A couple of weeks ago I got a device from Harbor Freight to easily hang my bike. I love my bike. It's 21 speeds and beautiful and I rarely ride it. My thought process went "if it hangs near the door and is easy to get out I'll ride more." Yeah, okay.
Well, in order to "hang the bike," I had to move the 8 or 10 foot long table on that side of the garage. In order to move that table, I had to clean out the crap in front of it. Since I had to move all that shite, I might as well move and pick through all that other shite in the front of the garage...
On day one of the "hang the bike" adventure, I did in fact, hang the bike.
Beautiful, isn't it?
This is what the rest of the garage looks like, post hanging:
a huge, jumbled mess. Amazingly, that morning my car was parked in there.
Not only did it need major cleaning out, but I've been meaning to put insulation up on the wall next to the breezeway. So, might as well get to work on that little chore, too.
I took two days to clean it out, and then I started putting up the insulation. Thankfully, my "grands" came over and helped. Vita and Francis did the ladder climbing part and learned to use the stapler as we put up both insulation and plastic over it.
Insulated and moisture barrier-ed, now to cover it all. I had a piece of 4x4 pegboard and wanted that near the doorway. I spent some time figuring out where the cut-outs needed to be for the outlet and the light switch, dragged up the jig saw and the skil saw, set up the saw horses, etc in preparation for Wall Building (actually covering).
Off to that oversized home improvement store to get hard-board and while I was there they had a 70% off pile with a 4x8 sheet of white paneling cut not-quite-in-half (the long way) that would normally go for over $35 a sheet. Well, I couldn't leave it behind now, could I?
So I loaded the cut in half (managable 4x4 sheets) onto the teeny trailer, along with the panels, strapped them down and drove home. Next was unloading them. Naturally, I dropped one of the 2x8 sheets on my foot. OMFG, it hurt so bad, I couldn't even swear.
I got most of the hard-board up all by myself over the next couple of days. I've watched enough home improvement shows to know about ledger boards, and they really do help. Then Francis got home from school and had great fun with the drill/driver, too. (I don't hammer well.) There is ONE piece left to go up above the door, and I'll have the neighborhood handyman screw that in place. No more up on the ladders for my grands!
I also had a hole in the garage floor, under where the right front tire parks. So, I got some patching cement. It wasn't enough, I had to get the 10 pound container. It took several days and I'm not ever going to be great at cement work, but the hole is patched and I put a left-over cement board (from re-doing my kitchen 19 years ago) over it to protect it.
The hole:
The hole, patched:
The finished wall:
As always when I finish a project like this, Thanks to my Dad, who taught me to be self-sufficient as much as possible. The whole thing cost me less than $100, all for materials.
In the meantime, I sold the giant, antique wooden extension ladder and two of the old breezeway windows. The old screens are still for sale. The recycle bin was overflowing and will be again. Reduce, reuse and recycle!
All this to hang a bicycle.
It was great reading your adventure, glad to know I am not the only one that lets one project turn into many. Turned out nice and you will forget all about how much work it was when you are thankful to be able to do laundry upstairs.
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