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The "pool shed" garage
This ought to be fun....
Going back to 2010 or thereabouts... I decided to do a little work to my typical middle class home backyard. The first pictures aren’t much to look at so you have to stick with it to see the result but it came out above average I think. Especially for someone who didn’t know what he was doing. Kind of how I work on my cars too…. I the sort that figures it out as I go. Not always a good trait. :-) To give you an idea of what I started my transformation with, here is a shot I took early 2009 when I was having a roof put on. I bought the house as a fixer upper and boy was that an understatement. The sunroom was particularly hideous. I’m going to show the sunroom along with the rest because the original sunroom pictures are also the only pictures I have of the backyard before I "restomodded" it. The rest of the house was in dated but solid shape. I spent the first 4 years updating that and then set my sights on the sunroom and backyard projects. While I was doing the outside and the TA, I also decided to have professionals remodel the upstairs and put new windows in the house. You might notice the much larger windows in the later pics. First up was the sunroom, which I’ll come back to later to show the finished product. lest I give away the ending… http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...g/IMG_0114.jpg Here are two views out of the sunroom when I bought the house. To the left is where the man cave will eventually be located. http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...alP1010066.jpghttp://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...eofsunroom.jpg |
To fix it I decided to go ahead and gut the interior of it. Just before I moved in, the previous owner had to remove a tree that the sunroom was built around. It went through a wooden deck, which was later tiled over with the beige tile in the pics. You can see part of the stump that I dug up in the second photo.
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...m/DSC00077.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...rdprojects.jpg Dug lots of hole and set pilings in the dirt area and used the previous patio to support 4x4 posts to replace the 2x4 non-treated stuff that was there before. Not high dollar construction I realize but I was just trying to fix what was there with my self taught skills at the time. http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...m/DSC00159.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...ofDSC00148.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...m/DSC00570.jpg |
So on to the man cave / shed. I didn't have a lot of land to work with so I had to go with the non-permit required less than 500 sq. ft. shed. I ordered up a 20x24 box built on skids. I made a few changes to their normal build. First I required the skids to be set on block set in 2 ft. increments instead of 3 ft. or 4 ft. as they normally built and I required them to set the 2x12 joists 1 foot on center to give the floor lots of support. I called up Direct Lift and got the exact measurements for their 4 post lift and then proceeded to put 4 joists together in the two sections where the lift feet would land. Then I went with 2 layers of 3/4" subflooring.
So here is a picture of that when it was first set up... http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...ontofshed2.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/IMAG0042.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/IMAG0038.jpg Now I know you are thinking… “WTF was he thinking?” Hang in there and you’ll see… |
Put in a fence while I was at it after cutting down the bushes between my back yard and my neighbor’s front yard.
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...529_184811.jpg While I was at it, I thought… You know, I need some fill dirt to be able to bring up the ground level in front of the shed. So I’ll just dig a big hole in my back yard and move the dirt! My backyard was long and narrow so he had to get pretty close to the house… http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...601_083924.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...601_085840.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...1_085211-1.jpg Here is the fill moved over… http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...623_110323.jpg |
Decided to go ahead and insulate and put interior walls inside of the shed….
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/IMAG0280.jpg And floor it… http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...ck12-7-128.jpg About that time, I needed to pull the body off the front subframe of the car and put it on a rotisserie so I got a lift to help me out…. http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...ck12-7-123.jpg Added a few tool boxes a couch and a flat screen. I'll have to get some better pics of the interior. http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...ps4276fc6d.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...ps83qryo34.jpg Took some spare French doors and added 2x12’s all the way around to make some new “barn doors” for it. Got the hanging kit from Tractor Supply. You can see them throught he window here… http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...psfb12fdff.jpg |
The sunroom with a view of the mancave now works great for small gatherings and some not so small…
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...psor9y5rpg.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...ps6ddc04d4.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...ps7ffd5b2b.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...psa5157cad.jpg Seated 30 for my granddaughters Christening celebration after church. http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...ps11e4a157.jpg http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...ps0f05e0f4.jpg |
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That was not a little landscaping and that was one hell of a project. You need to quit watching HGTV. LOL
Great work! |
Wow....I haven't seen my backyard in months....Yours looks killer!
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That's quite the transformation. Good job.:trophy-1302:
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Wow!
Looks great my friend! How have you been Doug?
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Holey Crap!!! I've done a few home projects in my day, so I know how much time, effort, planning and flat out work that took to get done!! Nice work. Great vision and way to execute what was obviously a great plan from the start. Fixer upper... lol... I guess so... :D
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Never in my wildest thoughts did I see that one coming!! When I saw the first few pics... I thought -- well this isn't going to end well... WTF did I know! Turned out amazing!!
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For a guy that just figures things out as you go I have to say you knocked this one out of the park. Great job!! :thumbsup:
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Nice work, Doug won! |
SSLance put my first thought down, Holly Crap! What a beautiful job you did. That looks like it was professionally designed and built. I love it. Don't listen to Payton to stop watching HGTV, next time you can just come to my house and get it out of your system. :D
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Thanks for the compliments. I didn't expect that kind of response. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out. Although, without the 2 car garage in the front of the house, I'd never have enough room to hold all my stuff. At one time I had three 2nd Gens fully disassembled during that process. It was a good thing I was already divorced at that point. ;-) Eventually, I went from having the most redneck house on the street to having one of the nicer ones. Now I'm down to 2 2nd Gens but working on them one at a time now.
One day when I grow up, I'll build a BIG shop. First I need to start buying those lottery tickets.... The most unexpected thing that I learned from that particular project was that because I had such a small space to put the shed, the pool and landscaping it made it very intimate after the denser landscaping went in. Having a lot of vegetation within such a short distance of the pool and having it filled it with lots of plants make that place very peaceful. A lot of my buddies have big back yards with pools and they don't feel nearly as nice. That smaller space secluded by the plants feels very tranquil. I ended up putting in a huge plate glass window in my den to look through the sunroom out to the pool area because I all of the sudden had a nice view. If I ever do get a big back yard, I'll section it off into rooms using plants sort of the way this ended up. Quote:
all the time. Sometimes I get overly enthusiastic and get too many going at once. lol |
That looks great!
What a transformation. |
Spectacular!
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What he said ! Holy crap I'm going to show these pics to my wife and tell we need to put a pool in and do some more landscaping. Marty-mj www.garagescene.net www.syborgtwinturbo.com www.2ndcamaro.com |
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Okay, so how long did the whole project take, start to finish? And did you have the final rendition of everything in your head before you started or did it just kind of happen along the way?
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It took 3-4 months total, though the sunroom was a project I finished before anything else and that was about a month or so. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted because there were no other options for placement of the workshop and pool.
The drainage, which I added a lot of, and the two tiered pavers were something I worked out as I went. So I guess I had about 80% planned in my head and the rest were just adjustments that needed to be made as I went. For landscaping, I had a rough idea of what I wanted but had to see the construction done before determining what could actually fit where. I wanted to screen the area along the back fence so I still fiddle with that to get the right setup that looks the best while giving me the most natural screening. |
Looks awesome !!! nice job
Rich |
Wow, that is great. I would have guessed a whole year to get it done. At least, that's how my home projects go...
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That alone was worth the price of admission. ;)
Congrats Doug. :thumbsup: |
Great re-do! Good thing my wife doesn't hang around on the board or I would have to get out the shovel.
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Very nice! Be proud young man. I like the way you discount your skills, then do a better job than a lot of "pros".
Bob |
Wow!!! Great Transformation!!! Looks like something that would happen on HGTV!!!
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wow....very impressive....Im going to use your thread as a segway into convincing the wife that a separate shop is a good idea....we'll see how that goes...
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This was damn impressive man...hat's off to you for finishing everything before getting back into a project...made that mistake myself.
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: Dave |
Very Cool!
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Thank you guys. Spent the last 3 months doing something similar in my kitchen. Almost done but it looks like an entirely different place. Once again, I spent way more of my spare time on it than I had planned. Didn't touch a car the whole summer.
But I'm back in action today. My car finally has the Quadra-Link and roll bars welded in it, along with the front coil over conversion. So back to some fun stuff! |
Need pics of the kitchen and of the car! :poke:
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Wow, what a transformation, hows your back holding up?
Kevin:cheers: |
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