Fixing Up an Old Garage

I have begun renovations on a 1950 house in Crofton, Vancouver Island. I plan to cover some of the projects on this blog.

House from the front - Note the enormous satellite dish on the roof and the wisteria covered roofed over deck. We will come back to those later, but first the garage, which can just be seen on the far right of this picture behind the house.

The garage just needed a lick of paint? Nope! The sills were rotting or missing altogether, siding missing, roofing boards rotted and the whole roof covered in tattered plastic wrap. If one was a perfectionist one would start from scratch...

This side wall was held up by the siding - the sill entirely gone and the studs either hanging in the air or resting on the concrete, rotted at the ends

The first step was to jack up this side of the garage to make it level with the other slightly less damaged side.  To do this, I used an old screw jack and a 4 by 4 post bearing on a 2 by 6 board screwed into the studs. The ratchet tie down strap pulls the 'floating' wall into place over the foundation.

Next step was to drill and use tapcon concrete anchors to hold down a new pressure treated 2 by 4 sill. Then each stud was cut away and replaced with a sister piece to reinforce it. Everything was screwed together with deck screws. Note that I used left over 2 by 4s from various projects so nothing is the same length... 

The tongue and groove siding was also missing or rotted in places. I could not find a match locally for the siding profile so I made tongue and groove planks from local 1 by 6 spf using a table saw.

The roof was next now that the structure under it was roughly level and more solid. Stripping off the plastic and removing the tarps I nailed up temporarily to keep out the rain, I found several rotted boards in the roof deck. 

The roof is patched. I replaced rotted boards with SPF 1 by 8 planks and cut off the tongues on the old planks to make them fit. Note the plywood patches on the wall and door. I have not tackled these areas yet

30 pound roofing felt stapled in place.

This is my first metal roof. One lesson learned is that I should either have sheathed the roof in plywood or used strapping under the metal because it telegraphs the uneven boards right through the metal if you kneel or walk on it! I learned after the first sheet to put it on without doing that. A bit tricky especially going back to put on the ridge cap...

Roof on and mostly level - a small sag in the middle from the underlying structure. Note the open gable ends that still need filling in.

Gable ends framed up and filled in with ranch board - a 3/8 inch textured plywood. I also added flashing to finish off the fascia. One side the garage is primed. Note the doors need trim replacing that must have been torn off when the hinges were replaced.

Garage painted. Side door still needs paint

Main doors are trimmed out to hide ragged bottom edges and frame pieces replaced too.  

 

I thought this would make the garage watertight but the first rainfall came and I found a lake inside. The water was flowing over the concrete foundation. A little digging and redirecting of run-off and the place is now dry and reasonably sound.