My Big Fat Renovation

[67ChevyRedneck]

It's rained so much here this year. It's really hard to complain when we've had years of bad drought before, but dang. We're like +25" already for the year. I used this on Tuesday to move some brush trimmings, this is from a rain storm on Wednesday and a HORRIBLE storm that rolled through on Friday. This was in the center-ish of the slope, and I know the nose adds a little extra, but we still got at least 3.5-4" of rain from just two storms.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Jena had her baby shower this weekend, so I had to make the yard nice, pressure wash the front of the house and porch, finish up the kids room.... but I was able to get the two man-doors installed.

This is how I've done my last few door installs. One of these really slick plastic door pans and wrapping the door jam.

Had a little oopsie with the door measurement... There was still plenty of trim overlap and I had already wrapped it, so I let it go.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I had just gotten the door fit, a beautiful sunny day went to this in like 5 minutes.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I'm glad I checked the 2nd door, because it was way off, more so than the other. Not sure what happened... I was so close on all the windows... I couldn't let this one go, it got a 2x6 spacer added.

Ignore the trim. Those pans on the bottom stick out a bit from the wall, I need to shave the backside of the trim a touch so everything sits flush. I never use the wood trim they come with, it always ends up looking like crap in a couple years. I always replace exterior moldings with the new PVC stuff. It really seems to last a lot longer, doesn't shrink/swell anywhere near what the wood does, and paint doesn't peel/flake off from expansion/contraction like it does on the wood, especially with the humidity swings and rain we get here. I painted the PVC trim around the garage and back door 3 years ago and aside from washing it to keep it clean, no paint is coming off.

[Palf70Step]

That has been our weather also lately Jesse. Bake ya, then drown ya, then steam ya. Glad you got to get some stuff done on the shop.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Finally, the electrician I wanted to use is booked THROUGH OCTOBER. He said he stopped taking jobs 3 weeks ago.

I talked to another guy that was highly recommended, and he wants me to look into a 2nd meter

With as much load as my house can use in the summer, it's probably for the best. The only thing that sucks is Duke charges a $12/mo meter fee and it's another $5 for the first 30KW of power (they're telling me a 2nd meter has to be "commercial") so I'll be paying +/-$200/yr whether or not I use any juice or not. I guess it's a 10 year trade off... it's about 2K to have my electrician do a sub-panel and Duke will set my meter/panel almost for free... so it's a wash the first 10 years.

I guess it makes more sense, if I ever want to add air (not likely) or heat (much more likely) it will be nice to have the capacity to do so.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

That has been our weather also lately Jesse. Bake ya, then drown ya, then steam ya. Glad you got to get some stuff done on the shop.

No kidding. The temp dropped on saturday during that rain storm to 75*, it was gone, then back up to 94* and sun. I got soaked trying to get the door square because I had just set it in the silicone when the downpour started.

I've lived in the upstate 21 years next month, I don't ever remember a year when it's rained so much over such a long period of time (started like November last year).

[Palf70Step]

Ours seems to be normal-ish. WE went about 2 months with basically no rain. It went just south or north of us. Now it is on us and looks like it will be that way a while. Oh well, as I tell folks welcome to the gulf coast of Mississippi. Give it a minute, it will be wet....either the good way (rain) or the normal (sweat ur hiney off).

[Ol Blue K20]

We could use some of that rain here. I'm glad you're still making some progress on the shop.

[mongocanfly]

looks good Jesse ...

[67ChevyRedneck]

No August updates, but plenty went on. The little guy will be here soon enough and I needed to get the house garage cleaned out for the wife to use. That was a lot of work. Most of the crap I was able to throw away, old worn out parts, boxes, etc.

The first pic was after a full day of cleaning, it was bad. I have my Pontiac 400 and GM crate motor on the right with all their parts, all of the crap in here will go into the shop. This garage will just have house supplies and I might as well keep all of the fluids in here too. I'm also going to replace the door when I do the shop doors, I'm going to ask if they can raise it 1 to 2' so we can open the hatch on the SUV inside.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Then the electrician came and said he needed all of my cars out of the shop, and hail is always a threat here, so I thread the needle and shoved both of these in. It's actually a lot tighter than it looks.

And since we've apparently become the new Seattle weather-wise I had my first shop BBQ.

And my garage door opening is not sagging, my phone does that crap all the time with pics.

[67ChevyRedneck]

The electric was roughed in. Went WAY over budget on this. Original quote was $4,200 with $2,200 for lights (those LED strip lights are $$$!)

This thing is set up though. I have a dedicated plug for fridge/freezer, 6 plugs per each long wall with no more than 2 on a circuit, one plug on each short wall, a 220 under the stairs for the compressor and another for the welder on the side wall, 7 exterior lights, 3 rows of LED ceiling lights each row on their own switch, lights for the upstairs, and 3 exterior GFI (apparently this is actually code), AND a plug up high for my TV . I figured with the little one we can hide out in the shop to give mama a break

And the biggest thing is the box was plumbed for a future A/C/Heat connection. I'll run PVC down the back corner for a drip line, A/C lines, and power. The plan is to replace our house upstairs unit and attic blower next spring, so if I do the shop before that the wife will hurt me...

[67ChevyRedneck]

So, the second meter kicked Duke Power into installing a new 25 whatever transformer to replace the 15 whatever... I can't remember the units they said. So me and my neighbor should be plenty good on power consumption.

They will also be installing the new line to the shop. The transformer and line were FINALLY something for "free" because of the new revenue stream.

So, my electric ended up costing an extra $1,100, a few of the things listed above we added when work started and the biggest kicker was we hit freaking rock after 2-3 feet.

I got a call at 9AM that they couldn't get the 8' ground rods in the ground. Great. I left work and went to help. I ended up renting a giant 50 pound jack hammer with a ground rod tip. Of course it managed it get one down 7' and no matter where we tried a second one, the best we could get was 4'. So we ended up running a heavier gauge ground wire over to the other side of the shop and was able to get two more in the ground at the correct depth and separations. I bought the extra materials and tool rental and did all the running around, which ended up being about $300, all the extra time (this should have taken 30 minutes, it took HOURS) and extra add-ons from above I agreed to pay them an extra $800. But it passed inspection, Duke has installed the transformer last week, and their scheduled to do the new line sometime this week, maybe next.

The shop also shows up on GIS now. The red square is where I'm plumbing the A/C too.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I also went up to NY for a family graduation party (oldest grandkid has graduated HS) and got to hang out with my older twin for a bit. Not sure what I was so surprised at....

I love and miss this big dork so much. All this crap I can do is because of him. I know I put in the work, but he pushed me in the direction of being self reliant/independent and to have the confidence to do the work myself.

My only regret for leaving rural NY. My parents should be able to retire early and I hope they can come down for a 2-3 weeks at a time a couple times a year.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I was so on the fence about the next item. I really wanted to skip it for time, but I thought it would look sooooooooooo cool. It was part of my original design. I checked the roof eaves with a string and all corners were within 1/8 to 1/4" of each other. Considering the walls are 52' long, that's an error of 0.04%

I decided to move forward with the extra work to build the accent roofs. I started with the back in case I hated it and could tear it off.

[67ChevyRedneck]

More progress...

[67ChevyRedneck]

More....

[67ChevyRedneck]

I just had to throw some color up!

[67ChevyRedneck]

This was the best way I could figure out how to do the soffit trim. I couldn't find any videos or info online of how people did this.

I made sure to not nail any shingles within a few inches of this area so that they can be replaced without removing the soffit material.

[67ChevyRedneck]

And BOOM! COLOR!!!

I really love how this came out. It actually makes the shop and doors look a little smaller than they are.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I have ordered my tin to do the entire roof. I did some math and I'll be a few panels short on soffit material, so I need to go pick up a few more. If my tin comes in, my goal for memorial weekend is to finish the front roof and siding and get all the tin up. Worst case, at least get the tin up on the peaks. I just want to get the tin up while it's in the 80's. I learned my lesson on installing it when cooler... it expands too much when it gets hot as hell and looks wavy. Better to install it hot than cool.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I also got the front pretty far. I only have to add one more angled support on each end then I can plywood and shingle it.

Also, it was HOT and HUMID on sunday and the front is in full sun after noon-ish. This was my pants after only 30 minutes when the sun came out. I was soaked by the end of the day. It reached 98* by 4PM. It wore me out.

[67ChevyRedneck]

And last ones for now

I'll add a cut 45* board to fill in the gap at the front. It worked out really well in the back. I didn't want to add it with the predicted rain this week. It's a PIA to cut. Forgot to get a good pic, but you can kinda see it in the last pic from the back. When I did that long accent roof in the back over the deck, I actually took the time to cut all the angled trusses to have that piece as part of the truss, and it took soooo much time. These, I just cut a little short, used my level to line it up, made sure they were level across each other, and nailed away. Soooo much faster than trying to make a ton of fancy cuts.

[mongocanfly]

Looks good Jesse...those accent roofs look good..
I dont have anything over doors on my shop..and the lower panels of my doors are starting to show the damage..hopefully my house will get built next yr , and I'll replace my shop doors when they do my garage doors...then I'm adding a 8-10 ft "porch" on the front of my shop...mostly just to keep the water off my doors...