One of the decisions we made to start the whole house project was to build the garage first. There were a couple of reasons why we wanted to tackle just a small part of building before going whole-hog on the house.

1. It allowed us to test out some of the contractors we’d need for the house. It was as much a test for them as it was for us being the GC’s for this project. We had to make different plans that a contractor could use vs what we used for design. We had to figure out permitting, setbacks, code, and all those processes. We got practice getting multiple bids (always get more than one- three is preferred) and negotiating what those bids would include at what price.
2. We would be able to offset some of the costs of the overall house project by doing the garage a year early. We have been mortgage free for some time and we’ve been able to pay for the garage project with savings.
3. We would be creating storage on-site that we could use for tools, building materials, and appliances while we rented.
4. We’re learning realistic time frames for completion of work- something I think will come in handy as we go into the larger house project.

The foundation was long delayed due to a very rainy October, leaving us roofing the weekend of Thanksgiving in a desperate attempt to get it dried in before winter really hit. Though I’ll be honest, we (Jim and I) were roofing and being snowed on that week. We also got some help from Jim’s brother Neil and they were able to finish the roof and move materials under cover of the garage.

Jim and I then installed the garage doors. Heavy, beautiful, expensive things. There’s a whole story on picking out, ordering, and getting a crazy good deal on these doors.

But we knew we couldn’t continue to work on the garage and still maintain even one shred of sanity throughout the holidays. Once December hit, we had to take a hiatus. Though the holidays are meant to be joyful, I struggle with having fun during a very short month of ALL.THE.THINGS. So we agreed to just wait until after Miss K’s birthday in early January.

Two weekends ago we had planned and prepared and were ready to get back at it, but the weather still wasn’t cooperating. (We did some material shopping instead).  So this past weekend we geared back up and hoped that the temps would remain mild as forecasted and the rain would hold off until overnight. And we got lucky. 40 degrees felt marvelous.

Jim and I spent two full days working to get the garage ‘sealed in’. This meant that the soffits (the part that overhangs from the wall plane out to the edge where your gutter would be) had to be covered to keep the birds from flying in and making a lovely home in our garage. The back side and gable end soffits are only 6 inches deep, but the front has a very deep overhang of three and a half feet. With a total length of 108 feet on four sides, that’s a lot of aluminum panels to cut.

There are 3 major components of getting this part of the project complete:

1. Attach the J-channel to the wall of the garage. The J-channel holds the end of the soffit panels.
2. Cut each 16 inch soffit panel to depth and slide it both into the J-channel at the back of the wall and into the next soffit panel (they have a tongue and groove nesting type attachment)
3. Cover the end of the soffit panel and the fascia board with fascia trim (this slides under your drip edge and just gets tacked into place)

After two days of work we have four sides with J-channel, three sides with soffit, and one side completed with all three steps. That means… still a lot more work.

We also installed exterior recessed lights centered over each garage door, which you can see in the picture below of Jim installing a soffit panel (it looks like a hole, but it’s a purposeful hole!).

And just because I love to bore you, I’ll show you the one side we did complete so you’ll know what it’s  supposed to look like when we’re all done. But still so much more work to do.

You might wonder how we know all this. Well we’ve never completed work like this, but dang it there’s a whole internet out there. And people love to tell and show you how to do most anything. So with the power of YouTube we watched a few videos and figured it out because we have some experience and can apply common sense.