Spring! and Garage Project Phase II

Oliver is 16 months old. We need to start writing down his ever growing vocabulary! He recently impressed us with "apple," "eye" (including finger jab into dad's said object), and "mouth." Generally, he gets more talkative the closer he is to the ground. Drop him down to run in the grocery store and you'll soon be hearing about everything he can point at.

He likes to walk around the block, where he can point out birds or an ever-present FedEx airplane passing overhead (we live directly under their landing zone to the airport -- not that they're scraping our roofs or anything).

Here are a few classic toddler negatives: He's suddenly not enjoying his bath. His mastery of the fork and spoon also needs work. And when denied something, we get a real show of stomping and crying. Fun!
But we love the little guy.

Here is my garage. It was built with the house in 1928, and was clearly cobbled together with scrap lumber left over from the main house. After rainwater leaked in and ruined a bunch of stuff and some thefts from the less-than-secure structure, I decided to start restoring it.

Phase I was last fall, when my dad and brothers (what would I do without them?) helped me put a new roof on the building. That took care of the water problem. The next big issue was the foundation. When it was built, the builders stacked a wall of bricks 3 high and laid the wood on top. They built up from there. Over the years, the bricks sank, the soil rose (under a big cedar tree), and the bottom sill thoroughly rotted out. The whole structure was leaning. I didn't even know there was a brick foundation until I'd done a lot of digging!

Rotten 4 X 6 sill

Phase II started over the winter, as I reinforced the roof structure, adding metal brackets anywhere I could. Yesterday, my dad, brothers and I did a LOT more reinforcement, then set up jacks and posts under giant beams I'd affixed to the ceiling truss structure. Using 4 jacks, we slowly lifted the whole structure off the ground about 10 inches. It was stop and go. There was a constant discussion about how to proceed, and we always erred on the side of safety, deciding that we needed more support and insurance for our points of failure. We were soon ducking under a network of cross-ties, but we got the job done. The rotten sill was knocked off and we were able to get some of the foundation forms in place.

NEXT!

Phase III: Concrete poured in for a new floor on one side and fill in the concrete forms.

Phase IV: Lower the structure onto the new foundation.

Phase V: Rebuild the doors, replace the window, etc.

That should do it. After that, I'll just work away as time allows, building workbenches and a ladder to the loft. More home projects are waiting, and this will be the construction base.