bmwpower's garage build

[bmwpower]

It's been a long time coming. I've wanted to start one of these threads ever since I joined up on garagejunkies some time ago, but unfortunately most of my garage was done by the time I signed up here. I wish it was the other way around because I could have changed a couple of things along the way with some of the advice I've gathered from garagejunkies.

I'm going to finally get off my butt and post some pictures. So here we go...I'm going to try and touch on the build process from start to finish. For reference, it took 4-1/2 years to get to where I am now (just got my CO in April '06). We (my father, myself and some friends/family from time to time) started to build the garage at the same time we started to build the house. We subbed out some of the work (masonry, roofing), but most of it we completed ourselves. As with most new builds, things didn't go as planned, so we ended up having to finish the house first (more on this later).... enjoy.


November 11, 2001 - we break ground on the house/garage foundation




November 30, 2001 - foundation for the garage is complete, 30x30




December 22, 2001 - foundation is finished and backfilled



...sadly this is where the garage remained until almost 3 years later. There was a miscommunication between us and the building construction office. Long story short, apparently the garage was too large when compared to the square footage of my house even though the office had given me an "ok" to start construction. They had me stop construction until I obtained a variance for the garage. After a lawyer, $550 and a couple of months later, I had my variance. Unfortunately, we were in the thick of building the house, thus we decided to leave the garage until last. Well you guessed it... house is done, no more money, bills, taxes, etc., so the garage foundation sat as is for some time. No problem. That gives me time to get a rock solid plan for what was to go inside...