It’s been a while since I last posted – too long. Life has been busy! Our youngest graduated High School, so there was the graduation party, I took on a new role at work which dramatically increased my hours, our Church Picnic, family camping, moving our youngest off to college, lots of other family and church things, and fitting in working on the house in the middle of all that. In the midst of all this, I had 3 technology upgrades (sorta 4). My work computer, my phone, and my personal computer (twice). I upgraded my personal computer with a much newer hand-me-down, it started to crash – consistently – so hand-me-down #2. (Sigh)

This is not meant to be an excuse – just sharing why updates got put on the back burner and a gentle prod from a friend moved them up front. (Thanks Bas).

We had fully intended to put up a garage closer to the house. The current garage is a bit farther from the house than we would like. The plan was a 3 stall garage for both vehicles plus our pop-up camper. Then the market went crazy! From a 6 week period from March to May the cost of materials alone (not the slab, and not paying anyone to hammer even 1 nail) rose $7,000 (that’s not a type, seven THOUSAND dollars). We were sick.

We would have to wait for the market to stabilize and prices to (hopefully) come down. We were realistic, even when the prices came down, it was unlikely that they would return to what they had been. The question also came, could we make due with a smaller garage? The question was how. We had these outbuildings, but there was a problem with each one. Granary/chicken coop had no large doors (and was promised as my she-shed). There was not enough room between the machine shed and the barn to fit the van with the camper attached to back up into it. Unlike many area barns there are no double doors on the barn. The doors on the existing garage have only about 3 inches to spare (not per side, but 3 inches total, 1 1/2 inches on each side of the camper) way too close for us.

Then one day I’m standing in the garage and look up at (what looks to me) a header. I asked Brad if we could just turn the single doors into one double door, then there would be plenty of room for the camper. Brad had to pause and said he had to check on something. He measured the distance from the garage to the barn (we hadn’t paid attention to that since we thought the doors made the garage not an option).

It was close, but there was enough room! So we decided to reduce the garage plan down to 2 stalls. This was actually almost a relief on multiple levels. Not only was it more cost effective, but it put the far footing further from the underground line that runs to the main house, and aesthetically it would look better to have a smaller footprint. Then there was the question of whether or not the placement was a good idea.

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The question was how to see what it will look like before it is built. With poles and a tarp we simulated the North wall and what it would look like looking out the kitchen window. With our original plan there was a tunnel effect. We moved the poles and tarps just a couple feet to the South and just being able to see the North end of the barn gave the feel of being so much more open.

Brad re-drew the garage plans and submitted them of approval to the building inspector and to the County. Everything was set.

Now we just needed 2 things.
1. The price of materials to come down.
2. The basement floor to get poured (more on that in a future post).

That’s it for now, more of the summer projects to come.