Newkirk Wallcovering and Painting

Garage conversion begins

For this project, the homeowner was looking to convert his garage into a home office. He wanted a separate space from the house. I've included a before photo of the exterior of the garage. What you see here is the north side of the garage which doesn't get much direct sunlight. You can see the years of dirt and mold build-up. One of the first things that I wanted to do was to powerwash the exterior of the garage to remove the accumulation of dirt and mold. Behind the garage, you can see the shed which will be used to house many of the items that were originally in the garage. Unfortunately for the homeowner, he will lose his sheltered parking space for his car.

Powerwash of exterior of garage complete

Here you can see the power of the powerwasher. Years of dirt and mold accumulation gone almost instantly. If you are selling your house, powerwashing it is a great way to add value for very little cost. If you don't have a powerwasher consider renting one. It will be well worth the $75 or so that it costs to rent. Remember - don't powerwash the windows. For this job, I used a powerwasher spraying at 2800 psi.

Adding an entry door to the garage

After powerwashing, it was time to get down to the nitty gritty. Can you believe that this garage did not have an entry door? If it did, it probably would have needed replaced anyway. The homeowner chose a 36" entry door so that it would be easier to move things into the garage once it was finished. Here, I've framed out the opening for the entry door. I chose the north wall for the entry door as it provided the easiest access.

Home/garage archeology 101

Here's a closeup of the three layers of siding and one layer of foam on the exterior of the garage. It appears that we have the original pine siding on the interior, followed by some cedar siding, then a layer of insulating foam and then the final layer of vinyl siding. The original homeowner stopped with the cedar siding on the shed behind the garage. Wow, we may have to start calling this garage, the onion shack!

Entry door header

Here's a shot of the entry door header that I added to support the weight of the door as well as to support the garage. When I cut the hole into the garage, we lost some of our support beams along with the many layers of siding.

Garage entry door installed

Here's an exterior shot of the garage entry door after installation. The homeowner chose a pre-hung steel door with a nice light in it to allow for plenty of natural lighting in the new home/office space. We got a pretty good deal on this entry door. After a 10% discount, the door cost $125, not including hardware.

Interior photo of garage entry door

Here's a photo of the garage entry door from the interior of the garage. We chose a deadbolt lock that was keyed on both sides just in case someone decided to break the window and to try to gain access.

Continue with garage/home office conversion project