Remodeling Our Hut Part 30: Garage Lean-to Addition

With the pillars done by October 23, and no time to spare before the first snowstorm, we had to jump into our next project; a lean-to addition to our existing garage. 

Carl started digging post holes for the pressure-treated beams which would be used for the back wall on October 24. 

Carl has been running in circles for months, working full-time, he tried to fit in as much work before dark as possible.  As usual, I stood around taking pictures.  

Yep, that's a hole alright.

The back of the house had yet to be sided as we were waiting for the order of shake siding to come in. The plans had originally called for shake only on the front of the house, but we opted for all four gables to be done the same way.  We're glad we did as we view the back of the house more than the front from the gardens.

When the original house roof was cut out for the new gable in July, I saved all the old rafters, pulled out the nails and stacked them up to use for the garage addition.  

 

 Such a mess, but a lot of those old boards did come in handy.

The weather was unseasonably cold in October but at least it didn't rain quite as much as it had all summer long.

While Carl was digging holes for the posts, I was busy tearing off the old garage siding.

I've ripped off and picked up my share of vinyl siding and tar paper this year, that's for sure.  And nails....sheesh, so many nails.

Our friend Cody was instrumental in building the lean-to.  He brought over a gas-powered post hole digger for the last of the posts.

Because the garage was higher off the ground now due to having a frost wall foundation, we were able to build out twelve feet for the addition and still have enough headroom to walk out of the doors.  We're going to park our lawnmower in the new addition and move storage of gasoline and other smelly stuff out of the main garage.

While Carl was at work during the week, I kept tearing off siding during the day. 

We needed to get the garage doors back on the front of the building too.  We cleaned up our old brown doors and painted them to match the off-white trim.

The garage doors are well over twenty-five years old, but with a little luck, they'll be fine for another twenty.  

While Carl was working on fixing up and painting the garage doors, on Saturday, October 26, Ann came over to help me finish taking the siding and aluminum soffit off. 

 

 We had an impressive pile of aluminum to take in for recycling, it didn't bring much, but it was worth it to keep it out of the dump.

 After dark, Ann and I had a nice long chat around the campfire.  It felt good to sit down and soak up some heat.

 Monday, October 28, Cody came over after work and started putting up rafters.  We had to order more tin for the roof but it came in much faster than the house tin did, thankfully.

 Saturday, November 2, the roof tin arrived and so did some frozen precipitation.   While Carl and Cody were putting the tin on, tiny ice pellets were bouncing off the roof in all directions.    

I had to dig my calla lily bulbs for storage and replant some daffodils that had been uprooted when we tore up the front flower beds.  While I was digging stuff out, Briana came over and helped me clean up the dead hosta leaves and foliage which was very much appreciated.  A little later on, Joel stopped in and hauled  loads of garden waste to the compost pile.  The snow/hail kept on for quite awhile, but despite the weather, we all kept going. 

 Sunday, November 3, and Carl and Cody had the plywood sheeting on the lean-to.  If that lovely orange vinyl 'siding' looks familiar, it should, since the plywood used to be in our kitchen, and yes, there's that familiar flooring one more time.  

Carl wasn't crazy about reusing the plywood.  

"I never want to see the orange vinyl again!" he said.

His negative attitude about the kitchen floor plywood kinda stumped me as he's usually the one who says we have to keep everything.  I told him it gives the garage an extra layer of protection from the elements, and besides it will be behind the vinyl siding so we won't have to look at it.  

 I told Carl to ignore the wall until the siding was done.

Since, in a surprising role reversal, it was my idea to reuse the glamorous orange vinyl plywood, I guess the old saying is true.

 

 'You get like the people you live with.'