It’s all about that garage

They say it’s all about that bass but for me it was all about that garage. I was bored last winter and went on Pintrest. Gasp! Oh the horror… Some of you may commiserate with my poor hubby; it has been the source of several ‘great’ ideas and projects.

Prior to this ‘great’ idea hatching, our garage was stud walls only. No insulation and no drywall with open rafters all the way.

I look around the garage. After cleaning, okay, serious deep cleaning and maybe a few shovels, it should be a fairly straightforward project. It took a week but it was finally empty. The previous owners hadn’t cleaned out the garage when they left so… yeah. You know what I’m saying right? I went through the whole business of calling around for quotes on insulation and drywall. I googled ‘how to…’ and figured I knew how to play the game. I’m good with tools but I’ve never done this kind of project before.

Some of you are no doubt laughing at the display of beginner naiveté and over calculation of the length of the project. I thought, hands down, I’d be done within the month.

You may now commence laughing yourselves silly. I know I did later, when it was funny, that is. Yeah…

I didn’t realize that the garage wasn’t framed with the intent to finish it. Meaning, they cut corners and left out the necessary studs in the corners to affix the drywall to. Ahh, my poor hubby. He loves me so and he very nicely volunteered to help me out with it and do that.

Then it was putting in the insulation. It wasn’t bad and going all pretty well till I realized that I’d have to cut all these smaller pieces for the random widths and lengths that were left under the windows and over the doors. Sigh. Well, that was easy.

Next, on to putting up the plastic (the vapor barrier stuff). I thought 'give me a hammer tacker and plastic and let me roll!' Ha. Yeah right. Of course, I would somehow pick the nastiest, stickiest and most humid day to put it up. It happened to be the same day that a storm rolled through and took out the power, including the fan that was pushing air around in the garage. It would be fun they said. No fun, here, none at all.

Well, me and hubby survived. We got ‘er done that day, which totally sucked. I inadvertently got a couple days of a break from the garage while I waited for the delivery of the drywall. Since our garage is attached my hubby decided to go all five eighths instead of trying to mix in half inch here and there.

Let me tell you, those buggers are heavy! I’m not a lightweight at picking up what I put down but when hubby says ‘just hold it for a bit so I can get it level’ and takes his sweet time doing so… I will say and repeat, sink a few screws already! It took a few days to do the walls but then there was the ceiling. Oh the ceiling, how I don’t like you.

Fortunately we had bought a drywall lift when it came time to do the ceiling. It was so handy it made me wonder why we didn’t get it sooner to use for the walls too. Hmmmm… My handsome hubby worked in the evenings after coming in from the fields to put up a few sheets or one each night. A couple of weeks went by. Finally it was done!

Now for the taping and mudding; and don’t forget about the sanding and repeat. The taping and mudding I found to be both mind-numbing yet relaxing-ish. The sanding though, that was a whole new ball game. I work out but the whole wax on, wax off over every single seam (walls and ceiling) proved to a bitter enemy and a vengeful victor. My muscles hurt for days afterwards. I thought my hand would never grip (or flex) anything again.

Don’t forget the second layer!

Grumble, grumble, grumble. How could I possibly forget? Apparently one coat isn’t good enough, three is the best but it’s a garage, I’m okay with two coats. And I’m on a time crunch. The garage has to be finished by end of the following week. So I had ten days to finish sanding, mudding, sanding and painting.

Meanwhile, every now and then I get a murmur of ‘you should come play/work in the shop with me’ or ‘come ride in the tractor with me.’ I love doing those things or being the actual operator of the machinery but this project really needed to come to an end. For my sanity.

I made the self-imposed deadline! The wall finished out nicely with a canvas color, a light ivory and the ceiling a ‘Versailles sky’ blue. I envision the trim to be a cloudy gray, which I’ll do this winter in the shop. I also sealed the floor with a made-for-it epoxy and its corresponding blue and white sprinkles. I mean, who doesn’t love scrubbing the floor and filling the cracks in with concrete glue?! Really, the actually application of the epoxy is the fun part.

It’s so much more fun to reminisce over this event. Somehow your mind conveniently forgets all the mind-numbing rote exercises and pain that go with it. And the dust of sanding drywall, my hair was white! No worries, I got smart and tied a kerchief over my head to protect my hair. The dust is hell on your hair.

Done before harvest, well, my definition of a harvest start.

Done, ma’am, done!