Eric’s Journal

July 21, 2008

Garage Repair

One of my goals this summer, in addition to getting married and getting a new puppy, was to remodel the laundry room in the garage. My friend Dave offered to help, and we thought it would be a fairly simple project of replacing some water damaged paneling and flooring. As we began to pull off the paneling, we discovered that damage was far worse than we had anticipated. The sheet rock was crumbling and moldy, and the sill and several studs had been devoured by insects. The window was barely held in place, and Dave worried that the wall wasn’t supporting the roof, so we decided to rebuild the entire wall.

Fortunately, Dave already owns a pair of house jacks so we were able to support the roof. Working on and off (it is summer vacation after all), the rebuild only took a few days. The trickiest part of the process was rebuilding the window. Since we wanted to reuse my vinyl siding, we had to get the window exactly where it was previously. To make matters worse, we also had to recreate an oddly shaped window frame in order to get the customized flashing to fit right. Dave used the phrase gumption trap a few times.

After a couple of days of trying out different ideas, Dave was able to figure it out. Meanwhile, I demolished the interior walls that were also water damaged. After the window was installed, it took only a short while to install the remaining siding.

Now that the wall is complete, I’m going to hold off on rebuilding the laundry room until after the wedding.