the shabby garage gets a little love

The farm has several outbuildings and one of them is a little stand alone garage.  Picture a sad little building with white peeling paint, rotten fascia boards, a gravel floor, no door, old shingles and a vintage basketball hoop.  That was the garage a couple of weeks ago.  We haven't parked a car in this garage for many years.  Without a door the birds  that perched on the rafters 'decorated' anything that was below them.

The last few years we have used the garage for wood storage.  We have been dropping a few old trees each fall and cutting and splitting the wood.  We stack it and store it at the farm to dry out and then it is used by my dad to heat his workshop and my brother for his fireplace and by any other family members for bonfires or fire pits.

The to do list for this garage included taking down the basketball hoop, painting it to match the grays on the house and replacing the fascia.  The fascia has turned out to be the most time consuming part of the project.  Dad made a pattern and then cut a bunch of small pieces of new rafter ends that were sistered on to the rotting rafters.  The roof had been shingled without a metal trim piece under the edge of the shingles so the rain water ran off the roof and down the trim rotting the trim and the ends of the rafters.  Once the new rafter ends were up the next part of that project was to put up the vertical part and the underneath part of the overhang.  That is the part that we are still working on but hope to finish this week.  The new paint was the easy part.  Not on the list for this year is new shingles.   That will wait until next year.

new gray paint, old and new rafter ends

new rafter ends sistered onto the old rafters

new fascia, the vertical part

putting up the underneath part of the overhang

The white metal edge that was missing is installed

the trim on the edge of the door needs to repaired

the left side trim is done

Dad hanging the star where the bball hoop used to be

it is coming along. 

In a couple of weeks we will be having our annual lumberjack day and I am hoping that the garage will be done and ready for its new supply of firewood..  The ladders and tools will be put away and I am picturing a little hitching post on the right side.

It is great having parents that DIY.  My mom has done much of the painting and my dad has done most of the carpentry work on this project and others.  All four of their children became avid do-it-yourselfers, unafraid to grab the power tools and tackle a project.  And the next generation is following in their footsteps.  What a legacy.