Goodbye, Lil Garage

A strange day: the funky little shed that has been my workshop/garage/practice space for 12 and a half years, is gone. 

I've spent uncounted hours in this 18' X 19' plywood shack in my backyard, working on various Crosleys, MoPars and house projects, and almost as many hours playing music with friends or just practicing on my own. It was freezing and damp in the winter, sweltering in the Summer - just plywood and tar paper separating me from the world, but it worked. It was my own little space to clear my head and get things done.

I'd also spent years making it a functional space. By the end it had good lighting, a PA system, plenty of built-in shelves, a custom workbench/cabinet and even a set of heavy brackets that held the body of my disassembled Super Sports six feet off the ground so I could park under it. Not bad for what was basically an upcycled garden shed.

I didn't know what to make of the 'garage' when we bought our house in 2006. It was a simple plywood shed-roofed building, probably built in the '70s, but the previous owners had tried to fancy it up, adding trim and painting wraparound murals of Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was in the far corner of our lot, right on two property lines, with a fenced-off gravel parking area that opened onto the alley. The previous owners used it as an outdoor party pad, but all I focused on was the solid concrete foundation and the barn-style doors that opened wide enough to get a car inside.

I'd lived in a warehouse for about 10 years before we bought our house, so I was used to having tons of space. I could park four cars in the back of the warehouse and not even get into the part we used for living space - and I loved having my car projects just a few steps from my bedroom. Not so good when the 1952 Dodge wagon I dragged out of a barn turned out to be full of wasp nests. This, however, was the opposite end of the shop-space spectrum.

We moved in and I completely filled the garage with parts and tools, plus my 1949 convertible and Super Sports project. That meant that the '52 Dodge and 1947 Crosley wagon had to go outside on the gravel parking area, which was so small that I couldn't open the garage doors if the Dodge was parked there. Then I ended up with a SECOND Super Sports project, which meant the '47 wagon had to move to a dead spot in the front yard. I imagine the neighbors weren't thrilled, but they didn't say anything. Luckily, a friend offered some indoor space to rent, and I quickly moved the two wagons out there and gave myself a little bit of room.

A very little bit. While the concrete slab was 18' X 19', the building only occupied an 18' X 16' section of the foundation - giving me a total working area of 288 square feet. I tried to get a project area set up, and had installed some shelving I'd salvaged from the warehouse, but this was the classic "10 pounds of crap in a 5 pound sack" situation: I just had too much stuff for the space. I was busy with work and with house projects, so it didn't bother me too much at first, but within a year or so, it was driving me bananas.

First order of business was to reclaim that unused space on the slab. Whoever had built this structure on the old foundation hadn't figured out that water would pool on the uncovered concrete and run under the wall - now the South wall of the building was rotting out along the bottom sill. Because the garage was on the property line, I knew I couldn't get away with tearing the whole place down and starting fresh in the same spot, but if I saved three walls I figured I could say I was just doing a repair. I decided to rip off the entire south wall of the building, move it to the edge of the slab where it belonged, giving me a total of 342 sq. feet of garage.  I also decided to 'flip' the roof. The garage had a shed roof that originally sloped down to the south - by reversing the slope I could make the new South wall 10' high and gain quite a bit of space overhead.

My pal Alex and I ripped off the South wall, then the roof, and set to rebuilding everything over a holiday weekend. Since I didn't have any place to put the contents of the garage I just moved everything into the center and covered it with tarps.  I replaced the side door with an odd-sized solid wood 1940s vintage door I'd found in a trash pile. I built a row of clerestory windows in between the rafters on the new wall and it brought a lot of light in, and I drywalled and insulated the new section.

The project took us a little longer than expected, but the end result turned out pretty well - and when I touched up the exterior paint, the new section looked like it had been there as long as the rest of the building. Once the expansion was done I got to work on making it usable space. While working in the yard one day I'd discovered that the cable that provided power to the garage was buried less than 6" deep -  ridiculously dangerous. I dug a 40' long, 30" deep trench from the main box to the garage and ran romex in conduit to a new panel at the garage which my electrician friend Ann hooked up - a big improvement.

I wanted a nice workbench, loosely based on the one my dad had built in our garage in 1973. I used half-inch plywood over a two by four frame that was anchored to the wall studs. For the countertop I used 40 year old Masonite that I'd salvaged from a rehab project at Liv's work - it had aged to a beautiful dark brown that looked amazing. I built light shelving over the bench - perfect for the stereo, power tools and some Crosley sheet metal. Once everything was built I put on a couple coats of amber varnish and was really pleased with the way it turned out.

I tossed the shelves I'd reused from the old warehouse and built a sturdy floor-to-ceiling shelving unit along the whole North wall. The bottom shelf was designed so a Crosley motor could just tuck underneath - I think I had a half dozen motors at that point. The rest was devoted almost entirely to Crosley parts. The best feature was the two brackets that held my Crosley Super Sports body as high as it would go so I could park under it. And I used that headroom I'd gained by flipping the roof angle - my surfboards and the Super Sport frame were hung up in the rafters. Once all that was done, I had a SHOP.

While I never have as much time to work on projects as I'd like, plenty got done in that tiny little garage. The big problem was when I was working on a big job and the car couldn't be moved. The garage still had just the 8' wide barn doors, so if something immobile was in the way of the door, nothing much could be moved in or out.

That also meant that band practice had to accommodate any 'standing' projects. I'd usually park the car outside for our weekly practices but there were many instances where the guys had to tuck in around a Crosley on four jackstands. The PA system was already wired in place, and luckily we use fairly small amplifiers and an old three-piece drum kit.

Slowly, the garage - and the rest of the yard- became much more functional. I put in a 20' X 20' brick patio, and a set of huge redwood garden boxes that Liv used to grow herbs and veggies. We got rid of all the grass and replaced it with gravel, drought-tolerant plants and two redwood trees. The only thing I really didn't like was the unpaved parking area between my garage and the alley.... I wanted to put in a driveway and a carport, but I couldn't figure out exactly how I wanted it, so it got put off.

Then, just over a year ago, we had our contractor friend Rich over to bid on some restoration work on our house. Our place is a simple farmhouse, built in 1913 - it had been a rental for 50 years before we bought it so it has a ton of deferred maintenance. While walking around the property, Rich remarked on how big our yard was and asked if we'd ever thought of building a granny flat. He also mentioned that the city had just changed the rules on Accessory Dwelling Units, bumping up the maximum allowable sq. footage from 850' to 1200'. He suggested building a brand new garage with a rental apartment above it. Hmmmmmmm.....

Two weeks later Rich called back with a better idea: yes, build an ADU, but rent out the original house and WE move into the new house, built to our specifications. Liv and I were a little bit overwhelmed, but the idea made a lot of sense: I could have a real garage/workshop on the ground floor and we could build a house that fit our lifestyle much better than the house we live in. AND we could stay in the neighborhood we've come to know very, very well. It took some sweating on my part. I've never lived in a place built after World War II in my entire adult life, so this would be a huge change. But, Liv and I are both big Mid-Century Modern architecture buffs and the idea of living in a house inspired by that style is pretty exciting. And, Liv's mom is an architect, who offered to help us design the new place. We started the planning last January.

A year later, the plans are done, the permits are approved and the bank has signed the paperwork. Suddenly, I had to get everything out of the garage now. We rented a movable storage locker and I built a frame to hold the Super Sport body. Seven pals came over and helped me heft it into the storage container and then I started filling the rest of box with Crosley parts and other assorted garage gunk. It took about a week to clear everything out. The day after I gave the 'all clear,' Rich sent a crew in, and the garage was... gone.

A few months ago, when I knew the garage was close to the end, my band th' Losin Streaks filmed a video inside. Our label had asked if we'd do some promo videos for our new album, and since we are a 'garage' band so it made sense to catch us in our home turf. My friend Karlos did an amazing and creative job, and I am so happy to have a document of the place I had so many happy times in over the past dozen years.  Here's hoping the new one has even better memories.