Its amazing what you can do...

...with an old, dilapidated garage when you have some wood, tools and talent! We got started today working on converting our old garage into a shed/outdoor entertaining area. The garage is a single car garage with on light switch and the cement is poured only about 1/3 of the way back. It is filled with cobwebs and is very dark and dirty.

My only contact with it is when I open the door and shove something in there and try to get out before the spiders get me.

My friend Barb, daycare provider by day, gardener extraordinaire by night, came up with some great ideas to improve the space. The majority of the project is occurring on the inside, although we got a new roof put on the garage last week. The paint color on the outside will have to be a 2011 project.

We started by going to Salvage Works which is a place you can buy reclaimed materials located in our neighborhood. See more at www.salvageworkspdx.com. It is a GREAT store located on N. Willis in Kenton. Lots of cool stuff. We found some 2 x 4s and other wood that we needed plus I found some accessories for entertaining area. We picked up the rest of our materials (plywood/nails/longer 2 x 4s) at Lowe's.

We came home from there and Sean got to work doing the demo and then rebuilding. The plan was to build a wall separating the eating area from the shed, demo the siding and repair needed areas, and build a bench along the wall for seating at the table.

Here are the before shots:

Here is the side of the garage. Someone at some point patched in that middle portion with plywood. You can also see the old roof that even has a little tree growing out of it!

Here is the inside, full of tools, drums and crap that we had accumulated. and yes, I am now aware of the swastika that was spraypainted in our garage that I never noticed. I am going to blame that one on the motorcycle gang who lived here years ago.

Here are the not-quite-finished shots. I am so excited to see the final garage after the bench is completed tomorrow and the inside has been painted.

The side has been demo'ed and Sean and Joe are working on installing the header. You can also see the new roof.

The wall has been framed and you can see the back wall of the garage has been demo'ed. I hope to fill that in with at least one old window. There was a crazy amount of blackberry bush that was growing on the right side of the garage, but Joe cleared that out. Now we have a lovely view of the neighbors trailer in their backyard.

Here is the wall completed. Now we just need pegboard or a way to hang up our tools, but it already looks so much better. We are going to bring the drums inside so that will clear up some space.

Here is the view from the back.

Here is where we stopped on day 1. The wall is completed, the bench is half way done and it is looking really great!