BIG changes coming my way!!
 

As the title says things in my life have started to change and are getting to change alot more. Back in November my fiance's father became very sick and we found out that he had lung cancer. In January he broke his hip and the doctor told us that the cancer had spread to his bones and that he had 2 weeks to live. We decided that if we wanted him to walk her down the isle that we had to get married the next weekend(Our original wedding date was planned for June 9th, a week from now). The wedding happened and her father passed away 8 days later. In April, my wife and I found out that we are expecting our first child! Due date is December 11th.
Right now I live in the ultimate Man Cave. It is a 30x40 3 car garage with an upstairs apartment above it. The perfect place to work on cars and have my buddies over. It's not the perfect place to raise a family though. My wife and I have decided to add on to our house and make it a nicer place to live. Here is a picture of the front of our current house.

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

In order to add on to the house, we are going to go through an order of events. 1st step is building a new man cave/garage for the chevy's. Once the new garage is built we are then going to emty the house into the garage and then add on to the existing house and make it our dream home. The new house will have a new 2 car garage, we are adding 3 more bedrooms and two baths, redoing the kitchen and adding a fireplace. (We are now adding 1 bedroom and redoing the entire house. Hopefully adding the other 2 and 2 more baths in the future.)

Here is the start of the new man cave. It is going to be 28x30 with the trusses designed with the webbing spread alittle down with middle for storage. I dug the footers on wednesday, I rented a mini excavator, because it hasn't rained here in ages and the ground is as hard as a rock. A friend of mine pours concrete for a living and was going to pour it on friday but ended up having kidney stone trouble and won't get to it until monday morning. I have all of the materials on site to build garage except for siding because Im not sure what color we are going with on the house so we are going to wait for that.

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

Hey buddy... no wonder I haven't heard from you in a while. :D

First off, congrats on the marriage and best wishes to both.
Secondly, again we were sorry to learn about her dad and the entire situation.
Thirdly.... congrats on the new addition. It will change your lives but it is entirely worth it. :)

Now, keep us posted on your progress on the remodel and the baby. And if you loose a little space and need some cash, I might be able to take a few items out of your way. Haha!

Keep in touch, keep the pics coming, and send our regards to your wife and little (incubating) bundle of joy.

Cheers buddy!

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

Concrete is coming at 7:30 in the morning and I got everything ready for the pour today. I have dug 24" deep footers 12" wide and my floor will be 6" thick. I know that 4" is all i have to have but to me it just seems thin. I'd rather spend the money and feel good about it.

If anyone one was wondering what the fence like thing is behind where the garage is being built, it is another one of my projects. We are starting a mini-vineyard. My dad makes wine out of various fruits and we are going to produce our own grapes for the cause. the plants are only 3 years old, we will have to wait another year or two for good grapes.

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Thanks a bunch Nate!! I plan on keeping track of the whole thing on here. When I think about it, I'll post some pics. of some new things I've picked up lately! ;)

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Can't wait to see what you have rounded up. I noticed the vineyard when I was out there last year.

Keep the progress shots coming. :)

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here are some signs I have picked up over the last couple of months. I have to find the letters for the DX 3D signs in the last pic.
the Sinclair and the DX in the 3rd pic. are both double sided.

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concrete went down today. I probably wont get much done until next week. We have our reception on Saturday and family will start coming in on Wednesday.

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

Sorry to hear about your wife's father. Congrats on the little one. Looks like you have a nice family and nice set for the toys as well :)

Ray

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

Nothing like fresh concrete... :D

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So much fun watching the building go up. Even more fun working in it!

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

I couldn't have said it better so X2. The only thing I can say different is that most peeps add garages to their homes not homes to garages!:lol: Congrats on everything and so sorry for your families loss.

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I'm loving it! Thanks

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Thanks!, Thats funny to say, I never thought of it that way.

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

Got a little done on the walls today, the north and south walls. My buddy is coming over tomorrow to help me raise these, then I will be able to build the east and west walls. Hopefully I will be setting trusses on friday or saturday.

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

We got the walls up on friday and we set trusses on Saturday morning. I was originally going to put 9 ft. walls up but changed my mind after all the materials were delivered to have them 10 ft. The lumber yard picked up the old material and delivered the new for a difference of $36. The garage doors are 8 ft. tall and I was worried about clearence inside. Im very glad we made the change. The trusses went very well, a friend of mine trims trees for a living and he used his bucket truck. cost me $125 for 3hrs of his help. well worth it to me. Now, we have to finish the decking on the back of garage and I have to hang the fly rafters then finish the OSB on the side walls.

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

Nice! Coming right along!
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Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

Got everything all buttoned up and ready for shingles. I started roofing today and with the 96 degree temp I could barely hold onto the shingles and they were sticking to everything so I decided to work on it some tonight and get up early tomorrow. I'm going with Natural Timber as the color, which is the same as the house. We are not sure what we are going to do for siding when we redo the house so we are going to wait to pick that color out later. But here is where I'm at right now. And Yes, that is a second garage door on the side with the entry door, we are taking the garage doors off of the house to put on here, since we have two I thought it would be a great door to pull the mower in and out of so I wouldn't have to move the vehicles to get it out.

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

Looking good! Smart move on both re-using the doors and adding the second one for easy side entry. Even if you hardly ever use it...when you do it'll make it all worth it instead of having to move things around...

and I understand on the roofing...have helped on a couple of roofing jobs and we did them on cooler days and it still got hot...can't imagine on a near 100 degree day...

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

[QUOTE=VA72C10;5445809]Looking good! Smart move on both re-using the doors and adding the second one for easy side entry. Even if you hardly ever use it...when you do it'll make it all worth it instead of having to move things around...
QUOTE]

My thought exactly, we are putting new doors on the house when we remodel so it is a win win deal for us. They cost me $2300 when I put them up 6 years ago, so it will be nice to save that cost on this garage.

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A little update.... I finally got the west side roofed and started the east side. It may be a few days before that side is done, we are supposed to have the next 4 or 5 days over 100 degrees here, so I have been staying off because of temps. I put the windows in today and I finished the attic space where we will have 300 sq ft of storage!! I am going to look at entry doors tonight or tomorrow and will have that it soon. Because the garage doors are coming off of the house I have to get everything ready to the point that I can empty the garage on the house and put it all in this garage and my goal for that is 3 weeks from now. We are adding on to that side of the house so I will be placing new walls where the doors are now. Here are some pics.

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Inside pics.

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Not much of an update. I haven't worked on the garage in 5 days because of the high temps here. We have had a very unusual run of temps over 100 degrees here, I think 6 days now, and the next week looks the same. I got the entry door installed and I decided to put some windows in the attic space. They aren't very big but will allow some light and a fresh breeze through it. Got a little more roofing done too.

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Awesome progress buddy.

This place is going to look awesome when you're done. Just let me know when the wine is ready. Haha! :D

Re: BIG changes coming my way!!
 

nice job so far