All Projects Start Somewhere - The Red House Project

I promised that I would be honest about everything in this blog. It would be so much easier if the projects were already finished, because I could show you beautiful pictures of our clean, remodeled, decorated house and then slip the “before” pictures in as an embarrassment that lived in the past, and is long forgotten by now. The truth is we are at the beginning of this process, and it won’t be completed in a slick montage. There is a lot of work to do on this property, and this year we’re going to start with the absolute worst of it.

2022 Goal: The Garage Apartment

The Red House property has two buildings on it: the house itself, and the detached two-story garage. We’ve been told that the family who built the house lived in the garage during construction, and it is true that the building has plumbing for a full bathroom and a couple of sinks. One of them looks like a laundry sink, and the other is just a hole in a countertop with some capped off pipes on the ground. I’m guessing a sink was there, but who knows.

The back of the garage, as viewed through a pear tree.

When discussing our goals for the year and how to prioritize them, we agreed that working on the garage should be at the top of our list. It is in much worse condition than the house, so any improvement raises the value of the property. If there is actual deterioration happening to the structure, we need to take care of that right away. There is the potential to make a living space that can be rented out, bringing a bit of cash into the property that can cover the costs of the remodel and build up a bit of savings to keep tackling more projects.

Let’s take a Look At The State of the Building

We might as well jump right in with the before pictures. Someday I’ll be able to reference this post, and we will all gasp at the amazing progress we’ve made. We aren’t there yet, though. If you are allergic to dust, please bring a hankie.

The Garage Kitchen

I’ve been using this room as a potting shed and storage area for things like fertilizers and soil amendments. Under all of that stuff on the counter, beneath the window, are those capped-off water pipes. There’s a crazy wiring situation in here, too. We’ve had an electrician look at it and we’re fairly sure it won’t catch on fire, but it needs to be brought up to date.

Stairway and Bathroom

There’s a door from the kitchen to the rest of the garage. Walking through, right in front are the stairs. To the left is the boiler and hot water heater for the main house, and past that is the bathroom. None of the plumbing is turned on right now, and there is a lot of water damage. The fixtures may be OK if we want to keep them, but the room needs to be gutted and re-built.

Hallway and Under the Stairs

The first picture (with the washing machine) is taken standing on the stairs, and the second is peeking under the stairs into this dark back sink area. Yes, that’s a lightbulb hanging from its socket. I have so many questions about the lack of light fixtures In this place.

The Shop

I feel like making a lot of excuses at this point of the tour: we moved in March 2020 and none of the charity donation shops were accepting furniture because of COVID, we had a lot more storage space in our old house and had to quickly move and put all this stuff somewhere… The truth is, this space is already a lot cleaner and better organized than it was when we took ownership. It used to be the previous owner’s woodshop, and there was an inch of dust and sawdust all over everything.

Upstairs- the Future apartment

Weird splintery wood paneling, abandoned appliances, and alarming messes. Isn’t it cozy?

It does have a nice view of the garden.

So, what’s the Plan?

Obviously, the first thing to do is gut the place. Strip it down to the bare boards and beams. Get rid of anything in storage that we don’t need to keep. Seal up any cracks where critters can get in. Clean up the shop so we have a space to work. Our Big Goal for 2022 is “Strip garage to make apartment” and not “build an ADU in the garage” simply because this job is so daunting, I don’t want to set myself up for failure by expecting to be able to get the whole job done in one year. It is really overwhelming, but I do have a lot of exciting ideas for the space that inspire me to keep going.

Dreaming is the fun part

I’ve shown you where we are now, but where do we want to be? Our list of plans for the garage includes:

- Lifting dormers on the north slope of the roof to create more headroom and add clearstory windows for light.

- Bring plumbing upstairs. Can we add a second toilet to the stack? Can we make a hand washing sink? What about a shower stall? A kitchenette area with a small sink, fridge drawers, couple of burners, maybe a toaster oven?

- Divide the upstairs into two rooms, so there can be a bedroom and a living space.

- make use of the kick walls for built-in shelves and storage.

- It’s going to need heat up there, and maybe cooling too. Mini-splits? Woodstove?

- It would be excellent if the upstairs apartment was self-contained, and didn’t have to use the kitchen and bathroom downstairs. That way a tenant wouldn’t be forced to share community space as their only option.

- Stairs- is there a better position for them? Would a spiral stair leave more usable space downstairs?

- Under the stairs, I’d like to cut a door to the vegetable garden, and make a little shaded seating porch back there where there is currently a shed. Maybe move that utility sink fittings to the outside of the building under the porch roof, so that we can rinse the dirt off the veggies outside, fill watering cans and things, and run a hose from there instead of from the house.

- Could there be room for a laundry hookup?

- Could the toilet in the downstairs bathroom be moved around the stack and placed in a WC under the stairs?

- Downstairs bathroom- my dream is to make this into a luxury bathing area.

- Pop a dormer upstairs over the downstairs bathroom, and place vented skylights over the tub.

- Can we extend the footprint of the bathroom out a few feet into the yard, where the raised bed is? I imagine it with ample windows and lots of plants.

- Extending the size of the bathroom and moving the toilet would allow for a larger, 2-person soaking tub.

- I would love to try to fit a small sauna in somewhere, too.

- I see the bathroom as a wet room with a drain in the floor and an overhead shower for cooling off, not so much for actual soap and shampoo bathing.

- The kitchen area, if the plumbing can be re-connected, could be turned into a canning kitchen. I’d like to have extra freezer and refrigerator options there. We’d like to build it so that it could be certified for commercial use. We’d need at least a stovetop if not an oven. If upstairs is just a kitchenette, it might be good to give the tenant an oven option in the community space.

- I’d like to have a dehydration cabinet, and dry storage, too.

- I’m still going to need to figure out what to do with the gardening stuff.

- We’re definitely going to put some solar panels on the roof.

Do you think we can manage it?

This is a huge job, and it’s going to take a lot of work just to strip that garage down to the point where we can start building it back up again. We’re going to be doing a lot of the work ourselves, and learning as we go, so make sure to follow us to see our progress and cheer us on.

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