Home Improvements

Several months ago, I was talking on the telephone to my sister about her child rearing experience. She said that her one regret was that she didn’t have a room in her house that was dedicated for her children to play with their friends.

This seemed like good advice to me so I decided to follow her recommendation. I decided to convert part of the garage into such a room. Like many homes, we have a “three-car garage”. If our garage could really hold three cars this would be no big deal, but the garage size is really more like my wife’s car plus a golf cart.

Anyway, I was able to carve-out an area about 10 x 14 to make into a room. I have been working on nights and weekends to make this room a reality. Thus far I have had to move lighting, jack hammer floors to move drain lines, relocate water pipes, roto-hammer wedge anchors and take one trip to the emergency room for stitches. The room in now framed and my plumbing wall is close to completion.

To get to this point has taken much longer than I had anticipated, but with no one to help me except my energetic two-year-old son, I think that I’ve done ok. Yes, I get to do this project and baby-sit at the same time. When he’s asleep I have to quit working. This is one reason that my progress has been slow. (I also have spent a few weekends playing in my new Jeep, a subject of a future blog.)

I have several obstacles yet to overcome but I can see the end point approaching. My remaining tasks are electrical, drywall (including tape and texture) and floor coverings.

Most of my tools for this project have been cordless, battery operated tools that my wife bought me about two years ago. Considering it’s been 30 years since my last woodshop class, I think I’m doing ok.

The one aspect of this project that I might actually hire a contractor to do is the tape and texturing. While the theory of this is simple it seems as much art as science to get consistency in the final result.

I look forward to getting this room completed. So far it has been a relatively inexpensive way to spend some quality time with my son doing “guy things”.