Thursday, November 6, 2008

Day 14 house progress

The detached garage is original from 1941 and has been mostly known as “the shack” until now: I think it now deserves to be called a garage again. The carpenters pulled off the old, rotten roof and erected some strategically placed 2”x4”s, etc to shore up the existing structure without messing with the (admittedly showing its age) original wooden board and batten siding.


(before) Detached awnings and old back door are still living in the back yard, along with many paint-covered ladders and miscellaneous pieces of wood, insulation, primer, etc.







So now we still have its original rustic siding but with a non-leaky roof and the confidence the whole thing won’t fall down for quite a few years:



I also looked at some canvas samples for the awning replacements today and the painters have continued to do some spot hand-sanding and priming. I think they’re going to paint the awning frames soon so we can decide on the awning fabric—whoo hoo!

4 comments:

Annie in Austin said...

Wow - that's some wild looking garage you have there, Iris! It still has character, even with the structural repairs and new roof.

Have your neighbors been coming over to chat about the progress or give advice to the builders? They'll have a whole new view!

Annie

Iris said...

I guess it is wild looking! We wanted to keep the character of the original board and batten siding (even with its many flaws) while improving it just enough to keep it standing for awhile.

Plus we can actually drive one of our cars into one side for roof protection if there's a hail storm! :)

Husband Kurt thinks the neighbors should be coming over to contribute to the improvement fund--ha ha. I have had some positive input from a few neighbors.

Rock rose said...

Amazing that the garage was fixable. I would have thought it was firewood for the winter. You have quite a project on your plate.

TexasDeb said...

Maybe your house isn't a historic site but I am glad you are working to improve yet preserve its character. Great approach.

I agree with your husband in one sense. We work so hard to improve the views that other people have out their windows and we only see when we drive up for a few seconds. Fair is fair. I'd contribute to get some of my across the street views worked on for real.