Middle Garage Pt. 2

Back to the…middle garage where it’s cold & progress feels slow every night until BAM! We have peg board folks! It’s a game changer I must say. All of the days spent cleaning it out in there, I never dreamed I’d see it like this. But, before I get ahead of myself, let’s begin back where we left off from the first post. Please refer to Middle Garage Pt. 1 to see with your own eyes the horrors that dwelt among there.

Gavin & I spent our nights cleaning, listening to 90’s country (thank you Garth Brooks for your contribution) and drinking Octoberfest – keys to success, let me tell you. So, it was quite the quest working to organize & sort. The picture below is the spare wood I organized while sticking my head in cobwebs in the rafters, but now we have a wood loft. It’s the little joys.

Below, you can partially see the wall of yard tools that we sorted & hung. That was a victory in itself. After that was complete, Gavin started on the electric work. How exciting & terrifying to see the middle garage completely lit.

Gavin below, beer in hand. It was a good night to get all of the lights hung. He did an outstanding job putting each run on its own switch so we’re able to turn them on/off at any entryway. This was quite the task because each wire had to be run up through the rafters and tacked every couple of feet. The wood was like stone. While I stood on an old cast iron stove with wire above my head & ancient dirt falling in my face, he worked to hammer in those dreaded plastic staples. We got it though!

Next, we bought special masonry paint to seal the wall from any moisture. (This is the one that had previously caved in.) Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a large cage for the paint roller so we had to use dinky little 3 inch ones instead. I’ll refer back to this project later in life if I develop carpel tunnel. Nonetheless, after two coats, the wall turned out spectacular. And at this point, we were nearing Christmas Ale time towards the end of November.

After it was painted, Gavin framed out the wall for the peg board by reinforcing it with 4×4 posts into holeless post brackets with concrete anchors into the floor and 2x4s for additional support running across the middle. He had me test out his craftsmanship by hanging on it. ‘Tis strong indeed, good job honey.

And then there’s the tedious & frustrating task of hanging each peg board piece. And Gavin knows much more than I do of how annoying this was after he hung four or five boards up just to take them all down again because they were off center. This happened a total of four times I do believe. Delicately squeezing your hand up behind the board while holding tiny spacers and washers in your hand to slide onto the sharp end of a screw (not being able to see it, mind you). Maybe dropping one or all of what you were holding, board slipping out of place, a cuss word here or there, and starting all over again. I came in to help the poor man after his final attempt at doing this himself. If it counts, I was doing dishes.

So, we worked together. One placing the screw in with the nuts and washers behind it then the other using an impact to drill in part way. After all screws were in place, we went back & drilled them in completely. Repeat 200 more times. The last couple boards had to be cut to size so we used his table saw. Fun fact: as saw dust blew into my eyes & nose, I came to an unlikely conclusion that cutting this stuff smells like french toast. Gavin agreed.

So thankful to be done with that task! Next Gavin caulked all of the gaps, let it dry, then we were ready to paint. Very exciting! We used a high gloss oil based paint for the board. Two coats.

After it dried completely, then came the fun part of organizing everything onto the peg board. Gavin was ecstatic to finally be able to locate his tools & I was a happy lady because it got stacks of tools out of our laundry room. Everybody wins.

Below is Gavin standing on a table that was in there previously which we decided to turn into his workbench. He reinforced it with angle irons & 2x4s underneath. It worked out perfectly. Gavin said to show this photo to our children someday. “Look how spry & agile your dad was, kids.”

While the middle garage is not fully finished, it has come an incredibly long way. We completed the peg board near the end of December, 2018 while on Christmas break.

And I’ve got to say I’m proud of this man for turning his dream of having a shop into a reality. Until next time. Xo