I can't forget my favorite ... the boarded up door! The great part about this project is the original siding of the garage (the green boards above), is the same siding we needed to finished out the screened porch (see photos here). So we were actually able to salvage a lot of the garage boards and put them to very good use.
This is as far we got in 2009. It's hard to tell here, but the garage is actually done. It's a horrible picture, but I thought you'd all enjoy the wood stripe :). There was a board missing from the middle when they finished construction in the fall, so I had painted the gap to help in blend better until we could add the missing board. Then, after the Oregon painting window was over, Chris added the unfinished board. Classy.


Last summer, I made huge progress! I painted the wood stripe, and I filled the holes in the trim boards.  What? Huge is a relative term :). I actually walked out of the house with paint and paint brush in hand one day with every intention of finishing this up, only to find the people who were painting our neighbors house had actually taped off the garage so they wouldn't hit our garage too. While I appreciate that, it was definitely a motivation killer.

That bring us to last weekend when I FINALLY finished! I painted over the filled holes and I added black trim around the door, to match our house trim.

 

Now, I think we can all call this is a HUGE difference from the beginning. This was the very first big project we undertook together. I can't say I worked a lot on the construction, but I did paint the whole thing :). Chris, his dad, and the same wonderful friend who helped with our back entry, tore the existing garage down to the studs. They rebuilt the walls, layed the roof, and finished it off with siding that matched our house. Honestly, at first I didn't see why we this was such a priority -- there was still so much we needed to do inside -- but now I'm so happy it's done. It makes a huge difference in our house's appearance.

And, from the side. Did you all actually think we'd moved the Shanghai sign yet?? The good news is that I know where it's going to live, so in the next couple weeks it'll have a new home. I'll be sure to show you photos.

Don't you LOVE crossing pesky projects off your list? It's only took me 3 years and 30 minutes to finish painting the garage :).

So please, help me feel better here .... what unfinished projects do you right now that you just can't seem to get done?

And also, I hope you all have a FANTASTIC long weekend! :)

5 comments:

  1. Haha perfect timing as usual on this post Jenn. It seems like we always have the same sorts of projects going on at the same time! For us, it's interior trim, but trim painting nonetheless. Your garage looks amazing though. So much improvement!!

    Maybe this weekend I'll finally take a day and finish painting our hallway trim. It's a never-ending task!

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  2. I have the same project at our first house. I painted all the trim except for the floorboards in our old house because I got tired of it. So all the doors and door frames are bright white, but in the bedrooms the trim is still a nasty yellow.

    I'm assuming our college guy tenants don't mind too much, but it is definitely something I will finish when they move out!

    You're garage looks great!

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  3. I'm glad I'm not the only 1 that has a key hanger on projects. Your garage looks fantastic and I love the car!

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  4. Oh, where to begin on unfinished projects? How about the mirror that's leaning, unpainted, against the fireplace? Or the chair with the reupholstered cushion that now just needs to get painted? Or the garage I keep talking about organizing? Or the linen pinboard I've been meaning to make for absolutely ever? Or the Incredible Growing Pile of Magazines?

    And when you think a move might be on the horizon, it gets even worse. Am I really going to move all of these unfinished projects?

    Hmm...this should officially be my kick in the ass before the snow flies.

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  5. You did a pretty good job on remodeling your garage. Looking at the before and after pictures, I say it’s a lot of improvement. The main reason that people have a garage is to have a proper parking space for their vehicles. But, over the years, it became a storage place for unwanted stuff. Like basements, you can turn your garage into something valuable. You can make it into a workspace or your office. So, give it a little attention and make it a habit to clean and organize your garage.

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