The "pool shed" garage

[Doug1]

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…



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.

[Doug1]

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.





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.

[Doug1]

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...





Now I know you are thinking… “WTF was he thinking?”  Hang in there and you’ll see…

[Doug1]

Put in a fence while I was at it after cutting down the bushes between my back yard and my neighbor’s front yard.





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…







Here is the fill moved over…

[Doug1]

After I put the fill in front of the shed, I thought… “I need to fill in that big hole in the back yard now… so I did.









I figured while I was at it, I should get rid of that nasty siding around the sunroom as well.





My first attempt at bricklaying and really surprised myself with the step I built.





So next I went to the local salvage yard and found 4 new double pane windows for a deal.





A few palm trees before the rest of the landscaping.





A little landscaping…





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Added a couple of fountains to the pool

[Doug1]

Decided to go ahead and insulate and put interior walls inside of the shed….





And floor it…





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….





Added a few tool boxes a couch and a flat screen. I'll have to get some better pics of the interior.




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…

[Doug1]

The sunroom with a view of the mancave now works great for small gatherings and some not so small…







Seated 30 for my granddaughters Christening celebration after church.

[Doug1]

The end result..

[Payton King]

That was not a little landscaping and that was one hell of a project. You need to quit watching HGTV. LOL

Great work!

[nicks67ca]

Wow....I haven't seen my backyard in months....Yours looks killer!